Jon Kent: Oh No the JL is dead what do we do.

Dick Grayson (who has lived through most of these heroes deaths, some of them twice and remembers Diana was dead within the last year) :

the Trinity in Justice League vol 4 #75

Dark Crisis #3 Cover by Daniel Sampere

Dark Crisis #0 Free Comic Day 2022

Ollie. Dinah. Clark. Diana... we’re just taking his word that they’re gone?

Hal Jordan in Dark Crisis (2022) #1

I have to say that the choice of Jason Todd and Kyle Rayner for this Justice League Green Lantern Dark Crisis special is... interesting.

I mean, from the synopsis and covers, it does feel like John Stewart's 'fantasy world' really is fantasy-like in that he is a knight and Kyle is a prophet (a blind prophet) and Jason... has a gun?

From what I'm thinking, maybe this fantasy world is like a Gotham City and John is its Batman? And the choice of Jason because of all the Robins Jason is the one whose expertise mirrors John's in a way (John was in the army, Jason is the only trained weapons specialist of the group).

It wouldn't be the first of these JL specials to mirror Batman, as the Superman special finds him in a world where his dream of having Jon be his official sidekick (in a Robin-inspired outfit) is the main premise. This also makes me wonder if all of these specials are variations of Batman themes and involve the Batfamily (because, though we are fatigued they ARE DC's bread and butter y'all).

AND thinking of this made me question the release order of the specials. Superman is #1 and Jon is supposed to be an homage to Dick Grayson. Green Lantern is number 2, and it features Jason Todd. I wouldn't be surprised if 3 and 4 (Wonder Woman and Green Arrow) feature Tim and Steph in some way, not to mention how the backpage stories might work and who will be woven in. And 5 would be Damian but this is also the Batman special, and I think it ends with him because in everyone's perfect world they're some sort of version of Batman, but in Batman's perfect world there is no Batman ("A perfect world would never create a Batman" very similar to when Clark told Earth-2 Superman a perfect world is one without Superman) so it's very much Wayne Family Adventures but with Damian and... either a baby or a grown woman Helena Wayne!

But I could talk about that in a whole nother post... as much as I could how both Bruce and Barry's idealized paradises are ones where they're just being domestic. But I digress...

So that might explain Jason, but what about the Kyle of it all?

There were a plethora of Lanterns to choose from that John has worked with AND are from Earth. We have to think about the character Kyle will be portraying and who would easily fill this role, then.

Hal and Guy are immediately out. No way could they ever be the kind of prophet this story needs. Plus they would overshadow the other characters in the story. Jason and Guy's characters will act to similarly and make the story one-dimensional. Hal would step too much on John's toes. So it has to be those who came after John in the Corps.

Of corpsmen, the three who come to mind are Simon Baz, Jo Mullein, and Kyle Rayner. Of the three, Simon and Jo have been present and featured in the storyline where John became the Emerald Knight, so it wouldn't be surprising if those two were chosen. Plus Kyle's been MIA for a long while since the latest GL series started. However, considering the third element - the Jason factor - they probably looked back to see who could be the perfect complement there to balance things out, and they landed on Kyle. It also helps that they both have history with Kyle as well. I expect Kyle to really lean into his artistic side in this one-shot.

Tl;dr the use of Jason might be more than just a crumb for JayKyle stans, it might hint at how the singular thread connecting the worlds in these is the Batman-ness of it all (especially since Nightwing seems to be leading the heroes and confirmed villains running amok after the DotJL are Deathstroke and Clayface, Batman villains). However, JayKyle has to be considered because choices are not made in a vacuum, especially character and story choices.

President Superman, we’ll follow your lead.

A retrospective on the history of (the major players model of the) Justice League in the wake of #75. A project that took months of reading and a rewrite that cut my draft by half as I realized I was trying to get into and therefore justify every single crappy comic I'd poured through, but I think this came out really well and I'm proud of it.

Among the darlings I had to kill, I realized this didn't actually fit the article as I was writing it but I still like it:

And, as an extra little note while I'm here, my personal favorite Justice League panel:

So he raiders of the lost ark'd the JL and I'm like oh that's an easy fix. They didn't die they went to a whatever dimension. Now that's not a criticism by any stretch . The art is great, and I've seen interviews with the author talking about focusing on legacy characters and the importance of them. This seems like an earnest attempt of giving us a different dc landscape that'll focus on characters that often get overlooked or underutilized. I'm cautiously optimistic, and wanna see where it goes.

AU where Jason gets his revenge by becoming a lawyer and getting joker sentenced to the death penalty

Bruce is conflicted about it but any time he tries to say anything on the subject Alfred just talks over him like "oh we're so proud of you master Jason you finished college and you didn't even use your father's extensive resources that could've easily gotten someone in this family a degree aren't we so proud master Bruce that Jason got himself a respectable profession--"

"Death of the Justice League" Justice League vol 4 #75

Don't let King Phantom get bored or he will do meaningless things

Danny got bored and decided to have a tennis competition, even though he had no idea how to play Tennis and had never held a racket in his life. He thought it would be fun.

He joined Dan because incredibly he knew how to play tennis (he was also quite fed up with Danny's presence, but he didn't have many options since the halfa had promised him his freedom if he won), and his opponents were Jazz and Dani.

In a very short time Danny got tired of losing. Clockwork suggested him to get new players to practice, and he took it seriously. Maybe he would have to look for superheroes to practice with.

He abused his Ghost King powers and transported the Justice League to the Realms to, you guessed it, play tennis. He explained that he and Dan would be their opponents in the final round, and if they didn't win, Dan would be free.

Dan was quick to explain that he was a prisoner of war after destroying a universe, but the King promised his freedom if he won (which wasn't entirely a lie), and wished them luck, commenting that perhaps he would visit their universe next.

Jazz and Dani sighed at their brothers' behavior; Dan would visit to annoy someone, though he surely wouldn't do anything, and Danny didn't even know how to play tennis but somehow made all the heroes panic. It was pretty obvious that they were both playing.

After this interaction John Constantine wondered what the fuck was wrong with the universe. Was the balance of his world really tied to a hyperactive teenager and his weird family?

After being ignored by the Justice League for years and thought of as a scam Phantom finally faces an opponent he didn't win against and his city is destroyed, killing everyone. The monster is heavily wounded by Phantom however as it was a brutal fight for both of them

Danny is heartbroken and in shock while the Justice League face off against this threat and also lose. Eventually they get thier second wind and rematch it and kill the thing, but just barely.

Later a small memorial was held for Amity Park and Phantom was enraged at how small it was. 70,000 people died and this was it? Most of the people hear weren't even mourners. They were press and fake ghost enthusiasts trying to catch internet points for thier viewer count. He hears some redhead say that the people of Amity were scammers and this whole ghost thing was fake. With tears in his eyes he screams, not as Fenton but as Phantom, "I'm fake?!" He grabbed the man by his throat and flew a few feet into the air, "You think I'm fake?! Here! Let's see how fake I am!" His words were dripping venom as he possessed the man and laughed as he used him as a puppet, attacking the people around him with ectoblasts and sending them running away screaming.

Bruce Wayne watched on as some unknown Elderich entity possessed Wally West and began attacking people. So Amity Parks pleas for help as well as the pleas from thier supposedly fake superhero were not just part of an elaborate tourist trap.

Green lantern had some explaining to do. Hopefully it wasn't too late to salvage the situation and save this child.

It was.

You know those "Justice League meets the Batfam" fics where the the league kidnaps Red Hood to interrogate him bc they think he's a villain? I think there should be more fics where he trauma dumps as a manipulation tactic, just to catch them off guard

The JL: why are you doing this?

Jason: I was kidnapped by the Joker when I was 15 where he then tortured me for hours, possibly even days on end. He repeatedly hit me with a crowbar, trying different stroke tactics, asking me which hurt more everytime he switched strokes

The JL:

The newly released Dark Crisis #1 and Free Comic Book Day’s Dark Crisis #0 previews, complete with checklist for the whole event!