Written by James Tynion IV and John Ridley
Wildstorm concepts:
I’d already made this post, but now I’m including the Infinite Frontier and Next Batman issues to it, because they didn’t merit their own posts and they read as a single whole.
These issues marked the beginning of a new era of Wildstorm characters appearing more regularly across the DCU. It begins coming off the Joker War, in which Batman’s fortune was redirected to his tech guy, Lucius Fox. Since the city is in such disarray and he’s become an important person, Lucius hires a bodyguard – our boy Cole Cash, Grifter.
His first job is to go to Ninh Thuan, Vietnam, to tell Lucius’ son, Jace, to come home. He used to be called Tim, but he changed his name to Jace for reasons as of yet unknown. He left the country following some very wild youth years in which he ran over a kid with his car and his parents covered it up. He was sent to Sanford Academy, a private school for problem children, where he learned self-defense and how to kick ass along with classmates Vol and Hadiyah. As an adult, he was trained by Katana, the superhero, and became a vigilante with the aid of his friends. Jace was in Vietnam going after Tyler Arkadine, an alleged human trafficker. Except nothing was what it seemed in the mission, because Arkadine knew Jace was coming and apparently he wasn’t even a trafficker – he held files which exposed Batman’s involvement with Wayne Industries. Now, why am I stopping for so long on Jace, who’s not even a Wildstorm character? Because he’s written by the Oscar-winner John Ridley, who’s a bloody genius.
Either way, Grifter brings Jace home; now that the Fox family is in the public scene, they’re under heavier scrutiny, and Jace has to give testimony over the kid he killed. Cole then gives a report to Lucius. As he puts it, “Does Jace have his shit together? Can’t say. Bringing him home was my job. Fixing the kid is yours.”
Afterward, Lucius lets Cole know Batman will be showing up to discuss the future of his company, but Grifter picks a fight with the Bat anyway, just to be able to say he did it once in his life. He obviously loses, but it ends with him pulling a gun by surprise, so it could’ve ended either way. It goes to show how different these two character’s modus operandis are.
After meeting Lucius, Batman discusses finances. While leaving, Batman turns to Grifter and gives him a message to his boss – not Lucius, but his true boss, Halo. He tells him he knows of them, and that the city might be changing, but he’ll still be watching.
Shortly after, we see Grifter pull his weight as bodyguard when he moves Lucius and his son, Jace, to a panic room when there’s a massive-scale attack on Arkham. The news say it’s a Joker attack, but the person responsible is actually someone else whose identity is still a mystery!
Next: “Supergirl” Vol 7 issue 18, written by Steve Orlando.
This one’s a doozy! It’s very hard to sum up this event, or this issue, really, but it fulfills the same function as last event’s “Dark Knights Rising: The Wild Hunt”. Essentially, the multiverse’s coming down, and a team of heroes from different Earths assemble on a Carrier to save all of reality. In this case, the Carrier is used by Justice Incarnate, a team introduced in Grant Morrison’s Multiversity, with help of the Green Lantern Corps. They battle an assortment of evil Earths, including the Vampire Earth, Nazi Earth, Bizarro Earth, Crime Syndicate Earth, and Justice Lords Earth.
This one was a surprising connection to Wildstorm, but unfortunately it took place in the middle of the bloated, convoluted and messy Metal crossover. To make a long story short, heroes Flash, Cyborg and Raven are aboard the monitor shiftship Ultima Thule as they travel through bleed space on their way to the House of Heroes, an old Monitor satellite being used to house heroes from all over the Multiverse. The main DC Earth is being attacked by evil versions of Batman from the Dark Multiverse, all serving their dark lord Barbatos – so the heroes are looking for help.
It’s a typical crisis for the Bat-Family: because of a radio signal, every child in the world has been ordered to kill their parents. To help coordinate things, they asked for Midnighter’s help, who lent them his Door technology. As every member in the batfamily gathers at Midnighter’s home, he’s forced to kick out the guy he had just slept with. He knows he’s acting crass in front of the heroes; they wouldn’t know what to do if he was helpful right out of the gate. To help find a batfamily member, Harper, Midnighter gets to work on his computers with Harper’s brother, Cullen. It seems all the signal transmitters block doors around them, so they’ll have to get to them the hard way. They’ll have to battle the children softly, so Midnighter stays put as ops. To stop the one responsible for everything, Mother, Midnighter sends Grayson to the artic circle. Meanwhile, Midnighter stays with Cullen, who is a tech wiz and helps him hack cameras. Cullen makes them some sandwiches — all Middy has is cupboards full of peanut butter. The nuances of civilian life continue to elude him.
New 52's Wildstorm 