I think
we start with Granny Goodness. I’ve already said it really should be Kathy
Bates playing her, because that would be perfect. But imagine her sitting down
with some children, telling them a bedtime story in one of her orphanages, and
it starting like any normal bedtime story, but slowly layering in horrors the
like of which would give the Brothers Grimm nightmares. She tells the story of
two warring peoples, the gods of New Genesis and Apokalips, and how their war
scarred the cosmos, destroying planets, entire solar systems, until a fragile
peace was declared, commenced with the exchange of two heirs to either ruling
family- Scott Free, and Darkseid’s son, Orion. Once this fairy tale becomes too
scary, we cut away from the dungeonous orphanage, to a balcony atop one of the
spires of New Genesis.
We see
some of the cruelty of New Genesis, as children mock Orion for being the son of
the Devi; his temper flares, even if he keeps it under wraps until after the
children leave. That’s when he’s found by the Highfather. Orion asks if his dad
really is the Devil. “Darkseid isn’t the Devil, but yes, you are his heir.”
Orion, clearly hurting, asks if his father loved him, how could he give him
away. “Our children are our hope and prayer for a better tomorrow. But a prayer
muttered alone will not build a better world; the best thing a parent can do
for their children is also the hardest: letting them soar on the open wind.”
The
story follows three children. Orion, raised in relative luxury on New Genesis.
Scott, languishing in Granny’s orphanage. And Barda… okay, so Barda is also
raised at Granny’s orphanage, but for the sake of contrast, I’m going to have
her be, essentially, one of the popular kids, Granny’s favorite, groomed for a
special place. Scott is her lowliest charge, essentially singled out by
Darkseid and Granny to be ground into nothing- but not through violence,
through his own insignificance- they put him into what is, essentially,
parademon basic training, which, like all life on Apokalips but the most
privileged, is to have all life, all hope, all will, pressed out of you. Barda
and Scott aren’t really aware of each other. They tangentially run into each
other; Barda is responsible for thwarting one of his escape attempts by
chucking a weapon at his back as he flees. But increasingly the orphanage
becomes bifurcated, with Scott’s section becoming more dungeonous, filled with
traps and torture equipment, but also increasingly more dreary and cold. And
increasingly, Scott becomes the face of the rebellious movement against Granny.
He escapes, causes havoc, maybe does a little organizing, before getting put
away again. Orion finds acceptance, at least temporarily, by helping save some
children on New Genesis. All while Barda becomes more and more engrained in the
upper echelons. But I think, at least at the beginning, we’re going to have
three narrations, but also, that they’re going to kind of be the same, at least
in their goals.
We
start with Scott, because he’s the face of this thing, both its most fun and
interesting character, but also its most tragic (at least in the beginning).
“From the time I was a child, all I wanted to do was escape this
hell.” I think we show a classroom, and for a moment it could be any
science fiction story starting in an advanced school, albeit cold and
alien-looking. Young Scott Free, as his adult self narrates, is answering a
very simple, one-question test. Granny reads it aloud, to prevent there from
being any question what the question is: As a citizen of Apokalips, I live only
for… which Scott has answered, in an exotic kind of crayon, in a child’s
unsteady hand, he’s written the word “escape.”
Granny’s
shadow eclipses his paper, and Scott, a little intimidated, looks up at her.
“Oh, Scott,” she begins, and for a moment we’re lulled into the
possibility that she’s going to be kind, and gently correct him, that despite
her space-fascist outfit and cape, there’s a glint of softness in her eyes, but
we show her reeling back with her weapon as she says, “you really never
learn.” I imagine violence against a child will be too much to depict in
too great a detail, but we can have him off-screen, receiving the attack, as
energy flashes light Granny’s face. Still on her face, but she’s now angry. She
blasts with her weapon, as a slightly older Scott dodges overhead on his
signature discs, the blast weakening the one window in the classroom enough
that, as we cut outside to see the crack form, Scott flies out the window.
“Thankfully, I always had a talent for escape.” In the next moment,
Scott, a little beaten up, is thrust back into his seat in front of Granny.
“Unfortunately for me, on Apokalips there really isn’t anywhere to escape
to.”
We cut
back to the previous scene. Adult Barda narrates: “From the time I was a
child, all I wanted was to escape this life.” Granny finishes her attack
on Scott and spins on her heels, lurking over Barda, who is sitting with her
hands neatly folded. On her page, in surprisingly clean and crisp letters,
she’s written the correct answer: Darkseid. Granny practically glows (at least
insofar as she’s capable).
“Very
good, Barda. Young Mr. Free could learn much from you- if he weren’t such a
dunce. I think it’s time we sent you to the advanced course.” Barda is
shown to be special. She was Granny’s favorite, shown as a child to have an
exceptional talent for combat, even besting a parademon before puberty, and
clearly enjoying the warrior’s life. She’s shown the closest thing Granny shows
to affection (it is fleeting and superficial, but in an entire world that is
basically a high-tech concentration camp, it’s a tiny flash of humanity). Granny
pins a cape to a still quite young Barda, a signal of her rank. Below is a
procession of dregs, in dirty, blackened rags, marching but with no fanfare at
all, from their barracks to the factories. “It’s better to rule in hell,
than to live among its offal.” We see Scott escape below, flying on his
discs, this time narrowly avoiding large blocks that shift to try to contain
his escape. Barda raises her weapon (similar to Granny’s; in fact, she’s
starting to look like a young Granny) and fires, knocking Scott from the sky.
He crashes on the shifting block, and is snatched by parademons.
“Unfortunately, sometimes rulers have to be cruel to be kind.”
Now we
show New Genesis again. A young Orion is held down by kids his own age, who
smear handfuls of paint along his face to make him more closely resemble
Darkseid, as they taunt him that he should be back on Apokalips with his own
kind. Orion punches one of them, bloodying his knuckles, and the children flee.
We cut to him, looking in the mirror at the greasy paint smeared into his hair
and across his face, interrupted by streaky tears running down his face. An
older Orion narrates as we also intercut his bloodied hands as he looks at his
reflection in the mirror, seeing overlaid his father’s face, “From the
time I was a child, all I wanted was to escape this devil,” (part of that,
is wanting to escape his own rage, which he recognizes is the first step to his
truly becoming Darkseid’s heir).
Izaya
helps the boy wash his face, and comforts him. “Your rage is understandable,
Orion,” the Highfather says. “Only children can be so cruel- and
those who never outgrow a child’s outlook. They hate what they fear, and fear
what they don’t understand. But what I know, my son, is that you are not the
devil they see, nor are you the monster you fear. You are merely a boy, bravely
hopeful that he can be better than his forebears. And you can.”
Orion,
simply crushed under the weight of all of this, holds up his hand, still
bloodied. “I struck one of them.”
Highfather
is patient. “You did. But remember the time before? You struck several.
And before that, you struck all of them, several repeatedly. And today, you did
so with great reluctance. I know that our Eden is held as idyllic, our ways
peaceful. They are neither. We are the counter to Apokalips. While the day may
seem overly kind beside the dark, it is only through persevering over the night
that we maintain life in the universe, growth. Without the day’s light, nothing
could sustain life.” Orion asks about mushrooms, and Highfather smiles.
“Mushrooms are merely a different kind of life, persevering even through
the dark; they are a testament to the strength and will of life…”
We
follow inside Granny’s orphanage as the Highfather’s words seep in, “but
they are not enough to sustain it.” Scott anticipates returning to his
classroom again, but a thin man in robes stops him. “Darkseid grows
impatient with your lack of progress; Granny’s compassion has spoiled you,
child, but I will not spare the rod.” The robed figure clings to his staff
eagerly. Scott becomes more and more concerned as he is led into increasingly
more dungeonous territory. A parademon brings a prisoner to the robed figure.
The prisoner addresses him as “DeSaad,” and begs him for mercy, that
he wasn’t trying to escape. DeSaad says he was hoping for a chance to test the
enhancements to his rod. It bathes the man in fire, and he collapses to the
ground, mewling. DeSaad is very proud of his handywork. “It takes an
artists eye to get the balance right. Too much heat, and you’ll cook the meat
and kill the body; too much force and you peel away the flesh, and they die.
No, the key is just enough of both to make the pain exquisitely unbearable.
He’ll beg to die, when he regains his strength, but in time he will heal, and
we can start the progress over again.”
“You’re
a monster,” Scott says.
“Unlucky
for you, the real monster’s taken a personal interest in you, now. Normally, I
like watching the systemic demolition of hope from a young man’s eyes. But the
sheer hate he holds for you- if you want to jump, I’ll let you. I promise you,
it’s the last kindness you’ll ever know.” Scott follows his gaze down into
a chasm, its black depths punctuated by pools of molten rock at the bottom.
During their gazing, the other prisoner manages to roll himself over the edge.
He crumples as he lands, before the boiling rock envelopes him. But it doesn’t
swallow. It just roils around him as he wriggles in agony.
DeSaad
is just tickled pink by this; it might be too much to have him howl in delight.
“Takes a genius, to devise a trap like this one, and so few Apokaliptians
are up to appreciating it. The fall is calculated, to the millimeter, to smash
the bones, but not to kill. And the boiling rock, it’s not so hot to kill- just
to sear- and to cauterize any wounds he sustained.” Water is poured down
into the chasm. “We keep them moist, so they don’t dry out. They’d starve,
before succumbing, but we pluck them out before it happens. Sometimes we set
their bones, only to throw them back in. Sometimes we let all their burns heal.
I’m a technologist by trade, but my passion is the science of suffering. You
and I, Scott, you’re going to be my masterpiece of pain. And if you’re lucky,
I’ll make some stumble and end you, because if I don’t, Darkseid’s wroth will
render my research quaint. To him, I am not even an apprentice; he is the true
master of agony.”
We cut
to Darkseid, sitting in a throne over a gladiatorial pit. Goddfrey introduces
the combatants: Lashina and Barda will fight two captured New Genesis
weaponsmiths. Goddfrey tells them they have a chance to prove their worth by
using their designed weapons to defeat Darkseid’s Furies… unless they’ve been
sandbagging. At first the weapons don’t work (that’s the reason they’re in this
pickle to begin with), but they manage to stay alive long enough to fix them,
and turn them on the Furies. But Lashina and Barda have only been toying with
them. Even with their fancy New God tech, the two Furies easily disarm them.
Darkseid holds up his hand and both promise to live for Darkseid. He puts his
thumb down, and Lashina executes them both as Barda watches, bidding they die
for Darkseid.
On New
Genesis, Orion is dressed in sentinel garb (his usual costume), essentially a
peacekeeping force. However, one of his fellow soldiers mocks him as “the
Little Dictator.” Orion tries to hold his temper, until the guy shoves him
out of line, which turns his drill instructor’s attentions to him. Orion
attacks. We cut to later, as Highfather arrives as Orion is being dressed down
by the officer, who questions both his loyalty and bravery, attacking a fellow
sentinel. Highfather chastises the instructor, saying his son is every bit as
loyal as any of New Genesis’ citizens, and twice as brave, perhaps too brave,
to where he’d fight his own for his honor. Highfather stares down the one who
started it, saying Orion has a temper, but he’s no provocateur. Orion
intercedes, and says to leave it- that he doesn’t want his father- either of
them- to lord his position over someone, and storms off. After a moment,
Highfather smiles, and follows.
Back on
Apokalips, in a tight corridor, a child holds its parents’ hand, clinging
desparately. A parademon strikes the parent, and the hand goes limp, even as
the child clings more tightly, and Scott
Free, flying on his discs, bursts in, light streaming, now in his full Mr.
Miracle garb. He stops the parademon assault, and whisks parent and child away.
I’m assuming this is still a young Scott, so built like Spider-Man moreso than
an adult. He sets the parent and child down safely, but they’re angry at
exposing them to potentially more danger; they’re being kind of a jerk, but I
want it to be reasonable, too, that we understand that they are simply reacting
to Apokalips, where fighting back is far more dangerous than being crushed
slowly to death- especially in the lessons it teaches an already frightened
child (side note: their crime was trying to keep and raise their child- all
children are supposed to be surrendered to Granny’s orphanages, so they really
are a revolutionary in the making). Scott offers them an entertainment, a
temporary escape from the violence and danger of Apokaliptian life, pulling
back a curtain, inviting them, as a sign proclaims, to see Mr. Miracle’s
escape. Oberon works as the hype man, as Scott performs death-defying feats.
It’s a small, underground audience (Apokalips really doesn’t have space for
theater- that’s also why his garb is so unusual; the world is mostly black and
gray, the sole exception being officers in Darkseid’s army, for whom color is a
sign of rank). After the show, Scott convinces parent and child to stick
around. Then he convinces Oberon to help him smuggle them out, to the
resistance. Oberon’s reluctant; the kid said the last time was the last time,
that if they keep taking risks they get caught, and if they get caught the
resistance gets exposed. Scott reluctantly agrees, that of course Oberon’s
right, they can’t be careless, he just needs Oberon to do one thing and he’ll go
along: he has to tell the kid they can’t help.
And
Oberon tries, gets down on the kid’s level, and can see they’re just scared.
Oberon melts, “Aw, kid, I’m no good at giving bad news.” He stands
up, huffily. “Fine, fine, we’ll take em. You know the kid’s got that same
dangerous glint in their eyes.” Scott asks if it’s charm. “Worse.
Hope. We give too many of these people hope, and we’re just setting them up for
this world to crush em even worse.”
Scott
has a genuine offection for Oberon, and tells him he appreciates how he
“keeps him grounded.” Oberon, seeing the kid from a distance, says
Scott keeps him doing the right thing, despite himself.
We cut
to New Genesis, basically modern day. He flies through the air in what is
essentially an airborne segue. Orion’s wearing a helmet, and through that he’s
radioed. “Orion, we have an airborne radar contact, trajectory would
suggest an Apokaliptian origin. Flight pattern suggests a parademon, though
whether its a scout or one of them escaped the pens we don’t know.” Orion
says he’ll check it out. It’s a parademon, all right, and gives him a run for
his money (I’m going to say we should upgrade parademons from the ones
Steppenwolf brought to Earth in Justice League; since he was on the outs, his
army consisted of the crummiest of the parademons- they should be more
formidable than his were then, at least in general.
Orion
talks to himself a bit, so we understand he’s following the typical protocol,
that they usually just fire warning shots to chase the parademons back home.
But this one is persistent, refusing; it wants something. Orion’s given the
order to shoot it down to prevent it from completing whatever its mission is.
He does, but it barrels down onto one of the trams (think a monorail, but the
track is a pair of flimsy golden pipes- really elegant looking but the
parademon smashes through it. And that juncture point is for a school- and
Orion can see that there is basically a bus full of school children barreling
towards the end of the line without an end point. Orion lands roughly to beat
the kids to the end of the line and hold up the broken rail so the bus comes to
a relatively smooth stop.
One of
the teachers runs to the bus, but is surprised to see Orion. She’s somewhat
shamed by her behavior as a kid, but also recognizes she’s beautiful and has a
wellspring of confidence from that. “I used to pick on you,” she
says, “when we were kids.” Orion, barely able to meet her gaze, tells
her he remembers. She tells him she was wrong- they all were. She’s felt awful
about it- but never enough to contact him- “I had no right to force an
apology on you to salve my guilt. But I see it on your face, even now, how I
hurt you. I had no right to do that, either. I’m sorry.” He asks if she
teaches. She does, but also, her daughter was on that bus, she tells him, as
her little girl gets clear and runs to her. She says she doesn’t know, after
losing her child’s father last year, how she could have withstood losing her,
too. “There are no words to express my sorrow for the pain I caused you,
and an equal degree for the sorrow you spared me today.” She tells him
he’s a better citizen of New Genesis than most of them could ever hope to be.
She smiles at him and leaves.
“So
why do I feel so angry?” Orion asks, as he limps his flying frame away.
Izaya is talking to him through his helmet. He tells him that the wounds she
caused him run deep, that she exposed a nerve, and while over the long term her
words might touch him, even sooth him, in that moment, all they can do is
deepen his hurts. Orion asks if those wounds ever heal, if he’ll ever feel like
he’s earned his place on New Genesis. Highfather assures him he has, a hundred
fold; he is, in the humble opinion of his father, one of their finest citizens.
But he is also his father’s son, a creature of deep longing.
“But
where Darkseid needs to control, all thought, all will, all life, you, Orion,
need to belong, to feel loved and needed and cared for. The people of New
Genesis have not always lived up to our ideals and provided for that need.”
Orion
tells him he thinks he’s right- that, like his father, he needs too much. Izaya
tells him that wasn’t the lesson he wanted him to take from what he said, and
Orion tells him that doesn’t make it any less true. He says that his has not
always been the easiest life, but he remembers his earliest days on Apokalips,
that his worst day on New Genesis paled to his best moment on Apokalips, and
even there he had been the favored son of its despot. He worries over Scott,
the son the Highfather traded for him.
The
resistance leader, Himon, thanks Scott for turning in another refugee. Their
campaign is going well, all things considered, and it’s only with the help of
those like him that they’re able to continue to work to free even some of
Apokalips from the tyrant’s grasp.
“Why
him?” Barda asks, looking at a hologram of Mr. Miracle. We’re now in
Granny Goodness’ war room, where she tasks her furies on their most secretive
missions.
“Why
him?” Granny asks. “Because Scott Free is the lowliest of the low. He
has always been a worm, but the worst kind- the kind who refuses to be trod
under foot.” She explains that Goddfrey’s spies have found dozens of resistance
agents who could be used to destroy their movement. But it needs to be Scott.
When we break his rebel friends, when the last dying ember of hope is stamped
out, Scott Free needs to know that it was his failure that led to so much loss,
and pain. “Why him? Because he has always refused to live for Darkseid, and I
want his breaking to be the triumph they recall for millenia after me.”
“But
why me?” Barda asks, suddenly anxious.
As
Granny narrates, the hologram shifts, showing Barda at various points in her
rise. “Because you, Barda, are my finest success. A brutal warrior, a
brilliant student, the ruthless leader of my Furies. If anyone can remove the
black stain of Scott Free’s smile from my record, it’s you, dear. Break him for
me, Big Barda, and your reward will stir envy in your peers the like of which
you’ve never seen.”
We cut
to a transport. Barda seems anxious. Some of that is she’s dressed in the same
rags as the rest of the underclass. Some of it is, it’s really her first
experience among them. She’s been told, from childhood, that they are deserving
of their status, they are dregs for a reason, capable only of corruption if not
for the careful guidance of Darkseid, who yolks their unruly, wanton cruelty to
provide some measure of prosperity. At first she feels naked without her armor
or her weapon- after all, her entire life she’s been told how desperate the dregs
are, clawing at their betters for any purchase to pull themselves up- or pull
their betters down. But these people aren’t her enemy; they aren’t even capable
of presenting a threat, they’re so beaten down and broken. One of the workers
stumbles, and a parademon spins on him with a cat o’ nine tails like weapon.
Barda catches his elbow. That gets her more attention from other guards, and
eventually she’s beating the hell out of a handful of parademons on her own,
caught up in the moment. The laborer she saved helps her escape, bidding her
slide into a low-lying window.
Barda
is surprised at herself. She wants to be upset- she could well have ruined her
subterfuge, but the thrill of battle has her blood up. The laborer is
terrified, of and for her, but reason they owe her help, since they’ll be
looking for her. They can get her to the resistance. “To fight?”
Barda asks, still exhilirated by the fight. They tell her it’s to flee- that
they’re the only way she can get out of the city alive. The laborer leads them
through some underground tunnels, which eventually open up into a gray market.
The laborer explains to Barda where she needs to go, when a parademon notices
them. She tells the laborer to run, that she’ll lead it off. She runs a
squadron of them a merry chase, before being bottled in an alley. She’s about
to fight, when Mr. Miracle descends from the sky on his flying discs. He’s
almost as formidable as she is (though now she’s playing damsel a bit- helping
when his back is turned so as not to arouse suspicion). Barda flips the rescue,
preventing Scott from being shot in the back by a parademon. He whisks her
away, and takes her to the rebellion’s secret base.
She
meets our important players for this portion of the movie, who want to funnel
Barda out of town. But she wants to stay and fight. Scott intercedes, telling
them she saved his life, and seems more than capable of handling herself. Himon
doesn’t like it, but one of their number got swept up by a patrol, so they’re
short a hand; he warns her it’ll be sink or swim, “But if you do need a
hand, I have been known to function as a floatation device,” Scott says.
The leader plays the heavy, each time trying to convince her that they will cut
her loose if she threatens any of their safety, or their mission, each time
undercut by Scott. Scott is defiant, chivalrous and charming; despite herself,
Barda begins to warm to him.
The
mission is breaking into one of Darkseid’s research pens. Darkseid’s search for
the Anti-Life equation is one half a spiritual quest, one half super unethical
research. The fruits of his labors so far are the parademons, essentially
mindless, feral husks that were once living people just like those on New
Genesis.
The
plan had not been for Barda to rough up a dozen parademons, so Granny,
concerned, sends the other furies to arrest the rebel leaders. They snatch
Barda in the night, give Barda her uniform, and tell her arrests happen at dawn.
Barda can’t sleep. Eventually she bursts in on Scott, who tries to play it
cool, at first not getting that this isn’t a booty call. She warns Scott, tells
him to save himself- that they can’t save the resistance, but he doesn’t
deserve whatever Darkseid has planned for him.
Scott
tells her that he trusts her with his life, his happiness, his hope, that
“none of it is worth saving from Darkseid if we think it’s so fragile we
can never share it,” and he kisses her, and for a moment she’s lost in the
kiss, in for once feeling something good and vital and life-affirming, but the
crushing reality of Apokalips comes rushing back to her and she pulls away from
him. She tells him, angrily, she already tried to save him, by warning him off;
he answers with a smile, and tells her, “I know. Now I’m trying to save
you.”
Barda
comes with the other Furies, conflicted as all get out. But when Lashina sets
upon Scott, she isn’t conflicted, and she doesn’t hesitate. She blasts Lashina,
and she, Scott, and Oberon, flee. Only this time, they’ve got a Motherbox, so
they can make it off world, arriving on New Genesis.
They
tell Highfather what happened, Scott relating the degradation he suffered in
the name of peace. Highfather weeps, “Would that I could have taken your
place, son, I would have; would that I could take your sorrows as mine to erase
them from your soul.”
Orion,
hearing all this, is pissed. He’s worked so hard to be accepted, so hard to be
loved, so hard to feel he deserves to be Highfather’s son, only for Darkseid’s
castoff to waltz in and be granted the title merely for being born.
“Son?” He roars. “You call this wretched beast son.”
“I
do, son; I have learned great affection for beasts, no matter their
wretchedness,” he says, and tenderly strokes Orion’s cheek. But
Highfather’s (and Avia’s) love is no match for Orion’s pain, and he continues
advancing, his steps heavy with anger. But just as tragedy seems fit to strike,
Scott scoops Orion up, joy in his voice as he exclaims that he has a brother.
Scott hugs him fiercely; he knew, in his heart, on Apokalips that he had
parents, but for the first time, in this space, with all of those he loves,
does he feel like he truly has a family. And, despite himself, so, too, does
Orion, caught up (as much as the curmudgeonly New God can be) in Scott’s joy,
admiting with some strain, and indeed surprise that he has a brother.
The
fragile peace is ended, however, by Scott’s successful escape, giving Darkseid
the pretext he required to reignite the war.
Only
Darkseid has been busy. During the war that split Genesis, their original
planet, in half, New Genesis was technologically superior. Think Russia during
World War II, Darkseid’s gains in territory came at the cost of immense
expenditures of life; it was possible that Darkseid would lose his first war
because their technology was so inferior, but not guaranteed. Highfather so
feared Darkseid might triumph that he agreed to unleash the unmitigated power
of the Source, cracking the planet in two (why yes, clever reader, this is a
metaphor for atomic warfare). Apokalips, including the industrial heart of
Darkseid’s territory, which soon spread over his entire planet, and New
Genesis, Highfather’s idyllic homeworld, including the floating metropolis, New
Eden.
Their
gravity remains intertwined, as the two spheres rotate around one another. It
was thought that Highfather could end the threat of Apokalips by once again
harnessing the power of the Source, but at the cost of a terrible genocide; it
was to prevent such a senseless loss of life that Highfather accepted the
trading of their heirs. Darkseid agreed, because it bought him time to rebuild,
to regrow his armies, and to use the technologists stolen from Highfather (and
thought lost in the cracking of the planet) to close the technology gap almost
entirely.
Apokalips’
first assault is on the Source itself, capturing the weapon Highfather used to
split the planet, and had used to enforce the peace with Apokalips. They cause
a huge amount of damage, making it clear that Darkseid’s forces are now far
more deadly than in their last war. Highfather holds a war council, splitting
his forces to cover certain strategic areas, the most important being New Eden.
Scott offers to return to Apokalips, but both Highfather and Orion refuse to
let him- he was merely the pretext, a story that let Apokalips pretend to have
won their earlier conflict, but also a seed for the next. Even if he did go
back, Darkseid could see to it that no one believed that he did. Highfather
places Orion, his most trusted lieutenant, in charge of a contingent with Mr.
Miracle and Barda to retake the weapon’ without it, Apokalips will be
unstoppable.
They’re
able to insert Orion inside, but find too late it was a honey-pot, that the
surrounding hills are choked with parademons. Miracle and Barda lead the forces
fighting to buy Orion time, the idea being that if they can fire the weapon on
Apokalips, the mere demonstration that it’s back in New Genesis’ control should
be enough to force a ceasefire. And while they fight a battle they know they
will lose to buy Orion time, Orion finds that the weapon has already been
disassembled. He tries for a moment to fix it, before realizing it isn’t just
that they disabled it- they were altering the weapon, so it could be fired into
the heart of New Genesis itself. Orion calls up the security satellites, to
watch as Scott and Barda are being overwhelmed. He calls his Highfather, who is
bloodied, but still fighting, even if it’s clear he won’t be fighting for much
longer.
“Father,”
Orion says, “I’m sorry for what I must do.” Then we watch as Orion
broadcasts a message across New Genesis and Apokalips, both. “I, Orion,
son of Darkseid, hold the beating heart of New Genesis’ greatest weapon in my
hands. For Darkseid, for Apokalips, I close my fist.” Orion turns his
floating conveyence on the weapon, and fires.
Outside,
the spire housing the weapon combusts impressively. Scott screams for Orion,
even as Barda points to his shape flying from the tower, that he’s alive. They
both pause, as they hear Orion broadcast across all channels. “I have
struck a blow to our hated enemies. Apokalips, it has been too long since I
stood in the halls of my father. I’m coming home, triumphant.”
The
parademons stop fighting, and watch as he flies towards Apokalips. After a
moment of eerie silence, they follow suit, abandoning their conquest and flying
after Orion. I imagine I should seed it so that Orion was part of an
Apokaliptian stab in the back myth, that he was stolen by the treacherous
Highfather in a raid, a raid in which he callously left his own son behind.
Darkseid saw to the wayward child as he did all Apokaliptians, caring for them
by tempering them in the fires of his industrial furnace. The return of Orion
is thus complicated. On the surface, Apokalips rejoices at the victorious
return of its lost prince, as well as the crippling of New Genesis’ great
weapon.
New
Genesis is somber. With Orion gone, their forces are weaker than ever. And
while Highfather publically puts a brave face on it- that Orion surrendered to
end the assualt- he recognizes that it’s a blow to morale, regardless. He feels
the sting of the loss of a child, but also, some small part of him nags that
his son rejected years of teachings to return to his ‘real’ father.
Scott
isnt ready to give up on his brother just yet. He talks with Barda, telling her
he has to to go. He doesn’t know if he can escape Apokalips a second time, but
he has to try. He asks her to watch over his father, and Oberon, if anything
happens to him. She tells him she can’t, to which he brokenly says,
“Oh,” taking it to mean that now that she’s free of Apokalips, she
wants to be free of him, as well, and we linger on that moment, Scott’s heart
breaking even as he prepares to face his likely demise. She tells him the
reason she can’t watch them is she’ll be with him, in their home in New Eden,
or in DeSaad’s dungeon on Apokalips- wherever he is is where she’ll be.
I think
that’s where we go to credits. Yeah, we’re not even pretending there won’t be a
sequel. Darkseid IS DC’s big bad. It’s worth at least a couple of movies, maybe
three, to set him up- and I think you can make some damn fine movies out of
these.
Mid-credits
scene: Darkseid is pissed. Orion is chained to a pillar, clearly having been
beaten, bloodied, bruised, but also angry, and for the first time he feels like
he’s got a worthy recipient for his anger.
Darkseid
slaps him, the blow enough to bloody even the mighty Orion further. But
Darkseid’s anger is cold. “You revoked my pretext for war; I’ll invent
another.” DeSaad hands him a rag to wipe away the blood from his fist.
“You’ve bought them hours. Perhaps days.”
“”Is
that all you have to say to me, ‘father?’ I’m your heir,” Orion cries out.
“You’re an heir to an immortal, a surplus
in a world that can only ever know hunger; you are useless to me. DeSaad? Break
the welp. If any pieces of value remain when you’ve finished, bring them to me.
If not, dispose of them in the furnace.”
