Showing posts with label Batman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Batman. Show all posts

Sunday, March 24, 2024

MORRISON BATM-ANNOTATIONS: RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE PART III

[The Return Of Bruce Wayne Act III - "Batman & Robin MUST DIE!"]



Batman and Robin #14 - "The Triumph of Death"
  • Alfred sets the clock that leads to the Bat-cave to 10:47, the time the Waynes died...
  • Joker tells Damian that his real fight is with Doctor Hurt and the Black Glove.
  • There's nothing anyone can do to stop the dominoes from falling...
  • Poison nail-polish! He manipulated Damian into a locked room scenario! Brilliant!
  • Upside down crucifix of Pyg (just like how he dies in #666)
  • Goat in Gotham, black sheep Thomas Wayne, the Devil...
  • The rats, the bats!
  • Did Hurt create Pyg? He seemed to already be crazy before Hurt found him...
  • Hurt practicing his shot that we saw last issue on pumpkins! Brief bloom...
  • The better Batmobile blows up!
  • DAY 2!
  • Pyg is perfect, more than human...
  • Media, Mayor, Gotham underworld to witness Hurt and Pyg's performance...
  • More watermelon target practice!
  • Dick tells Alfred he misread the clues because he thought it had to do with himself, the domino mask of Robins...
  • Joker wants Dick and Damian to work with him!
  • Performance on Park Row, Crime Alley! The Monarch Theater!
  • Alfred prepped the Mansion and Cave per Dick's instructions...
  • Bat-copter!
  • Hurt turning Gotham into Babylon, everyone's a junkie!
  • Rats ate the young of the Goat because the Batmobile self-detonated?
  • Joker venom in the popcorn!
  • Gordon betrays Dick, junkie irrationality!
  • The real battle between Joker and Hurt! The knights have fallen, the board is Hurt's!
  • Joker always has a hand with the wild card! And a nuclear bomb!
Return of Bruce Wayne #5 - "Masquerade"
Batman and Robin #15 - "The Knight, Death, and The Devil"
Return of Bruce Wayne #6 - "The All-Over"
Batman and Robin #16 - "Black Mass"

Sunday, March 17, 2024

MORRISON BATM-ANNOTATIONS: RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE PART II


RIP: THE MISSING CHAPTER - "GOTCHA!"


Return of Bruce Wayne #3 - "The Bones of Bristol Bay"
Batman #701 - "The Missing Chapter Part I: The Hole in Things"
  • Surviving is what Batman does, since the death of his parents.
  • Helicopter crashes, Hurt makes it out...
  • Weather charts, stock charts, constellation of Sagittarius...
  • 30 Days to Omega...
  • The hole, the gun, the pearls...
  • The next time you wear it will be the last...
  • Ellie! Now a receptionist at Wayne Tower!
  • Something gnawing inside, a doubt that stirred...
  • Hurt is not in the wreckage, a ghost, an empty space, hiding in the gaps, the absences...
  • Clock stop at 1:15, same time the helicopter crashed in the water...
  • RIP was the death of Batman, Final Crisis was the burial, and now we have his rebirth...
  • Sleep for three days...
  • Bruce knew of the hidden room in the manor! The hidden Bat-Cave accessed by Hurt when he took control of the Manor. How did Hurt know of its existence?
  • Why did Thomas and Martha tell Bruce never to enter the room?
  • Sickness at the root of the family tree...
  • Why did Hurt want to destroy the Waynes?
  • 27 days to Omega...
  • In Superman's world, everything is mythology...
  • They can deal with the false accusations, the masquerade bat costume is gone, Bruce leaves for the Final Crisis.
  • Bruce is struck with the heart of emptiness, the oblivion fallout from RIP, he needs the resurrection, the re-evaluation of the mission, he needs to become Batman again!
Batman #702 - "The Missing Chapter Part II: Batman's Last Case"
Batman and Robin #13 - "The Garden of Death"
Return of Bruce Wayne #4 - "Dark Knight, Dark Rider"
  • Van Derms are massacred by the twin enforcers of Vandal Savage and Black Thomas.
  • They take the casket and Catherine Van Derm.
  • The mother prays for a dark angel, Bruce Wayne answers!
  • Alan Wayne narration!
  • Savage wants to unlock the casket to activate the end of the world. His cancer hurts so bad since he can't die that the end would be a release?
  • Savage has a French gimmick now, but was betrayed by Napoleon Bonaparte! He always gets betrayed, like in #1 with the Neanderthals!
  • Midnight Horse, Injun mystic who can speak Miagani language.
  • Bat-people have secrets to turn the sky upside down...
  • They also think that within the casket is the key to immortality...
  • Black Thomas!
  • Tampering with the casket will destroy the contents inside.
  • Bells, the bells of Barbatos!
  • Statues beneath Wayne Manor, paintings of Darius and everyone...
  • Black Thomas was there in Dark Night, Dark City during the ritual to summon the Bat-God.
  • Drank the starry venom...
  • Dark god opens the box... bells summon another from the shadows who will bring the wicked to account...
  • Jerome Van Derm...
  • Black Thomas, Old Gambler...
  • All days seem like yesterday...
  • Vandal remembers Bruce from #1!
  • Summon the everlasting day...
  • Alan wanted to kill himself because of his father's projects with Pinkney, the architecture and building representing a garden of broken headstones that mocked the future. The dark architecture was something that brought wickedness to Gotham and Alan believed a house unfinished to be better than a house haunted.
  • Alan meets his future wife, Catherine.
  •  Bruce gives the white fawn necklace back to Catherine.
  • All the days of the world is one day and he must be strong for us all! Bruce experiences his jumps through time as one collective experience, one big tapestry woven by the Hyper-Adapter.
  • The Miagani whistle opens the casket!
  • Are you one too? Does Black Thomas see Bruce as a New God???
  • Alan Wayne feels that everything from that night was part of some grand design, the same way Jack Valor felt: they can feel the Ancestor Box, the Omega Sanction, time itself weaving myth around the return of Batman.
  • Kenneth Wayne born and Catherine dead in childbirth.
  • Black Thomas leaves on the SS Orion to go be Jack the Ripper I guess.
  • Catherine and Alan finish the Wayne Manor and he builds the Garden of Death as a beacon in time, a mark of the bat.
  • What is within the casket? Vacant grave, and something beyond...
  • Bruce time jump to 80's Gotham, but what is the book in his hand? Mordecai's journal? Alan Wayne's journal?
  • Hit by a car!
  • Broken Gotham, crime corruption & chaos!

Sunday, March 10, 2024

MORRISON BATM-ANNOTATIONS: RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE PART I


BATMAN VS ROBIN


Batman and Robin #10 - "The Haunting of Wayne Manor"
  • Damian leads a board meeting to confront the financial irregularities in Wayne Enterprises.
  • Charity fund for railroad victims set up in Thomas Wayne's memory, donations have been on steady increase.
  • Finance bro Treadwell combative...
  • All of the prior Black Glove members have been killed except for Texan businessman.
  • Russian general who's neck got snapped found inside alligator.
  • Oberon Sexton thinks Domino Killer is targeting Bruce Wayne, trying to kill Black Glove members, believes that Wayne was member along with Jezebel Jet...
  • Dick, Damian, and Alfred do mystery hunting in abandoned Wayne Manor.
  • No power post Sombrero booby-traps.
  • JLA thinks Bats displaced by Darkseid Omega Effect, Tim thinks clues left in past.
  • Wayne Manor exists for over 200 years, cave system beneath in use since Stone Age.
  • WAYNE PATRIARCHS
    • Mordecai
    • Black Sheep Thomas
    • Darius
    • Joshua
    • Solomon
    • Alan
    • Kenneth
    • Patrick
    • Silas
    • Thomas
  • Black Thomas led devil worshippers in 1760's, bat demon of Miagani tribe, bloody bargains...
  • History of Gotham with Bat Gods, Bat Tribes, Bat Devils...
  • Mordecai = Bruce?
  • What is the book in Mordecai's hand...
  • Casket in Joshua's hands...
  • Constellation of Orion over burning ships, Orion over fire...
  • Could Bruce be in the present... changed...
  • El Penitente wanted Sexton to kill Dick Grayson...
  • Mexican Train, 99 Fiends, 3rd hierarchy...
  • Sweet Belial, Duke Zepar...
  • Mordecai portrait rediscovered in 1800's, doesn't fit with genealogy...
  • Joshua & Solomon were conductors on Underground railroad network...
  • Three roses, three stars on Orion's belt, symbols of the Hunter hang over the fireplace...
  • Talia machinations, she didn't even meet Damian until he was eight!?!?
  • Secret passage not on Wayne Manor layout, knight armor with rose + bat...
  • Damian new spine = motor control!?!
  • Talia's executioner...
  • Another secret Bat-Cave, candelabras, Batman symbol, writing of Barbatos and Thomas on walls...
  • Alfred discovers hidden Corpse Road in Wayne cemetery along with lost Garden of Death...
  • Damian and Oberon Sexton!
Return of Bruce Wayne #1 - "Shadow on Stone"
Batman and Robin #11 - "Boneyard"
  • Doctor Hurt is back!
  • So he took the guise of El Penitente to absolve himself from sin, a clean slate to commit more atrocity. Does Hurt believe in God? If he's the Devil... does he care?
  • Dark Twin, Double You, claim what is rightfully his...
  • Paint in secret Bat-Cave is new, within a year...
  • Secret rail-way, the Corpse Road! Same location in Joshua Wayne portrait...
  • 99 Fiends have come to the Wayne Cemetery.
  • Damian's new spine is remote controlled, Talia hires Deathstroke to pilot and kill Dick!
  • Stalactite in shape of Barbatos, devil bat of Miagani summoned by Black Thomas in 1765.
  • Energy source blocks out transmission to Alfred, some kind of light ahead...
  • Naeberius can sense Barbatos waking beneath the ground...
  • Alan Wayne's crypt, center piece of Garden of Death...
  • Domino found in Naeberius's lapel, Sexton thinks they were sent by the Killer.
  • Damian knows Sexton's accent is fake, thinks that he's the time displaced Bruce Wayne?!?!
  • Why did the Fiends come to Alan Wayne's crypt? Looking for something long buried...
  • Dick emerges, ravaged, we don't know why, but he has the same casket in the Joshua portrait!
Return of Bruce Wayne #2 - "Until the End of Time"
  • Leviathan dragon, sea monster...
  • Annie, necklace with symbols of Superman and Wonder Woman!
  • Vanishing Point! Archivists!
  • Omega Energy trail leads there, needle in a cosmic haystack, somewhere in Space B...
  • Infestation of Hyper-Fauna in the Vanishing Point, the Leviathan is the same...
  • Bruce takes the guise of Mordecai, the dead man in the water when he arrived...
  • Widow of Matthew Tyler, Tyler family/Hourman...
  • Flemish painter Van Derm...
  • Brother Malleus...
  • Annie lost parents over sea from Bristol Bay. Is she from England, a pilgrim? Then how did she get the necklace presumably made from the images in Anthro's cave paintings...
  • Martin Van Derm sketches Mordecai portrait. The book in hand is journal so he can record and remember.
  • Memory loss from Omega Sanction...
  • Eclipse of the Sun, Devil's false night-in-day. Old Dragon walks by night...
  • Mordecai was sent to kill Annie, she prayed for a savior, Bruce came along with the Dragon...
  • Hidden people, the Miagani, Bat people, Bat Tribe...
  • She worships Bright Gods, old lords of the land and sky, gods of the wheel of time and the never-ending world, and all the space beyond... New Gods!
  • Bruce wounds the Dragon, but something is happening...
  • The Archivist is Bruce! Traps the heroes in a force field, steals the Time-Sphere back to the 21st century!
  • Darkseid took his memories, relied on his will to survive, booby trapping him into a doomsday weapon to destroy the present!
  • Annie puts curse on Malleus/Nathaniel Wayne and the whole family!
  • Martin Van Derm keeps finished portrait and passes down book of Mordecai.
  • The Devil was not yet done with Gotham...
  • Bruce wakes up in Bristol Bay, burning ships...
  • Referred to as the Black Pirate by...
  • Blackbeard! (possibly Vandal Savage?)
Batman and Robin #12 - "Mexican Train"

Sunday, March 3, 2024

MORRISON BATM-ANNOTATIONS: BLACKEST KNIGHT

"Blackest Knight"



Batman and Robin #7 - "Pearly and the Pit"
  • Dick removes the corpse of "Bruce" from the sepulcher beneath Wayne Tower.
  • Dick and Beryl stop a train from blowing up in London.
  • Crime war between Pearly King and Old King Coal for an abandoned mine.
  • Prison for all the British supervillains, overseen by the Beefeater. Metaleks...
  • Pearly King, claims heraldry from King Arthur in Seven Soldiers, the heir of the Cauldron of Rebirth.
  • Dominoes, bones, Mexican Train, some kind of design/map that Pearly King guides Dick through to get to the pit.
  • Alfred visits Talia as her surgeons repair Damian.
  • Bruce's corpse was confirmed, Talia hints at either Damian taking the place of his father or maybe resurrecting Bruce?
  • She claims that Damian as Robin is just a phase, that he will accept his destiny as heir to the Al Ghuls soon...
  • Midwinter, longest night, abandoned mine shaft, dead miners in accident, murdered children...
  • Meet up with Cyril, Coal's men carrying coffin, chanting twice named daughter of "...".
  • Batwoman bursts from the coffin! King Coal is connected to the Religion of Crime from 52 and Final Crisis.
  • Dick wants to resurrect Batman with the primordial Lazarus Pit, Kate thinks that it's not gonna go well b/c of prophecy of Knight of Beast.
  • Batman's corpse has been in there for an hour, now to subdue the temporary madness of the pit.
  • He emerges...  
Batman and Robin #8 - "Batman vs Batman"
  • Religion of Crime, Crime Bible, worship Manheim as a martyr and the rock that killed Abel and even the nuclear bomb.
  • There's a hole in everything, the beast will rise out of the pit...
  • Goes back to dawn of time, worship of the bad New Gods, black messiah at New Age of Crime.
  • Batman resurrected, but it's not him! It's one of the replacement clones, saved by Mokkari and Darkseid right before the Omega confrontation with Bruce.
  • Batman never fights to kill, Dick knows it's not him.
  • Coal blows the mine to trap the bats. Kate is mortally wounded. She recognizes Dick from 52.
  • Not-Bats makes it out and the takes the ship back to Gotham.
  • Damian is back in a wheelchair recovering, but Alfred is worried about Dick taking the corpse, believing that he's given into Jason's comments from the last arc.
  • Kate succumbs to her wounds, but it's all part of the plan...
  • Not-Bats arrives at Wayne tower and KO's Alfred, confronting Damian...
Batman and Robin #9 - "Broken"
  • Not-Bats! Vat clone! Botched programming from the impossible survival of the Bruce Wayne trauma bomb!
  • Dick and the gang resurrect Kate with the primeval Lazarus Pit! Jacob Kane comes around and gets them out with a suborbital!
  • Damian claimed to be the Third Ghost of Batman, a sacrifice for the city...
  • Damian is saved at the last second by Dick. Him and Kate beat the tar out of the clone.
  • Cyril and Beryl KO the Coal King.
  • Dick apologizes to Alfred and Damian for leaving them out of the loop, admitting that Tim Drake was right, Batman is alive!
Batman #700 - "Time & The Batman"
  • In Batman #700 we witness the moment where he changes from the ‘60s TV Joker to the O’Neil/Adams homicidal master of ceremonies.
  • AN ATTEMPT TO UNDERSTAND THE 666 TIMELINE:
  • #666:
    • Bruce/Dick dies in the alley, The Hanged Man.
    • Doctor Hurt offers Damian immortality in exchange for his soul. He will come to collect at some future time... unless he already has...
    • Babs becomes Commissioner.
    • Prof Pyg, Loveless, Candyman, Phosphorus Rex, Max Roboto, Jackanapes, Flamingo, Nikolai, Weasel. All villains. Many killed to form five pointed horned demon star on Gotham's face.
    • Fights Bat-Devil. Kills him. The apocalypse is cancelled.
  • BUT NOW IN THIS:
  • January/2-Face-2 wants Joker's Jokebook, holds city in ransom.
  • Max Roboto reprograms Gotham Climate Control to rain Joker Zombie Virus/Laughing Death.
  • They've also taken Terry McGinnis and Carter Nichols hostage.
  • Damian has 'brother-I'.
  • Cure to virus from Roboto spit, he gets eaten by rats.
  • Nichols was humiliated in the past, finds his future body in the present and meets his future self, goes to the future to bring his dead self back to present, meets his present self, then goes back to the past to call the GCPD as he's being humiliated, then goes on to live his own life across time. He will eventually return to Gotham and be captured by 2-Face-2 in the future where he's an old man and die by the laser. Then his past self will take him back to the Dick-Bats present where they'll find his body.
  • The cure and the child and the city are saved. Damian eventually mentors him as Batman Beyond.
  • The legend lives on! Until the 853rd Century! Batman Forever!

Sunday, February 18, 2024

FINAL CRISIS ANNOTATIONS PART II

[COSMIC MIDNIGHT]



Final Crisis: Revelations #1 - "I Work For God"
  • Spectre Crispus Allen exacts vengeance for Martian Manhunter, killing Doctor Light and Effigy.
  • He tries to kill Libra, but can't. He doesn't know Libra's name, which he apparently needs to exact vengeance.
  • A nun dies in the hospital...
  • Renee tracks down members of the Religion of Crime in England. They find some kind of energy spear in the ocean. They want to use it to kill a false god.
  • They believed Renee to be some kind of leader in the Crime Bible, but her defiance creates some doubt in the followers.
  • Somehow it doesn't kill Renee...
  • Spectre arrives to exact vengeance on Renee...
Final Crisis: Revelations #2 - "Eternal Verities"
  • This one was really good!
  • Spectre wants to bring vengeance to Renee because of events that occurred during the Crime Bible miniseries, where apparently the Religion believed she was to lead them as some sort of prophet called 'The Faceless'.
  • Just as Spectre is about to kill her, she is spared by another agent of God known as the Radiant. This is the same nun the died last issue, but has been reborn as the Spirit of Mercy.
  • They have some interesting back and forth, Crispus gets some good character development since he became the Spectre and had to sacrifice his son for killing Jim Corrigan.
  • The Religion of Crime brings the Spear of Destiny to Cain, the first murderer, who turns out to be Vandal Savage! An end to the boredom has arrived!
  • He is reborn as Cain, and wishes to kill the Spectre who marked him thousands of years ago. Also interesting that the Anti-Life Equation didn't affect him... 
  • Spectre, Renee, and Radiant are attacked by Anti-Life possessed members of the GCPD. The spirits of God have no power over the equation for the same reason Spectre couldn't kill Libra; Darkseid reigns supreme across New Earth, trumping the creator.
  • Radiant gets Montoya out of there before she's possessed, but she stumbles across Kate Kane who has been turned! We see her at the end of FC #3 as one of Diana's furies too.
Final Crisis: Revelations #3 - "Absence of Choice"
  • Gotham is overrun by the ALE.
  • Spectre and Radiant save Renee from Kate Kane.
  • They amass everyone in Gotham who isn't possessed within a church.
  • Radiant sees the three men who murdered her, but she can't bring them mercy, she can't forgive them.
  • Renee mentions that she went to the Checkmate Castle before going to search for the Spear, which is probably where the agents of SHADE took her in #3.
  • The possessed supervillains of Gotham wait outside the church for Cain's arrival, we even see Catwoman (who's also a fury in FC #3).
  • Cain arrives and calls out the Spectre. They duke it out but Spectre gets stabbed with the Spear of Destiny.
Final Crisis: Revelations #4 - "We Win"
  • Cain splits Spectre from Cris and makes him his slave.
  • Renee once more is immune to the powers of the spear.
  • Enter Huntress! She saves Renee from Cain.
  • Radiant blocks the Anti-Life from entering the church.
  • The heroes learn the Spear isn't only a weapon, it has had healing properties before.
  • Renee is prophesized to hand the Spear to Cain...
  • Cain forces Spectre to recite the Anti-Life Equation, commanding him to rebuild the world in Darkseid's name. This spreads the ALE even more I guess?
Final Crisis: Revelations #5 - "Part of the Plan"
  • Deus Ex in the sense, but still enjoyable enough.
  • Spear is used by Renee to resurrect Cris's son Jake. This restores hope and faith, and God allows his champions to fight again.
  • The three men who killed Clarice redeem themselves by holding back Cain.
  • Spectre is restored and he undoes whatever he did at the end of last issue.
  • Cain/Savage is banished to Africa where he is once more cursed to walk with the mark.
  • Radiant and Spectre are summoned to deal with another threat...
Final Crisis: Resist
  • This was awesome!
  • Terrific, Talib, Thinker, and a half-possessed Sasha are assaulted at the location of the Code Zoo + Arcane Locker in the Antarctica Checkmate bunker.
  • Snapper uses his teleportation powers to ferry supplies and information to the gang trapped in the bunker.
  • He has a couple of encounters with Cheetah, who has successfully evaded capture and assimilation.
  • I'm assuming that the meta-human virus that negates powers is the Morticoccus Virus from FC #3. Morrison stated in interviews that it was a Death Virus, but maybe it also negates powers too.
  • Snapper and Cheetah get freaky in a hilarious sequence.
  • Just as all hope is lost, Terrific comes up with a plan to use Sasha and the trapped AI in the Code Zoo to activate the dormant remnants of the OMAC Protocol within 11.5 million humans.
  • The AI agree to release the code in return for freedom, and Sasha gives them the code seconds before she's consumed by Anti-Life.
  • The OMACs are now under control of Checkmate and they free our heroes to continue the fight against Darkseid!
Final Crisis: Submit
  • Fun little story of resistance within the Apokolips!
  • Black Lightning! Not used enough! Loved him in Meltzer's JLA.
  • Mark Richards is a little bit inconsistent: Geoff made him this sin eating soldier, but I guess he got over that and became a degen family man.
  • The anti-meta virus that was such a big deal in the "Resist" one-shot is not present in this which is kind of annoying.
  • Newspapers from the are still being Daily Planet published.
  • Black Lightning inspires Richards to be a hero, taking on his mission as Lightning is captured and turned into a justifier.
  • Richards memorizes the circuit, most likely the same circuit from Anthro's cave painting that Cave Carson found in #3.
  • Apparently Darkseid's control over reality is transforming it into an expression of himself. Morrison loves fractals!
  • Richards's family is sent to Watchtower 6, while he takes on Jeff's mission to the Hall of Justice to save one of the heroes.
  • SHADE and Anissa Pierce prep for the Omega Initiative...
Final Crisis #4 - "Darkseid Says"
  • Watchtower 1 = Checkmate Castle, Swiss Alps 
  • Watchtower 2 = The Hall of Justice?
  • Watchtower 3 = Fortress of Solitude, Arctic Circle
  • Watchtower 4 = Gorilla City
  • Watchtower 5 = Superbia
  • Watchtower 6 = The Great Wall
  • Mokkari unleashed the ALE through the internet.
  • The Ray has been delivering info and newspapers using his light-wave powers.
  • Apparently, there is a printing press still operational at Watchtower 3.
  • Ollie, Dinah, Babs, and the Flash Family are stationed at the Hall.
  • A SHADE/Checkmate strike-force was sent into Bludhaven and got annihilated by the Justifiers.
  • Dan Turpin battles evil itself as Darkseid's soul prepares to be reborn in his body. "The incubation phase requires the ruin of a noble spirit..."
  • Reverend Goode has nosebleeds in Darkseid's presence.
  • All of Darkseid's Elite compete for his love.
  • Apparently Granny-Kraken is getting ready to spread Darkseid's influence to the stars and infect the GL Central Power Battery.
  • Kalibak is reborn in a tiger body. he's eaten the Green Lantern Opto!
  • "Humankind's descent into the Forever Pit..."
  • So Tattooed Man worked for Boss Dark Side, which is why Turpin used him to find the club.
  • Babs saw a fragment of Anti-Life before the net shut down.
  • Supervillain internet, the Unternet. Informant in Libra's society...
  • So everybody who escaped the bunker in the Resist special made it to the Checkmate Castle in the alps. Renee is also there after the Revelations mini.
  • Checkmate Global Peace Agency, the GPA was the organization in the OMAC series.
  • Even Waller joined up!
  • Alan Scott claims that the dark gods are manipulating space-time: could the one month in the future flashforward be some kind of distortion as well?
  • A final strike on Bludhaven, a siege on Command D.
  • Black Adam is recruited by Freddy. Apparently the Shazam pantheon has been corrupted by the Dark Gods.
  • Possessed Black Lightning from the Submit special takes down the HOJ forcefield.
  • Tattooed Man memorized the Circuit and then tattooed it on his body! It makes him look just like Metron!
  • Barry explains that Darkseid's fall from the Fourth World through time and space is dragging all of reality into the Forever Pit.
  • An unknown force reverse engineered Barry back to life...
  • Flash boys reunion!
  • The Furies get trampled. Corrupted Diana has super-speed tracking.
  • I love the Green Arrow sequence.
  • The heroes make it to the Satellite! Is this Watchtower 2 or was it the Hall?
  • The Omega Offensive, same as the Omega Initiative mentioned in the Submit special.
  • Barry purges the ALE from Iris with a lightning kiss! Speed force beats Anti-Life! Speed force = life equation? Speed = action & change?
  • It rains blood! The Multiverse Womb weeps maroon tears!
  • The Super-Young-Team and Shilo and Sumo boom-tube into the Checkmate Castle, and they all have the Metron circuit on their faces.
  • But the idiots pawn shoot him!
  • With the death of freedom, the ruination and submission of Dan Turpin...
  • ...the rebirth of Darkseid is complete.
  • Thumbs down for the human race!
Final Crisis #5 - "Into Oblivion"
  • Hal Jordan is back baby!
  • The scar above his head held an implant placed by Kraken to mess up his memory.
  • She wants to control the Power Battery and employ the will-controlled plasma to Darkseid's designs. One more references to the competition between his Elite, a popularity contest.
  • Krona Protocol: the CPB is hidden in a pocket dimension when it's under attack.
  • New Earth is at the heart of the black hole created by Darkseid's fall, the Forever Pit, and it's taking the entire universe along with it.
  • All of space time is messed up around Earth, so the one month in the future could be even longer or shorter!
  • Jordan, Kyle, and Guy lead Lanterns into the fray to save reality!
  • Talib and Waller recruit Renee for the new initiative to save earth on the day supes failed. Checkmate was the last move in the human game.
  • New versions of OMACs called biOmacs: super soldiers with a seven day life span.
  • Dakseid is reborn as his underlings beg for his mercy and praise.
  • Mokkari says humanity under the control of Darkseid has become his eyes, hands, limbs of the night-lord.
  • He sends out his Furies to unleash plague and destruction.
  • A group of heroes arrives as reinforcements at the siege of the Checkmate Castle.
  • Of course, Shilo didn't die!
  • Motherboxxx can see Terrific...
  • Apparently, Checkmate made the Castle a target to draw fire from Darkseid's forces while the superheroes made one final attack on Bludhaven and Command D.
  • The Swiss border got closer to the castle, the fall of Darkseid has warped space time!
  • The pattern on the Super-Young-team's faces, the Life Equation circuit that Metron gave Anthro!
  • Kalibak leads a group of hybrid tiger men against the last stand of the supermen!
  • We see the Society headquarters in Bludhaven along with some crazy Kirby buildings.
  • Frankenstein quotes Milton!
  • Black Adam takes down Dark Mary and sees a leering old man in her eyes...
  • Tawky Tawny and the Quantum Blunderbuss!
  • Nix Uotan is thrown into a holding cell with two others: all three can't be affected by the ALE.
  • The man in the wheelchair (Metron) works on a Rubik's cube while the other appears to be some kind of mysterious anthropoid monkey man.
  • The Number of God, nobody has solved the Rubik's cube in less than 18 moves. The Rubik’s cube was a good visual metaphor for the restless shuffling and rearranging of primary-coloured patterns that signifies creative activity in a long-running superhero universe.
  • The time of gods is over, now is the time for something different...
  • Who did Nix summon? Darkseid? The man in the wheelchair? Somebody or something else?
  • You made this moment with the power in you... he hands the paper with the Metron symbol to Nix...
  • Think up a solution, Darkseid is the bad idea, now you just need a better one.
  • He remembers Weeja Dell!
  • Wtf? Was the monkey man ever in there????
  • 17 moves! The cube was a mother box?
  • Libra prepares to hang Calculator for being the traitor, though we are suggested the idea that it's Luthor, and maybe Libra knows that too...
  • Something is wrong with John Stewarts ring. Is it the Power Battery being hidden, or just the space-time funk messing it up?
  • Mokkari and Simyan tried to make a Batman clone army, but the psycho-merge killed all of them.
  • His servants die in his presence, the pure evil essence of Darkseid is too much to withstand.
  • Supergirl sees Darkseid as a giant brain sending out signals to possessed humanity as his nervous system.
  • As the Lantern squad approaches the Forever Pit, they can see ruptures in the Bleed and other Earths in the folds of the singularity.
  • All the rings lose power.
  • We even get a snapshot of President Horne along with Father Time.
  • The Fifth World of Darkseid has begun with probably one of the best sequences I've ever read.
  • But just as Final Evil rises, a new force for good must answer the call...
  • Something new is born. The Fifth World dawns in flame and thunder. Battle is joined.
  • Nix Uotan, Superjudge!

[WAR FOR THE DAWN]



Batman #682 - "The Butler Did It"
  • I had the most extraordinary dream last night. You were in it.
  • The origin of Batman from Year One. Alfred resigns.
  • The bat the crashed though the window swept up. Julie Madison, Bruce's first love, put off because of crimefighting.
  • But the bat didn't die, the window was open. And Alfred decided not to resign...
  • Doctor Death. Bruce no longer refers to Batman as a disguise.
  • Bruce and Gordon friendship. Julie Madison rejected again. She leaves letters.
  • Batman has been pushing the edge on his health and sanity with crime fighting. Alfred says he needs to regain the humor from when he was a child.
  • Problem solving micro sleeps.
  • Bruce can only have short term relationships because of his trauma.
  • They see Dick at the death of the Graysons. He is adopted and becomes Robin. Everything changes.
  • Even Joker changes, from serial killer to prankster clown.
  • Batman holds the Bat Radia...
  • Dick beat Joker in a laughing contest.
  • Batman and Batwoman romance and team ups.
  • Dick wonders if they will always be Batman and Robin...
  • Dick doubts Batwoman and Batgirl, something he doesn't trust...
  • A retelling of Batman #153.
  • Batwoman leaves Batman. Dick knew about Kathy Kane due to connection with circus.
  • Batman begins the iso-chamber experiments from #156.
  • And now we see the true nature of the story...
  • The Lump from the Kirby Mister Miracle series! Now used to convert his memories into the Evil Gods database, hiding as Alfred...
  • Death of Alfred before he became the Outsider.
  • And what's the connection between chemicals and crazy people...
  • Batman is over the Synthetic Era, he wants a return to the Pulp Crime era.
  • Batman and Joker are ready for reinvention. Batman catches onto his cycle of rebirth.
  • Dick gets the Disco-Wing costume!
  • Alfred and Bats close up the Batcave and prep for the Denny O'Neil era.
  • Alfred wrote a story of if Bruce never became Batman...
  • But Bats is on the case, he knows it's the Lump!
  • He's thrown into this dream of a world without Batman, masking the true nature of the Lump.
  • Mokkari and Simyan wants to make an Army of Batmen, but first they must locate and reproduce the trauma and emotion that drives him to create the perfect copies.
  • An army of perfect soldiers in Darkseid's dark army.
Batman #683 - "What The Butler Saw"
  • Batman in the 70's! The Denny O'Neil globetrotting era!
  • Shifting between the Alfred dream/world without Batman fantasy and the continued retrospective on Batman's history.
  • It's almost as if the Lump keeps Bruce occupied with the fantasy while he continues to mine Batman continuity.
  • Dick's parents were murdered by chemical racketeers...
  • Gordon is dead, Joker was executed by lethal injection...
  • Mokkari phases into the dream! Bruce can tell they're there!
  • Bruce is a medical laughingstock. His parents pamper him and overprotect, sometimes he wishes he died that night...
  • He explores the cave beneath Wayne Manor looking for Ace but finds the skeleton of Dick Grayson, hidden there by the Joker. Bats fly everywhere!
  • Bruce almost breaks free of the illusion, but they drown him in past experiences once more.
  • The rise and fall of Jason Todd; they farm the raw emotional turmoil from that memory.
  • The Killing Joke, forcing Batman to doubt his code and if he must kill the Joker...
  • It's too much for the clones! They claw their eyes out!
  • Tim Drake becomes robin.
  • Bruce calls out Alfred for the dream, the memory of his funeral, though him and Dick promised to never tell of the Outsider Incident.
  • Alfred reveals his true nature, manipulating the pain of the grimdark Batman era to hurt Bruce's psyche.
  • Alfred/Lump tries to convince Batman to give up the mantle to the Clone Army, give up and give into the dark empire.
  • Batman says they can have it all, but the clones can't handle it! No one can handle the trauma of Batman, the driving force that makes him who he is, because there is only one Bruce Wayne and only one Batman. He is the impossible man!
  • Mokkari and Simyan try to end the psycho-merge by killing the Lump with soul-bullets.
  • He kept thinking about chemicals because his unconscious knew he was drugged and captured.
  • He teams up with the Lump to beat his captors. Lump gets a jolt of energy and will to trash some of the clones before disintegrating.
  • They leave his belt and stuff, preparing to seal the lab so Darkseid doesn't find out about their failures.
  • POST RIP FILL IN! Alfred and Bruce prep to prove the false nature of the fake dossier Doctor Hurt put out. He gets a call from the JLA...
  • Batman's Last Case: who killed Orion? The Radion god bullet placed in his belt...
  • Alfred had a doubt about resigning, but after seeing Bruce's transformation into Batman, he couldn't help but stay along and accompany him on his journey to avenge his parents and save his city.
  • The Batman's big secret wasn't who was under the mask, but in fact who was keeping him alive all these years! The Butler Did It!
  • Batman had been captured, Alfred shuts down the cave, but he knows that the villains will let their guard down and underestimate him for a second, and that's just enough time...
  • for no matter how dark the night, there is no hiding place for evil.
  • Fucking brilliant.
Final Crisis #6 - "How to Murder the Earth"
  • Post Legion of Three Worlds!
  • Darkseid's Forever Pit even affects the future!
  • Brainy wants to show Superman something...
  • The Controllers refined Guardian tech to make a Final Machine that turns thoughts into things, but it's completely volatile since stray thoughts can destroy reality.
  • But since Superman is Superman, Brainy trusts him with the design of the god-weapon.
  • Supes is about to get transported back to the past when he sees it; Geh-Jedollah, the Miracle Machine! And it looks exactly like Metron's symbol! I guess Granny *was* right in #5 when she asked if the battery was the ultimate technology Metron pointed humanity towards.
  • Black Canary makes Richards an honorary JLAer, but the Satellite is attacked by astronaut Justifiers!
  • Ray leaves to accomplish some task...
  • Black Adam confirms that it's DeSaad possessing Mary!
  • Battle of the Tiger-men! Tawny wins! The tiger army kneels to him!
  • Freddy uses the living lightning to transform him and Mary back while purging her of DeSaad.
  • Darkseid's legion of ALE civilians surround the heroes!
  • Shilo explains that the Metron circuit is a letter from the New God alphabet, the symbol of freedom from restriction. Knowledge, fire, imagination!
  • Checkmate enters Black Gambit status...
  • Furies attack the supermen in Bludhaven!
  • So the OG Sonny Sumo went back to feudal Japan while this one is from a parallel universe, taking up the life that the old one left behind.
  • Atomic Lantern Boy loves Aquazon! Aquazon loves Sonic Lightning Flash! Superbat's powers are money!
  • Just as the satellite heroes are infected with ALE, Richards uses the circuit to jam the Anti-Life signal, freeing the trapped heroes!
  • We see the Bleed hemorrhage over New Earth, and other universe peek in the folds!
  • Checkmate Omega! The Atoms Ray Palmer and Ryan Choi prep for Multiversal travel...
  • Psychics including Miss Martian and mento try to purge the ALE from human consciousness.
  • Mystics like Zatanna and Phantom Stranger try to contact the Spectre, last seen with the Radiant in the Revelations mini.
  • Doctors prep to operate/dissect Overgirl?
  • The Black Gambit/Omega Offensive, meet Lord Eye! The brain of Max Lord within the corpse of Brother Eye!
  • They plan to relocate to a selected Earth in the Multiverse and rebuild humanity. They want Renee to use her skills to head the Global Peace Agency on this other world.
  • The Black Gambit, the Omega Offensive, was apparently all along to get the hell out of Dodge and resettle on a new universe – a universe run by Brother Eye with a Global Peace Agency, so basically the universe of Jack Kirby’s original OMAC, with an army of Questions as Global Peace Officers.
  • Calculator is kept on the brink of death by ALE as he hangs.
  • Luthor and Sivana pull a fast one on Libra and burn a hole through his chest. Sivana hacks the justifier helmets to transmit Luthor's will. 
  • Barry claims that his being resurrected from the Speed Force caused him to return knowing things...
  • The Black Racer didn't stop chasing Barrybut it only comes for dying gods, so does that mean that Barry is a Speed Force God?
  • Wally also says the Black Flash = the Black Racer...
  • It seems they mean to aim the Black Racer at Darkseid and run so fast they escape his black hole aura!
  • Batman confronts Darkseid!
  • Apparently Orion's death in battle fragmented into myriad projections onto reality, a way of rectifying the confusing nature of Countdown. In the process, Orion wounded Darkseid beyond repair, which is why his fall unto New Earth across reality is a prelude to his death, which will engulf creation into the Forever Pit of the infinite black hole.
  • Batman beats the Omega Sanction (a Darkseid weapon that traps you in an endless succession of synthetic lives) and shoots Darkseid with the Radion bullet, but he's hit with the finder beams...
  • Hawkman and Hawkgirl talk about reincarnation...
  • Alan Scott's green flames wanes with the corruption of earth.
  • We finally see a return of the Morticoccus Virus that was such a problem in the Resist special, Wonder Woman was made the carrier in #3. It's the same Death Virus that killed Earth-51.
  • The Lanterns continue to pass through the gravity well on the way to New Earth.
  • The Black Gambit is activated...
  • Metron holds the Rubik's cube and advises Nix: his arrival as the Super-Judge inaugurates the age of men as gods: the Fifth World! If our heroes breach the Bleed Wall, they face a worse threat than Darkseid, Mandrakk! He also got his Mobius Chair back after it opened the boom tube that reunited the Flashes in #3.
  • Superman returns and unleashes fury onto Bludhaven and Command-D, razing everything with heat vision.
  • The sky cracks and alternate Earths pollute the crimson clouds.
  • Superman emerges with the charred corpse of the Dark Knight.
Final Crisis #7 - "New Heaven, New Earth"
  • GET READY FOR THE NON-CHRONO! BATMAN #681 REDUX BABY!
  • If you go back to the first issue, it starts with a ‘caveman’ version of the basic hero story. Then we get Dan Turpin narrating and so on through the series. Rising Sun narrating the start of issue #2, the Monitor origin story from the Infinite Book in Superman Beyond – even things like Alfred narrating the two Batman crossovers, or the use of magic words throughout the series. It’s all about people telling stories to one another, so the final issue makes that explicit.
  • Earth-23! President Superman!
  • All Earths in the multiverse are experiencing their own Crisis! On this one it's the "Red Skies Crisis".
  • He meets up with Nubia, Wonder Woman, where she sounds the Multiversal Wonder Horn as an SOS across universes.
  • The Ultima Thule arrives bearing Renee Montoya, Captain Marvel, and a whole bunch of Supermen!
  • Watchtower, the last ark for the heroes tumbles into the never-ending void of Darkseid's Forever Pit. Space time has folded down, just like the chronology of this comic book, so we see everything out of order!
  • A shard from E-44 collides with the Watchtower, bringing Doc Tornado and the Metal Men. They are set off by parallel magnetic fields and go crazy.
  • As they fight with our heroes, Lois and Jimmy pack the last edition of the Daily Planet along with various mementos from the age of heroes into a rocket. They shoot it off into the Forever Pit, maybe someone will find it...
  • I love how Morrison writes Darkseid. Superman can do nothing, because Darkseid is infested within humanity, the people he's sworn to protect.
  • Darkseid prepares the Radion gun while his eyes aim the Omega Sanction at Superman, the same weapon used on Bats.
  • "There is a black hole where my heart should be." Does this mean that the singularity of the Forever Pit emerges from within Darkseid?
  • As all time becomes one time, Darkseid fires the Radion bullet into the past to kill Orion. The loop is closed!
  • The Flashes return! They bring the Racer on their heels, aiming him at Darkseid. They also divert the finder beams away from Superman by running at lightspeed, outrunning death and sicking him on the night-lord!
  • Darkseid is purged from Dan Turpin!
  • Darkseid wasn’t shot in the heart. We all know Batman doesn’t kill people, hasn’t killed people for 70 years and isn’t about to start here. It’s a big enough deal for Batman to pick up a gun. He winged Turpin knowing that the Radion in the bullet would be enough to poison Darkseid’s divine essence. Radion only kills gods after all. It slays ideas. After that shot, Darkseid is dying, just as someone with radiation poisoning might slowly expire, as Superman explains in #7. The Black Racer drags him struggling away into oblivion over the course of that issue until nothing remains but the fading, ghost-echoes of his malice.
  • A check in with the alter-Aquaman, freeing Atlantis!
  • Superman draws out the blueprints for the Miracle Machine from memory. He sits the Mobius Chair, maybe Metron gave it to him?
  • The Machine can calculate the Life Equation by communicating with the Source or the Overvoid.
  • They're going to shrink the universe's population for protection, most likely using the Brainiac shrinking tech from Kandor.
  • John Stewart offers up his power ring to help. Even Sivana and Luthor help build the machine.
  • Checkmate OMACs battle the justifiers at the Castle.
  • The Atoms travel through the graviton tunnel between universes, setting the beacon, but it's unstable, most likely due to New Earth's fall into the abyss.
  • Ollie and Dinah float on the Watchtower as we see Ray complete the freedom Life Equation circuit letter across the face of the Earth.
  • The tunnel begins to collapse when Lord Eye has a psychotic breakdown from the temporal dissonance.
  • Super Young Team soap-drama!
  • And the Hawks sacrifice themselves to save everyone in the tunnel by destroying Lord Eye, which Carter does with a fist through the frontal lobe!
  • Shilo's Motherboxxx secures a boom-tube to the other Earth, which ends up being E-51! Apparently the current Sonny Sumo is from this world!
  • Kamandi is also there, but how did he get out of Command-D? (Keep this in mind...)
  • I guess Renee is picked up from there? She tells Overman of his cousin's fate...
  • By completing the Radion bullet loop, Darkseid effectively committed suicide.
  • The Furies surround Superman but Luthor and Sivana lead the Justifier villains to help.
  • ADDED PAGES: Superman consoles the freed Dan Turpin. Luthor confirms his heroism, gloating as Superman smiles.
  • Frankenstein beats a possessed Wonder Woman since he was immune to the Morticoccus god-bacterium by being undead.
  • Time and space continues to break down, and it's almost as if it's Nix Uotan watching all the scenes at the same time. The channel switch panel cements that.
  • Diana is cured of the ALE, and she uses her lasso to bind Darkseid's astral consciousness to free the Earth of his will.
  • Superman completes the Miracle Machine, and Darkseid's astral form makes one final attempt to win: steal the Miracle Machine and rewrite the universe in his image.
  • In one of the best moments in the history of Superman, he uses counter vibrations, FREAKING MUSIC, to defeat Darkseid. For if music is the stuff of life and love and imagination, it's the complete opposite of Darkseid.
  • Superman then takes the heart of the Mobius Chair, Element X, Fire of the New Gods, as the final part of the Miracle Machine.
  • The Watchtower has reached the deep dark bowels of the Forever Pit.
  • Mandrakk reveals himself! He's got Vamp Ultraman with him who's holding Supergirl?
  • MY BEST GUESS: time has broken down, so when Supergirl went to defend the east wall, she went into the past and helped Frankenstein out. Between then and now, which only exists as an ultra-compressed atemporal sequence of events, she was captured by Ultraman and Mandrakk.
  • So the Spectre and the Radiant left the end of the Revelations mini to hunt Mandrakk, but got completely bodied.
  • Superman uses all his solar energy life force to power the Miracle Machine!
  • The Green Lanterns, still stuck in the event horizon, catch a ride with some Multiversal fauna. They recite the GL oath to repower their rings.
  • Captain Marvel returns with the Superman Squad! They fry Ultraman before he can take a bite out of Supergirl.
  • Nix Uotan arrives as well and takes over to end Mandrakk once and for all. He's embraced his mentor Metron's belief in the heroes.
  • The Zoo Crew out of nowhere but I'm all for it! How did they get exiled? Overlooked?
  • At the end of the Captain Carrot miniseries, the Justa Lotta Animals escaped their own Crisis, only to be turned into a bunch of very ordinary pets on Earth-0. It was a sad ending but it meant that there was now a team of cartoon super animals living in secret on Earth-0. This seemed like a perfect time to bring them back into play.
  • The angel hosts of Pax Dei from the JLA run, most likely here to avenge their fallen champions Spectre and Radiant.
  • ADDED PAGES: Ultraman is burnt to a crisp by Zauriel and his Angel bros.
  • So Nix is Mandrakk's son, child of him and Zillo Valla! Novu made Nix to save the world from Mandrakk...
  • Nix also brings in the Forever People/Super Young Team from E-51! Taaru is the word the Forever People used to form Infinity Man.
  • Huge battle with the Shadow Demons.
  • Captain Marvel is reminded of his Golden Age sidekick Hoppy when he sees Captain Carrot.
  • Ultraman is held back by Sonny Sumo before becoming a charred skeleton.
  • For the final icing on the cake, Nix completes the GL oath and summons the Lanterns, who make a giant stake construct to kill the Cosmic Vampire!
  • In the end it's all okay. The Earth endures, and the heroes rebuild.
  • Along with Batman and J'onn, the Hawks died too? But I guess everybody pretty much ignored it in continuity.
  • You can see Metron's circuit on the face of the Earth.
  • The symmetry of the Multiverse is repaired by the heroes of Earth.
  • The GLs and Supermen pull the New Earth out of the Forever Pit.
  • Nix demands the Monitors to withdraw contact with the multiverse. No more exploitation.
  • At the base of creation, within the obsidian abyss of the Forever Pit, lies the shattered god-head of Darkseid.
  • In the deserted carcass of Apokolips, Metron places Orion's astro-harness as a grave, and the first ivory rose grows on the planet. Apokolips reborn as New Genesis.
  • Nix Uotan rebuilds Earth-51, placing the animal hybrid men and Kamandi and the wreckage of Bludhaven/Command-D on the world. The New Gods also guide the fate of E-51 as their new mission.
  • THE KAMANDI SITUATION: was Kamandi on E-51 before it was destroyed by the Morticoccus god-bacterium? Did the vision Anthro got in #1 come from Kamandi before he came to New Earth, or is it from now when they need the circuit? When did Metron contact him? Did he end up on New Earth because of the Multiversal membranes weakening, or was he always on New Earth and just ended up on E-51 at the end of this story?
  • THE ANSWERS: The effect of all this cosmic Photoshopping occurring around the Command-D bunker caused Kamandi’s consciousness to shift wildly through time and the Multiverse, which is why he was able to appear to Anthro in issue 1 and Dan Turpin in issue 2.
  • The Monitors agree to depart from the Multiverse and leave it free of their vampiric interference.
  • The reunion of Weeja Dell and Nix. The Final Crisis was theirs. She asks Nix what his wish on the Miracle Machine was: he wished for a happy ending.
  • Nix Uotan wakes up on New Earth in human form! New Heaven, New Earth!
  • In cave times, Anthro learns stories from the dancing heart of fire. The flame of creation and narrative. Knowledge and imagination.
  • We see the rocket Lois and Jimmy fired outside the cave!
  • Anthro draws Metron's circuit one last time before he passes away in his sleep.
  • A man places a utility belt on his body...
  • A man dressed in boots and tights drawing a bat symbol on the wall! BATMAN'S BACK BABY!
  • ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT.