So, What comics did you buy this week?

[Tom Foolery]

DCeased: Unkillables 1-3. Set during the initial breakout, After finding Dick, Todd, and Bruce’s corpses in the Batcave a d burying them, Jason Todd heads into Gotham and finds Cassandra Cain as the only other survivor of the Bat Family. They rescue Jim Gordon and the trio make it to a school full of kids, barricaded against the infected hoards. Meanwhile, Vandal Savage has recruited a band of super-villain survivors on an obscure Pacific island to wait out the apocalypse. Including Deathstroke, his daughter Rose, Solomon Grundy, Cheetah, Bane, Shiva, Deadshot, Capt Cold, Mirror Master, and Creeper. Shiva uses MirrorMaster to find Cassie and get her to come with her, but she refuses. Infected Wonder Woman shows up on Vandal’s island and decimates the villains. The survivors escape thru the mirrors back to the school. Being holed up for months, the heroes and villains have to work together to train the kids to survive this new apocalyptic world. When an infected Mirror Master infects Bane, he breaks down the wall letting the zombies in. The survivors board a convoy of schoolbuses(and the Batmobile) to make a run for Poison Ivy’s jungle safety zone. Along the way, Wonder Woman shows up again, and the remaining villains sacrifice themselves to stop her, and Mary Marvel, who was one of the schoolchildren, transforms and gets the bus to safety where, a team of surviving heroes is waiting for them. Red Hood, Rose, Cassie and Gordon being the only adult survivors. Taylor was joined by Mostert on art this time. He’s got a Frank Quitely vibe to his art.

DCeased: Dead Planet 1-7. Five years after the first series, Jon, Damian, and Cassie Sandsmark, are the new Superman, Batman, and WW. Along with GL Dinah Lance and Ollie, they are the Justice League on the new Earth-2 with Lios Lane as the President of the survivors. They receive a distress morse code message from Cyborg’s decapitated head and return to Earth. Vic tells them there’s a potential cure, just as Wonder Woman(this bitch is everywhere!) attacks and mortally wounds Ollie. Dinah goes to kill Diana and Jon steps in between them because there’s a potential cure so Dinah accidentally stabs both Jon and Diana. The JL brings the wounded Jon to Ivy’s sanctuary which has become the last safe space on Earth. Constantine and other magic users greet them, as well as Jason and the others from the second mini. Constantine, Swamp Thing, and some other magic users head to Australia to look for a green space Swamp Thing can’t access. They are attacked by an infected Plastic Man protecting a compound full of mega rich billionaires like Maxwell Lord, the Penguin, and Simon Stagg. They’ve hired Professor Ivo to build an army of Amazo droids to eradicate the zombie hordes off Earth. Constantine also gets a vision that Trigon is about to arise from Hell and destroy Earth. The League heads to New Genesis so Vic can sit in Metron’s chair to figure out the cure. Metron looks into Madame Xanadu’s crystal ball in exchange and sees a ressurected Darkseid(I’m assuming setting up the next series). Constantine than gathers several mystical items like the Spear of Destiny, Shazam’s Wizard Staff, and Ragman’s cloak. While obtaining the Shazam staff, Freddy Freeman kills Jason Todd, and Cassie Cain turns into the new Shazam(she’s pretty badass). While Superman and Wallace West disperse the cure to the surviving infected, the League confronts the Amazo army and Constantine sacrifices himself to destroy Trigon. But everyone is cured, including Pa Kent and Ollie. Another solid read from Taylor and Hairsine. Looking forward to the next series subtitled The War of the Undead Gods. It’s currently on issue 4 or 5 with cool acetate covers.

Next up, there were a bunch of oneshots called Tales from the Dark Multiverse which ‘revisited’ big DC events like Knightfall, Crisis, Death of Superman, etc but with a Dark Universe twist.
Then after that, the sequel to Metal; Death Metal. Seven issue of the main series and I would say almost twice that in tie-in oneshots. They milked that shit. And a lot of them were $7 and $8 oversized books. They better not suck, or I’ll be salty about the $$ I spent on them.

[Tom Foolery]

Tales from the Dark Multiverse were basically What If/Elseworld stories. There were two waves of five books each. Here’s the first five;

Knightfall. In the original story, Bruce Wayne came back after his broken back healed and defeated Jean-Paul to reclaim the Cowl. In this version, Jean Paul defeats Bruce and continues being Batman, meting out his harsh justice in Gotham for the next thirty years. He keeps Bruce alive, although all his limbs are amputated and he’s just a torso and head. He says he’ll let Bruce die if he just admits Jean-Paul was right and the better Batman. Bruce refuses. Then Shiva and the son of Bane, who JP tracked down and killed at some point, return and exact revenge on Jean-Paul by freeing Bruce and giving him a suit made of nano-controlled bats, so he’s a literal ‘Bat’-man. The son defeats Jean-Paul, then Bruce turns on them, killing both him and Shiva and becoming the new tyrant over Gotham.

Death of Superman. After Doomsday kills Clark, Lois misplaces her blame on the other heroes who showed up late to save him, but make it to the funeral. When the Eradicator arrives to place Clark’s body in the revival incubator, it’s too late. So Loos volunteers to receive the power. She then goes off and “solves” all the world’s problems by eradicating suffering and literally destroying the people in power. Her actions put her at odds with the other heroes, and she kills Batman. Eventually Cyborg Superman shows up and Lois and her new allies, Superboy and Steel, fight him, destroying the city in the process. A weakened, resurrected Clark finally returns and is horrified by what Lois has become, but in her effort to destroy Cyborg-Supes, she kills Clark again.

Blackest Night. In the original story, Sinestro shared the White Lantern power with other heroes, and Hal defeated Nekron. This time, Sinestro kept the power to himself and the black lanterns consume the universe. Mister Miracle conceives of a plan to use the energy of the source wall and channel it thru the surviving avatar of Order, Dawn Granger aka Dove. He gets Lobo to ‘abduct’ her and Sinestro follows. But before they can enact the plan, Nekron convinces Scott that the Lords of Order won’t restore things the way they were before, they’ll just wipe out everything and start over. Fearful of losing his wife, he kills Dove and is killed by Lobo in return. Then Sinestro channels the energy thru the only remaining person left, and the universe repopulates itself, but every race, species, person, and animal is an imprint of Lobo and his perpetual desire to defeat everyone and everything around him. So the universe is a perpetual state of war and destruction that Sinestro is forced to live in alone.

Infinite Crisis. In the original, Max Lord shot Ted Kord in the head. This time, Ted gets the upper hand and kills Max instead. He then takes over Checkmate and preemptively stops all the impending chaos, like the new Secret Society of Villains, the Rann-Thanagar conflict, amd the Day of Vengeance. When Alexander Luthor and Superboy-Prime show up, he turns the tables and convinces Prime to turn on Luthor and kill him, but Earth-2 Lois and Clark get killed in the crossfire. He then uses Brother Eye to ascertain the biggest remaining threat to Earth and the answer is the Justice League. Combining with Brother Eye, Ted becomes a new OMAC and along with Prime takes out the League and accidentally kills Booster in the process. With the League and the other heroes gone, OMAC Ted coldly rules Earth with his army of OMAC driods from the Brother Eye satellite.

Judas Contract. In the original, Terra dies. This time, when Dick gives up the Robin identity, he has a heartfelt talk to Terra about not being in the shadow of a mentor. She goes back and kills Slade and Wintergreen, then takes on the new identity of Gaea, and returns and kills all the Titans and Superman and rules the Earth.

Overall, these weren’t bad. My recollection of the original stories was rusty in a few places, but they were interesting reinterpretations with downer endings. Up next, the other five issues.

[Tom Foolery]

The second batch of Dark Mutiverse oneshots.

Hush. On the night Bruce’s parents were murdered, the Elliot family was with them. Bruce goes to live with the Elliot family instead. Fast forward thirty some years. Tommy is the CEO of Wayne Enterprises and his “brother” Bruce is catatonic in Arkham Asylum. I don’t want to spoil the rest, because this was probably the best of the ten oneshots in this series. The new mythology they created was good enough they could have done an ongoing series set in this world. The two twists were predictable, but not in a bad way. Very enjoyable.

Flashpoint. In the original, Barry had Thomas Wayne jumpstart his powers by electrocuting him. In this version he just gets electrocuted to death. Reverse Flash shows up and laughs, but then feels bad that his nemesis died so stupidly. He decides he’s gonna fuck with this new world unopposed and time travels to ensure some schlub gets elected President, then thru that guy he basically declares himself the leader of America. He goes and kills Aquaman and throws his body at Diana’s feet and declares the US off limits to the Amazon/Atlantean conflict. Thomas enlists the help of Cyborg to free Superman from the bunker they’ve been keeping him in to stop Reverse Flash. They wear him down until Batman is about to kill RF, and Superman catches the bullet. RF has an epiphany after Superman saved his life. Then Batman kills Superman(??) just as the new Atlantean/Amazonian alliance attacks the US. Thomas Wayne admonishes Flash that he could stop whatever bad things he wants to because he’s a time traveler. So RF goes back in time and stops Bruce from being killed in the alley as a gift to Thomas, then spends the rest of his days as a heroic Flash leading a Batman-less Justice League. Decent story from Bryan Hitch.

War of the Gods. In the original, Wonder Woman defeated the witch queen Hecate. In this version, Diana is forced to trap Hecate within her own soul. As the story progresses, Phobos manipulates America into attacking Themyscira and killing Hippolyta. Hecate becomes the voice in Diana’s head and eventually takes over her body. Evil Diana goes and destroys the Greek pantheon of gods, but barely gets any power from it. As he’s dying, Zeus laughs that gods’ powers are derived from worship, and that the true gods of the current era era are the superheroes. So Evil Diana goes and attacks the Justice League, killing several of them. A bunch of magical superheroes led by Shazam sacrifice themselves to capture Diana and chain her. But the damage is done; The world hates and fears Amazons and is distrustful of women in general, and builds an army to destroy all the superheroes, with only Hecate/Diana remaining, forvever locked up with the two souls warring for control in her mind.

Crisis on Infinite Earths. In the original Earth-1 became the new foundation of the new world, and the JSA sacrificed themselves to stop the rise of Surtur. In this version, the JLA die fighting Surtur, and Earth-2 is left. But Surtur’s reign continues and several JSA members die and continue to die, until Alan Scott makes the ultimate sacrifice and consents to becoming Surtur’s herald of death, leading him to infinite other universes to destroy if he promises to leave this one alone.

Dark Nights:Metal. In the original, the Justice League all donned super armor from the macguffin metal and defeated Barbados, the dark bat god created from Bruce’s psychic time meddling or whatever. This time around, they don’t and Barbados and his fellow dark gods possessing Clark, Diana, Arthur, and Hal rule over Earth for decades. Then Duke Thomas manages to gather the few remaining heroes, Bobo wearing Red Tornado armor, Hawkgirl, Death Flash, a Joker dragon, and a post apocalyptic Nightwing rockin’ a guitar powered by power rings. Together they sacrifice themselves one by one to destroy the dark gods until only Duke and Barbados remain. Duke plunges into Barbados and pulls and elderly Bruce out of him and kills him, destroying the final dark god. Leaving Duke alone as the last person in the Universe; the Final Night. Snyder, who wrote the original Metal event, came back to write this trippy alternate version. It was confusing at first, but I warmed to it.

Next up, Death Metal. I always read the main series first, then the tie-in stuff. But by the time I get to the side stories, I know the outcome because I read the main book. So I’m gonna try something different this time, reading them ‘in order’. I’ll read the first few issues of the main series to get the set up, then read the tie-ins, then come back for the finale.

After that, there’s a couple of DC anthology books, and then THE SORTING COMMENCES.

[Tom Foolery]

Dark Nights:Death Metal was the sequel event to Metal, where the Justice League defeated the dark bat god Barbatos, but in doing so cracked the Source Wall, freeing Perpetua, the ancient cosmic deity who had created the multiverse to begin with. A year long story arc in Snyder’s ongoing Justice League book led is to this point.

Death Metal 1-3. Perpetua and her new right hand, the Batman who Laughs, have reshaped the world into a twisted post-apocalyptic nightmare where BWL and his legion of dark universe Batmen from alternate dimensions rule from Castle Bat(which is itself a living Bruce Wayne fused into his Wayne Manor). Perpetua is culling power that is derived from “Crisis Events” (all the previous Crises that DC rolls out constantly were in fact orchestrated by Perpetua in some fashion because they “expel” some kind of cosmic energy she thrives on. Don’t ask me how it works, it sounds comic booky). Most of the heroes are imprisoned on Apokalips by a Batman/Darkseid derivative. Wonder Woman is on Earth, forced to work for BWL lest her friends meet their doom in the prison. She eventually frees a secret prisoner in the pits of Hellscape(formerly Themyscira) and it turns out to be the newly cosmically enhanced Wally West, who was last seen using the Metron Chair and being omniscient. He tells her BWL stole his Metron chair and tried to use it, but it wouldn’t work for him, so he absorbed Wally’s “anti-crisis” energy as he’s trying to become more powerful than his boss, Perpetua. BWL shows up, and Diana kills him using a chainsaw she crafted from the remains of her dismantled invisible jet. Then she, Batman, Wally, Swamp Thing, and Harley escape and head to Apokalips to free Superman and the rest of the heroes. Once rescued they form a three part plan; they have to head into the dark multiverse and stop perpetual recreations of earlier Crises that are constantly feeding Perpetua new crisis energy. They have to destroy some energy antennae that are helping her destroy the light multiverses(at this point there are only six or seven left) and third, they have to destroy her giant throne for some reason.
Meanwhile, the dead Batman Who Laughs has his minions transfer his brain in the body of Bruce Wayne that was inspired to recreate Dr. Manhattan’s intrinsic field generator, becoming a Batmanhattan. Batman Who Laughs + Dr Manhattan is ressurected and casually disintegrates all his minion Batmen except for the Robin King. He then turns himself into a shadowy energy being called the Darkest Knight and begins chasing Wally, Barry, and Jay thru the speed force….

I stopped there, and read the first handful of tie in issues. These events written by Snyder are ridiculously, absurdly over the top, but there’s definitely an element of fun to the absurdity, even if doesn’t make sense. I’m just going with it.

DM:Legends of the Dark Knights oneshot. Anthology of stories telling the origins of some of the dark Batmen, like the Bruce who transferred bis brain patterns into the T.Rex statue and became B.Rex the dinosaur Batman. Or Batmobeast, the Batman that’s a living Batmobile, or Robin King, who was a psychopathic child Bruce Wayne, who took the gun from the mugger in crime alley and killed him, then turned the gun on both his parents.

DM: Trinity Crisis oneshot. Once the heroes form the plan to go stop/end the perpetual crises in the dark multiverse, a team sneaks into Castle Bat to get to the energy portal. But once the teams head to the different crises, they realize things are different because they are versions of the events where the bad guys were successful. To be continued in the main series.

DM:Speed Metal oneshot. The speedsters have to outwit Darkest Knight while constantly running at superspeed and steal back the Metron chair so Wonder Woman can use it for something involving crisis energy or anti-crisis energy or whatever down the road.

DM:Rise of the New God oneshot. When Darkest Knight makes his power play against Perpetua and they start having a giant multiverse smashing throwdown. A macguffin character shows up, called The Chronicler, whose job it is to record the ends of multiverse(his verbal job resume suggests he’s done this for trillions of multiverse). Seeking clarification, he easily resurrects Metron, who then convinces the guy he should be attempting to save this multiverse that he’s taken an interest in. There’s also a backup story involving the Green Lanterns based on one of the other oneshots I haven't got to yet.

[Tom Foolery]

Continuing Death Metal with the next three issues, and several more oneshot tie-ins.

Death Metal 4-6. The Trinity attempt to stop the Crises in the dark universe. Batman succumbs to the Anti-Monitor and ceases to exist on the Crisis on Infinite Earths world, and Superman is defeated by an elderly Darkseid on the Final Crisis world. But Wonder Woman manages to plead her case to Superboy-Prime on the Infinite Crisis world and convinces him to switch sides. The crisis energy is redirected away from Perpetua and towards Wally’s Mobius Chair, but the One Who Laughs anticipated this eventuality and booby trapped the chair to send the crisis energy to him. He now has the power to confront his former master Perpetua. He tells Castle Bat to detain the heroes while he goes after Perpetua. After he leaves, the heroes are saved by Lex Luthor, and Lobo. Lex, Perpetua’s spurned former right hand reveals he sent Lobo on a secret mission to find the last ingot of death metal, which needs to be taken to the World Forge to be shaped into the weapon that will defeat the Darkest Knight. After Wonder Woman realizes she was the one who set this in motion adter the first battle with Perpetua(this was all in Justice League issues I haven't read yet) Bruce confesses he’s been dead since that battle and has been using a Black Lantern ring to stay “alive” and Superman’s torture while he was a prisoner in Apokalips reveals he’s almost gone as well. So it’s up to Diana to breach the World Forge with an army of group of Lobo’s as bodyguards, while Superman and Batman rally all the remaining heroes and villains to serve as a distraction by attacking what’s left of Earth to get the One Who Laughs attention. It does. He sends the denizens of ALL 52 of his dark universes to attack the Earth coalition, then after he finally defeats Perpetua and reseals her in remnants of the Source Wall, he descends on Earth. As the remaining heroes and villains face their final battle, Diana shows up in some badass glowing armor she forged from her lasso of truth and the last death metal ingot….to be concluded in the final issue!

The oneshots…

DM: Robin King. An origin story for the demented child Bruce Wayne as he kills off all the heroes on his world, then is recruited by the Batman Who Laughs.

DM:Infinite Hour Exxxtreme! Lobo is attacked by a Lobo/Batman hybrid, the Batman Who Frags, but is pulled thru a portal to be recruited by Lex Luthor to find the death metal ingot. He heads to Blackhawk Island and convinces Hawkman to give him the ingot, then they both escape the pursuing Batman who Frags. After meeting up with Briniac 5, Lobo eventually returns to Lex where the story dovetailed back into the main book.

DM:The Multiverse who Laughs. Anthology of stories featuring Zsasz, the Super Pets, Green Lantern and Green Arrow, and Steel.

DM:Multiverse’s End. The Green Lanterns were tasked with saving the remaining world’s of the multiverse from Perpetua’s destruction. John Stewart has to convince Owlman of Earth 3’s Crime Syndicate to trigger the detonator’s he put on all the crisis energy antennae while the surviving heroes from all the destroyed universes gather refugees to safe them. Owlman sacrifices himself and destroys the antennae.

DM:Secret Origin. Superboy Prime has joined the heroes but hasn’t been accepted by them. As the final battle commences, Prime realizes attacking the dark universe Earths themselves affects the timeline. The One Who Laughs realizes what he’s doing and offers him his old universe back if Prime will sit the battle out. Prime realizes his world is gone and he punches the One Who Laughs so hard, they are both destroyed in the explosion(ooh. That might be a spoiler for the final issue. Oh well). Then Prime wakes up on his original world right after he was whisked away by Earth-2 Superman in the original Crisis. So co-writers Snyder and Geoff Johns gave him a happy ending. Nice.

DM:Guidebook. Short stories spotlighting the different “areas” of the apocalyptic Metal-Earth. I think DC and I have different definitions of the word guidebook.

Next, there were two more oneshots, big squarebound $9 books, and the seventh issue to wrap it all up, and then Death Metal is finished!
After that, there’s five more issues to get thru. Almost done.

[Tom Foolery]

Death Metal concludes with two $9 tie-in oneshots, and then the seventh issue of the main series.

DM:Last Stories of the DC Universe. On the night before the final battle, friends and enemies gather to reminisce and reconcile. All the main ‘families’ get a story in this anthology; The Titans, Green Lantern, Flash, Batman, Green Arrow and Black Canary, Superman, Aquaman, and Wonder Woman. Some touching moments, like Hal giving Sinestro a Green Lantern ring for the final battle.

DM: The Last 52; War of the Multiverses(or maybe its the Last War of the 52 Multiverses, eh the Logo is funky). Anyway, the final battle is way to big to fit in issue 7, so they had an extra big issue to showcase various fights. Some heroes and teams win, some like Lois Lane and Penguin, sacrifice themselves. Lots of fighting evil versions of themselves, like Ryan Choi and the Titans.

Death Metal 7. While the heroes of villains of Earth battle the endless hordes of the One Who Laughs dark universes, Diana takes the fight to the One Who Laughs himself. An epic battle as they punch each other to the beginning and end of time. As the heroes of Earth fall one by one, the Darkest Knight tries to convince Diana to give him her power, so he can destroy the “Hands”, the infinite omniversal creators that Perpetua was a member of. Instead Diana uses the last of her power to destroy him(so who did Superboy Prime blow up?), and the Hands are confused that she would use her power to save them, when they were coming to destroy her multiverse. Impressed at her sacrifice, they rethink their original plans and recreate the multiverse and everything in it and “promote” Diana to the new omniversal protector. (This implies that Diana is ‘dead’ to the rest of the heroes, but I’m wondering how long this actually lasted because I don’t think her ongoing series skipped a beat with her in it)

Anyway, it was an suitably epic event, the culmination of like five year’s worth of Snyder setting things up across several books he was writing, going all the way back to his Nu52 Batman run. Overall, I would say I enjoyed it, even though the ‘crisis energy’ shit was a little too loony for me.

[Tom Foolery]

The last five books are a bunch of 80 page $10 books I file under ‘DC’ rather than scattering them alphabetically in other boxes.

New Year’s Evil oneshot. Every year DC does a year end holiday anthology book. The 2019 book was villain-centric with stories about Joker, Toyman, Sinestro, Poison Ivy, Black Adam, Ares, Calendar Man, Chronos, Prankster, and Harley. The Chronos one was probably the best, where Chronos keeps going back in time trying to make his deadbeat dad a better person, so that he, Chronos, will not grow up to even exist because his dad loved him. The Harley one was fun also, when she keeps trying to cheer Renee Montoya up during the holidays after she’d broken up with Kate Kane. As with all anthologies, YMMV.

DC’s Very Merry Multiverse oneshot. A collection of holiday themed stories set around the various alt 52 universes, like the Plastic Man in the Gotham by Gaslight universe. The most intriguing story was Tom King’s ‘A Very Lobo Hanukkah.’ which wasn’t what I thoughtnit was gonna be, but Tom King plus Lobo is always gonna get my attention. Mostly they were forgettable though.

DC Love is a Battlefield oneshot. This one came out in February and all the stories had a Valentine’s day theme to them. Sgt Rock had an interesting story about two gay soldiers that had to keep their relationship under wraps during WWII. And there was a sweet Harley/Ivy story where elderly Harley is on her death bed, and she and Ivy are reminiscing about how their relationship evolved.

Generations Shattered and Generations Forged. Two $10 books that were solicited like it was the lead in to some new era for DC. It was just a two part story written by Dan Jurgens and a bevy of artists. Some time douche is erasing all of existence, and a bunch of heroes from different eras, like 1939 Batman, Green Lantern Sinestro, Starfire and Booster Gold from the 80s, Steel from the 90s, Superboy from the 31st century, and Kamandi, etc are pulled from time and have to work together to stop time from being erased. It was a mediocre story. Not bad, but I wouldn’t’ve paid $20 for it in hindsight.

Oh my god. That’s it. The sorting can now commence. Will it take me a few days? Or six months? Who can say?

When it’s done, I’ll start reading the nine boxes of stuff from the last two years and I’ll be catching up to the point where maybe I can get back to reading stuff as I buy it again.

[jjreason]

Saga 62, digital copy.

[Tom Foolery]

Saga 62, digital copy.

I noticed Saga finally raised the price from $2.99 to $3.99. Did that happen when it came back last year? I just noticed on the newest issue.

[Tom Foolery]

Saga 62, digital copy.

I noticed Saga finally raised the price from $2.99 to $3.99. Did that happen when it came back last year? I just noticed on the newest issue.

[jjreason]

It seems inconsistent on amazon - I'm sure I've paid the $3.69 for at least 2 or 3 of the new issues, and 4 something for the rest. If they raised the price I'm guessing it happened somewhere in the last 3-4 issues.

EDITED: Issue 61 was the first one with the new price. The letters page even touched on it.

[Tom Foolery]

Now that the sorting and cataloging are finally finished, I can dive back into catching up on reading. I’m gonna start with the Detective Comics from 1001 onward that I blew off at the end of the massive Batman read almost exactly a year ago. After the ‘Tec run, I’m gonna bounce around between those newest 10-ish boxes, and some of the recent DC Rebirth stuff. I also have a full run of The Boys that I’m gonna read sooner rather than later. But first…Dectective Comics…

Issues 1001-1005. The Arkham Knight is introduced into the main DC continuity. But instead of being Jason Todd like in the video games(oh shit, spoilers I guess?? Sorry if I just ruined the twist from an eight year old game) this Knight is Astrid Arkham, daughter of Jeremiah. I thought her origin story was hokey, but then I realized it’s no dumber than an actor who got got doused in clay, or a comedian who fell into chemicals, etc. Astrid was born IN Arkham Asylum. Her mother was one of the psychologists working there, and she basically grew up around all the inmates. When a riot broke out her mother was killed by a stray batarang, so she blames Batman. So the Arkham Knight returns to Gotham leading a cult of followers and she’s working as her own brand of vigilante trying to make Gotham a better place. She ends up trying to set off a light bomb to blind the entire city before Batman stops her. I think the most interesting bit about this story is that it establishes how long Batman has been around. Astrid is 18 years old at least, which means Bruce has been Batman in continuity for that long. DC has always been kinda nebulous about the timeline, and the Nu52 tried to retcon it back to a mere five years, so that’s interesting. And honestly, a kid “raised” by pretty much all of Batman’s Rogues makes for a clever recurring villain if they use her correctly. Thus far, I think this was her only story arc.

1006-1007 was a two parter where the Spectre shows up and needs Batman’s dectective skills to find his host Jim Corrigan before a cult of Spectre worshippers sacrifices him.

1008 was a one off where the Joker is holding an entire Amusement Park hostage.

1009-1011. When Bruce and a bunch of other CEO’s are headed to a conference on climate change in Singapore, Deadshot is hired to assassinate them. But the jet their flying on crashes on a remote island in the pacific, and Bruce has to make a makeshift Batman costume with help of two WWII pilots, one American, one Japanese, who have been trapped on the island living with each other for the past 60 years. Together they stop Deadshot and get the survivors of the jet crash rescued. That enemy mine cliche bullshit really took the piss out on this one.

1012-1016. With gifts privided by Apex Lex during the Year of the Villain event, Mr. Freeze is experimenting on women by inserting his wife’s DNA into them in order to get the formula to resurrect her exactly right. He wakes her up and she immediately becomes a super-villain alongside him, robbing banks and shit. Then she decides she doesn’t want to be his wife anymore and double crosses him, so Freeze has to go team up with Batman to stop her. In the end, she escapes, and Freeze winds up in the same condition she was all those years, and Batman puts him into storage until he can figure out a way to revive him.

1017. A oneoff where an orphan escapes one of the several orphanages Bruce Wayne funds in the city, and succumbs to the elements before Batman and Robin can find him and save him. But before he dies, he reveals that hundreds of kids aren’t being properly accounted for in the books, and are being trafficked under the radar by the orphanages. Which pisses Bruce off obviously.

More to come…

[Diabolical]

I read all of those Detective Comics and I barely remember any of them.
The synopsis for each sounded vaguely familiar.

[Tom Foolery]

I read all of those Detective Comics and I barely remember any of them.
The synopsis for each sounded vaguely familiar.

Peter Tomasi is a vastly meh writer. He’s just un-shitty enough to keep writing the series. And King was writing the main book at the same time, so these issues would’ve been extra forgettable in comparison.

[jjreason]

Was Tomasi on Superman or Action leading up to 1000? I really enjoyed both superman books for the time I was reading them.