The Creators – Tom King – Writer, Jorge Fornés – Artist, Dave Stewart – Colours, Clayton Cowles – Letters

The Players – Lady Cop, The Dingbats of Danger Street, Warlord, Starman, Metamorpho, Atlas, The Creeper, The Green Team, Manhunter, Codename: Assassin, Doctor Fate’s Helmet

The Story – Unrelated incidents, while seeming to have nothing to do with the other, start to weave together in a tale about capturing Darkseid.

The Take – Though Darkseid might not appear in this particular issue, writer Tom King and artist Jorge Fornés begin crafting numerous threads that look as if they are leading towards that particular conclusion. Could it go another way? The answer is yes of course and yet, despite many of the elements and plot threads in this book not referencing directly or indirectly Darkseid in any manner, the fact that a few of them are starting to connect by the end of the issue, how could one but infer that to be the case? All of it starts out with a mysterious narrator who is revealed at the end, and it feels like there is going to be some kind of crime about to take place, the book having that gritty, Law & Order type of vibe. It moves on to the Creeper taking his violence to an all-new level while a few other random heroes, namely Metamorpho, Warlord and Starman, do their thing with the helmet of Dr. Fate, somehow now in their possession. Things soon spiral out of control while they begin to come together and what started out as one thing, soon ends as another. King writes a very interesting tale and he takes all of these characters from DC’s First Issue Special series and weaves them all together masterfully to create a very compelling narrative. One does have to wonder what Travis Morgan is doing outside of Skartaris but for this story, a suspension of disbelief is likely needed to enjoy it a little more than usual given the completely different makeups of the various players in this game. If there is one standout, it has to be Lady Cop, a character that has played no significant role in the DCU and while she has just as much page time as any other character in the book, King makes her a fully three-dimensional person that readers want to know more about. Fornés provides some great artwork that perfectly suits the story being told and one has to immediately question why the man does not get more work from the Big Two given his talent. This was a fascinating read and a very entertaining one from start to finish, a curiosity at first to see just how King would end up doing what he had planned and after this book, one that makes it worth coming back for the rest of the series.

Worth It? – Yes.