DC Reboot Pitches: Justice League vs. the Suicide Squad

The Deal: this is the ninth in a series of pitches for the rebooted DC Movies, and the end of Phase One. I’m leaning on AI art to mock-up these pitches, because it adds a layer of humor and weirdness.

The Pitch

Our story begins en media res. The screen is black, and we hear, heavy, human breathing, the sounds of someone running in the rain, and narration, as black boots go crashing through puddles before cutting back to black. “People believe I’m arrogant. That I believe I belong standing shoulder to shoulder with Gods.” It’s Batman speaking, which becomes clear when we see Metallo, just his metal skeleton, the glowing kryptonite powering it exposed, strolling out of the burning wreckage of the Batmobile.

“His car is gone,” Metallo says.

Black Manta floats out of the water. “His sub is gone.” A burning boat floats on the top of the water behind him.

“And I killed his drone,” Cheetah says, watching through a scope as a bat-shaped drone falls from the sky. Her rifle is actually a long-distance taser, single-use, because Flag doesn’t trust her with a firearm.

Batman is running, turns and throws three batarangs, each colliding with one of Boomerang’s boomerangs before continuing to run. “He’s still on the move,” Boomerang says.

“It isn’t about where I belong, it’s that someone has to stand up.” Batman stops, and allows Joker to strafe his cape with a tommy gun to protect a ‘child’ in the middle of the alley. “And in Gotham, not many do.” Batman rises to his full height. The ‘child,’ it turns out, is just a doll stuffed with C4, and Batman has to resume running, rather than confront Joker, as it explodes behind him.

“I told you Amanda,” Joker taunts over their radios in a sing-song.

“You keep these comms clear, or I’ll blow that bomb in your neck just to get your voice out of my head,” Waller barks.

“She’s going to be disappointed when she finds out it’ll take more than that,” Harley says. “Like electroshock. But I wouldn’t rule out a lobotomy.”

“Quinn,” Flag says, and she drops into a side street, keeping Batman going down the alley. But he slices left, and hops a fence on the opposite side of the alley, just over the boards and under a sheet of industrial metal siding. “Damnit,” Flag says, catching up with Quinn. “Are we funneling him, or is he funneling us?” She leaps through the same hole.

“Just keep to the plan, Flag,” Waller says, watching events from a monitoring room through a series of drones and satellites.

Batman gets into the open, and fires his grapnel to the top of an apartment building. Harley and Flag are just behind him, climbing up a fire escape.

“No way,” Harley says, stopping just outside a rooftop door. “I seen Mr. J make this mistake too many times. Never follow the bat into a cave.”

“It’s an apartment building,” Flag says.

“And it was a metaphor. There’s no place he’s more dangerous than when you think he’s trapped.”

“Quinn, there’s two buses out of here, and one goes to the cemetery.”

“Ooh, field trip!” she squeals happily. “I love the cemetery.”

“Just get in there,” Flag shoves Harley through the open door, into darkness.

“Aw, nuts,” she says from inside, before being kicked back out, over the edge of the building. In the same moment, a batarang, carrying a wire, loops around her feet, so she doesn’t go far, and swings down and hits her head against the side of the building. “I feel like I should remember whether you can get a double-concussion,” Quinn says, before passing out.

“I’m going to need backup,” Flag says into his comms.

“This suit was designed for deep sea submersion; it doesn’t fly,” Manta tells him from the street.

“And Luthor didn’t give me rocket boots,” Metallo snipes, running up beside Manta.

“Fine,” Flag says, “Team Full of Density and Excuses, start on the bottom floor. We’ll sweep from the top. You flush him, holler.”

“I’m with you,” Cheetah says, landing in a catlike sprawl after climbing the exterior of the building. “Though I still say I’d be more effective if you let me have a sidearm.”

“He eats mercs for breakfast.”

“I’m here as well,” says the White Martian, “and he doesn’t have to be a telepath to know you’d use the gun on him at the first opportunity.”

Cheetah sticks her tongue out at the Martian. Flag leads the way inside the building. “It’s quiet,” Flag says.

“Too quiet?” Cheetah asks with an edge to it.

“He’s correct,” the Martian says. “The building is empty. In fact, I don’t even see-” liquid dribbles from the ceiling, onto the Martian, and an instant later the liquid ignites as Batman drops down on him, kicking him out of the door and back onto the roof.

Batman takes on Flag and Cheetah hand to hand; they’re both military-trained, so their styles mesh well, for a moment, until Batman compensates. He knocks the wind out of Cheetah, then smashes Flag face-first into a door-jam; Flag does manage to get a shot off, and it pancakes against the back of Batman’s cowl.

Cheetah gets up, slowly, having taken a knife Flag dropped in the fight. Instead, Batman hands her his cape, and points outside, at the screaming Martian. “He’s coated in a napalm derivative; smother the fire, deprive it of oxygen for a few minutes, and it will go out.”

She pauses, and calls in to Waller. “Orders?”

“Damnit,” Waller mutters. “Stand down. Aid the Martian asset.”

She drops the knife, and takes the cape.

Batman only gets a few steps in before Black Manta collapses a wall on his left while Metallo collapses a walls on his right. One goes high, the other low, and Batman is able to leap down the middle, and they clang together, loudly. “Ah,” Manta says. “Clearly I need better sound-dampening.”

“Or a smaller head,” Metallo says. Both give chase. At the end of the hallway, Boomerang turns out of a door. He flings four boomerangs; Batman does, too. Three of the batarangs knock the boomerangs out of the air; the fourth smacks Boomerang in the head, so that he’s falling as Batman runs past. Boomerang’s last projectile detonates as it flies past Metallo and Black Manta, knocking them into Boomerang. As he rounds the end of the hall and into a stairwell Batman slaps an oval slab of plastique with a bat-symbol detonator in the center onto the wall. It detonates as he leaps down the stairwell, catching Boomerang, Manta and Metallo in a pressure wave and sending them flying in the opposite direction from the initial explosion.

The stairwell collapses behind Batman. “I really did tell her,” an eerie voice echoes, through the stairwell, “but no one listens to the jester.” Joker leaps from the shadows and slashes Batman with a knife, managing to cut him, though superficially- mostly because Batman slipped out of his cowl, leaving Joker holding it as he notices a rope hanging over the edge of the stairs. He cuts it, and cranes his neck, holding his hand to his ear, hoping for a thud, but instead hears a door open, and shut. Joker crosses his arms and harumphs, then starts to put the cowl on himself, though we cut away before it’s clear what’s happening.

We see Batman from behind, without his cowl or cape, through a rifle scope. “I’ve got your target in my sights. Advise.”

“I want him identifiable. We have to be able to put a face to this. Give me a realistic assessment of whether you can give me that.”

Batman leaps over and onto a motorcycle, and very swiftly speeds away. At this distance, with Batman moving quickly, armored save for his head, it would be a shot in the dark, at best. “No shot,” the sniper says, and lowers the rifle. Those who saw Cyborg will recognize the voice as belonging to Deathstroke, but shh…

Flag comes to to someone in a Batman cowl slapping him across the face, then in his best Bale Batman voice howling, “Who do you work for?” Flag yelps, and draws, trying to fire an empty gun into the Joker’s chin as he scrabbles to get out from under him.

“See?” Harley says, handing Flag back his magazine and bullet, “funnier with an empty gun.”

“It’s barely a joke if no one lands in the hospital,” Joker pouts from under the cowl.

“I’ve got a broken rib, if that tickles your funny bone,” Cheetah says.

“Me-ow,” Joker says.

“Can the Martian pick him back up?” Waller asks over comms.

“The Martian’s currently extra-crispy,” Cheetah says. He’s mostly off-screen, but we can see a charred limb raised out of Batman’s cape, and hear him moaning.

“Fall back,” Waller says. “We’ll regroup.” She throws her headset across the room.

We cut to black, and show white text: One hour earlier.

Joker is wrapped in a cape from a Phantom of the Opera Halloween costume and leaps over the end of a table, singing “Kill the bat!”, ending what was clearly an energetic song and dance number, most likely to the tune of “Kill the Beast” from Beauty and the Beast. “Come on,” Joker says, “it’s worth whatever we have to pay Disney.” Harley leans into him and whispers in his ear. “They wanted that much? And they call me a villain?” He cackles uproariously, before adding. “I’m joking– we’re both monsters.”

Flag drags Joker off the table by the cape. “Let me just say, this team was designed in the hopes of overwhelming a demonstrably superior force with intel from previous encounters. But you two are the only pair with largely duplicative knowledge.”

“Then why are we both here?” Harley asks.

“Both your psych profiles indicate an unwillingness to play well with others. And since we happened to sweep you both up on the same night, Waller let me have a spare, in case one of you goes boom.” He pantomimes the bomb at the base of their skull exploding.

“Not it,” Harley says, putting a finger to her nose.

Waller clears her throat. “Captain,” she says, before leading Flag away. “Any luck with the alien, Flag?”

“This time it only took 10,000 volts to get him to stop trying to eat my men’s hearts… but I don’t think he’s giving up the goods.”

“That’s fine. We don’t have to get buy-in. We just have to get him in the room with the right one of these do-gooders, and his anger will take care of the rest.”

“What about the Bat?”

“If we need the big guns to take down an industrialist with too much man-pain, you need to find another line of work.”

Batman is driving his, at this point still functional, Batmobile through Gotham. The interior lights turn red, right before Alfred calls over the radio. “Sir, sensors show you’re being shadowed by multiple aerial drones, as well as an armored personnel carrier.”

“Insignia?” Batman asks, taking a turn sharply.

“No known government markings, sir.”

“I’m diverting to site 21.”

“Would you like assistance?”

“At this stage, I’m not willing to risk anyone else.”

“Very good, sir. Happy hunting.”

Lights go from a low red to bright red, with alarms blaring loudly as Metallo leaps from a building down towards the car. In slow motion, we see Batman’s ejector seat send him hurtling just out of the reach of Metallo’s clawed fingers as his feet crumple the Batmobile’s cockpit. The ejector seat fires a small rocket burst before loosing a parachute. Almost immediately, the parachute’s wires are cut by several boomerangs, and Batman bounds off of a nearby wall, kicking free as the chair explodes. He’s able to use the cape to slow his descent enough for him to land, albeit roughly, in a roll. Batman touches his belt to cue his comms. “It was an ambush. Send a drone and the submersible to my location.”

“The bike?”

“Set it to circle the site. I might need a quick egress.”

And we’re now caught up to the beginning, matching one of the shots of his boots running, then, where that shot cuts to black, we stay at black, and put up white text: Now.

We go back to the Task Force X HQ. Waller, trying to save face, pivots, saying Batman is maybe the most dangerous of them, that he’s managed to survive on grit and wit, that they need to take out his potential allies to keep him exposed and vulnerable. Joker actually confronts Waller- accusing her of letting Batman go in the hopes of drawing in all these other players, and their weaponizable tech- Martian, Kryptonian, Amazonian, Atlantean, etc.. Waller won’t confirm or deny, but it’s clear there’s some truth to it- that him figuring that out almost gives her a grudging respect for him. He storms off, seemingly in a reasonably normal huff, stating he agreed to kill the Bat, not this suicide mission. Flag tells two of his operatives to follow Joker. He loses contact with them thirty seconds later. Waller triggers Joker’s bomb, and the guard nearest Waller’s head explodes. “Shirt,” she demands of Flag, and he strips it off. She uses it to wipe her guard’s blood off her face. “I told you the clown was too dangerous.”

“And I told you your security was sloppy,” Flag says, sliding the shirt back on. They each think Flag continuing to wear the shirt is a middle finger to the other, proof of the other’s screw-up.

“Uh,” Harley points out the cowl Joker left behind is playing a message on repeat- the same message he’s sent to the rest of the Justice League.

The message continues, as we show a montage, proving that Batman has secreted beacons in each of the League member’s homes, that activate, first showing a holographic bat signal, then playing his message. “These aren’t the circumstances I was hoping to contact you in. In fact, I was hoping I’d never need to. I was content to confine my activities to Gotham, and leave you to your own. That option’s off the table. A rogue government operative has assembled a team of our foes. Tonight they’re hunting me, and I have no doubt, they’ll hunt all of you, next. Divided, we’re easy prey. Together… we might stand a chance. I’ve cleared out the old Gotham Penitentiary. I was going to use it as a training facility, but I also realized a time might come when I needed a hardened site for an assault, isolated enough to prevent civilian casualties. Meet me there. And be careful. Waller has resources and cunning.”

We’re back with Waller and Flag at her HQ. He asks to see her without the guards. “I think there’s something you’re not telling me, Amanda. If you really wanted a military team, you’d have gone with the team I suggested. Or at least let me put these clowns through boot. This is barely a step up from that Central City amateur hour.”

“If there’s anything you need to know, I’ll let you know it.”

“You don’t get to pull that chain of command crap with me. I don’t work for you- that’s our deal.”

She smiles. “I know. But you’re fun when you’re angry.” She pours herself a drink, and doesn’t offer him one. “I did ask. The answer was ‘no’ on both fronts. Eiling. Never said a word to me, but he’s the only one in a position to make a case against us. Fear was we’d be creating better, more disciplined criminals; best-case scenario, we’d be replacing slap-dash heroes with trained ones- who would be that much harder to depose if they ever went rogue, and already have a history of doing just that.”

“And that’s why you let us screw up with the Bat.”

“Oh, he’s good. And I did not put my thumb on the scale. But I also didn’t go all in on that mission, either.”

“Because if we can’t take this ‘Justice League’ without training our operators, maybe they’ll let us do that.”

“Or even give us clearance to start recruiting ex-military, like Deathstroke and Deadshot.”

“Didn’t know Deadshot-”

“Yeah, he was one of ours. Second-most decorated sniper in history. Until we found out he was taking private contracts on the side- and wasn’t picky about whose side they were on. We wiped his identity, and there’s been a Presidential kill order for him ever since. I imagine he’d be willing to do some work for us, to have that rescinded.”

“Deathstroke, though… he doesn’t come cheap.”

“I didn’t say anything about hiring him.”

“I don’t think he’s broken any laws.”

“Mercs always break laws. And even if he was so clean he squeaked, there’s more than one way to skin a cat.”

“This is why I don’t work for you.”

“Keep talking like that, and I’ll find a way to make you.”

He ignores the threat. “So either we win, you get your proof of concept and your green light, or we lose, and you get proof you need more funding and access to better trained operators. I hope I never have cause to be on your bad side.”

“Good luck, Captain,” she says, and raises the glass she never once drank from.

Batman arrives at the prison on his cycle wearing a new cape and cowl. He interacts with a screen in his gauntlet, checking that his security measures are working. “There’s still time to call in the family,” Alfred says over his radio. “Batgirl and Nightwing are less than three miles out.”

“No. These people are too dangerous, even if I had time to prep them.”

“And if your reinforcements don’t show? Master Bruce… you barely escaped your last encounter intact.”

“I’ve got a radar ping, Alfred. Keep the kids away from here. Keep them safe.”

“As you wish, sir. Godspeed.”

The wind blows past him, and then an invisible jet lands. Wonder Woman leaps out of the cockpit, and shakes Batman’s hand.

“I thought about inviting you to a charity fundraiser,” he tells her.

“I bet they’d pay millions just to see the two of us dance.”

“I meant out of costume.”

“I bet they’d pay double for that,” she says with a glint in her eye.

“She’s funny,” Flash is there an instant later. “I knew she’d be intimidating. But funny? I bet you had the Batman blushing.” Flash runs up to Bruce, only to realize he’s towering over him, and comedically lurching back. “Though I could be mistaken.”

“I’m glad you came,” Batman says before turning around.

“I had to,” we hear him before we see him, Superman flying majestically into their midst. “My mom would kill me if I refused a polite invitation from Batman. Unless I sent one of those little cards, but I can never remember the right etiquette for those. Easier just to show.”

Could she kill you?” Batman asks. “Does she have access to the right minerals?”

“Huh,” Superman says. “I can’t tell if you’re joking. I usually can. Microexpressions, heart-rate fluctuations, even tell-tale changes in cerebral blood-flow or neuronal activity.”

“He isn’t joking,” Martian Manhunter says. “He rarely does. Though he does remember how.”

“Stay out of my head,” Batman growls.

“You probably shouldn’t be ornery with the Martian,” Hal Jordan says, landing next to John. “He was the one who convinced me to trust you.”

“Oh yeah,” Flash says, as if the thought is only dawning on him now. “This could have been a trap.”

“No,” Aquaman says, rising out of the reservoir beneath the prison. “I don’t believe anyone else could have found us all.”

“I’m not so sure,” Batman says. “Victor, you might as well come out.”

For a moment we join Cyborg in the shadows. “You can totally do this. You’re a fricking Cyborg.” He walks out of the shadows.

“I was hoping he was with you,” Superman says with a smile. “I… heard the pep-talk you were giving yourself. I’m sure you’ll do fine, son.”

“Don’t say ‘son,’” he replies, largely doing a bit.

“Oh, sorry,” Superman says, genuinely taken aback. “I didn’t mean to imply a patriarchal imbalance; I know you’re younger because I can see your telomeres, but-”

“I just thought we were doing a bit- wait, you can see my telomeres?” Cyborg looks down at his arm, and his cybernetic eye scans it. “Weird. So can I. Why didn’t I ever think of that?”

“Presumably because you already know how old you are,” Flash says, suddenly standing in front of Cyborg, “I’m Flash, by the way.” He puts out his hand at superspeed.

“I think introductions can wait,” Wonder Woman says. “You were about to describe the threat.”

Batman drops a metal ball on the ground which projects an image of Amanda Waller. “She’s basically me, if I worked for the government, was a complete sociopath and had been recruiting the most dangerous criminals we’d ever fought to weaponize against us.”

“If she’s basically you the suit quite effectively shapes your thunder,” Flash says.

“And it kind of washes you out,” Cyborg adds.

“Quiet, children, the adults are speaking,” Arthur says.

“Dude, you’re like thirty, not Arthurian.”

Arthur’s confused. “My name is actually Arthur.”

“That’s no excuse for talking like a Shakespearean character.”

“Touche.”

“Clever,” Flash rolls his eyes, “because Le Morte d’Arthur was written in ye olde English.”

Batman gets an alarm on his gauntlet. “We don’t have time for any of this,” Batman interrupts, “or any time for me to prep you. They’re on their way.”

“You’re leading them here,” Superman says, turning towards Batman, suddenly short.

“Like I said, we fight them here, they can’t hurt civilians- or use the fact we’ll protect innocent people against us. I asked all of you here for two reasons- one, there’s someone coming here each of you has fought before. Two, I think we share the same goal- saving innocent lives. You want to hate me after, you want to kick the hell out of me after, you can.”

“Something tells me he gives a similar speech on dates,” Flash says to Cyborg.

“Man, I’m just happy to be included,” Cyborg replies. “I’ve fought precisely one costumed weirdo. Usually somebody’d slap an ‘S’ on my chest and make me a sidekick, or put me on the JV squad.”

“We aren’t a team,” Batman continues. “We don’t know one another. Our best bet is to continue to work alone, fan out across this place. I’ve built in automated defenses; all of you have been white listed. But knowing the people coming, my traps will only soften them up.”

Cyborg raises his hand. “Yeah, as the one Black guy in the spooky, derelict prison, I think I’d be remiss in not objecting to us splitting up.”

“Anybody want to pair off with Stone?” Batman asks. “You’re welcome to. I’d suggest refraining from sleeping with him, though-”

“No reason to tempt the Gods?” Wonder Woman asks wryly.

“I will,” Flash says, before stopping himself, “go with you, I mean, not sleep with- I have a girlfriend.”

Cyborg puts up his hands. “No one asked, man.”

“So it’s a no questions asked situation?” Aquaman asks Wonder Woman.

“I heard that,” Cyborg says. “And we’re the children,” he says

“I mean you are like ten,” Flash deadpans, waits a beat, then adds, “Kidding; I can’t see telomeres, and you’re also mostly a robot. Though you do have a very youthful cheek.”

“I moisturize.”

“It’s working for you.”

Superman and Batman pair off, mostly because Clark doesn’t trust him (which makes Bruce like him more), and because he wants to try to keep the vulnerable human alive (which makes Bruce like him less). But Batman has his own plans, and takes him to his control room.

“You really trust this Bat-guy?” Green Lantern asks.

“Trust isn’t a concept in my culture. Agendas, subterfuge, are only possible for short durations, and usually by means of rogue technology. I know who he is; I know what he wants, and what he needs. He has been honest with us, to a point.”

“It’s that caveat that has my Lantern senses tingling.”

Manhunter reconsiders. “He would die to protect any one of us, without hesitating. He involved us only reluctantly, after nearly dying twice earlier this evening.”

“I’m beginning to feel like all of us are metaphorically naked around you.”

“Your ring provides rudimentary telepathic defenses. And it’s not polite to pry. I did look into the man, before we came. I’m a father; I can’t risk myself recklessly.”

Batman comes over the loudspeaker. “They’ll likely let the White Martian take point, in the hopes he can disable some of our defenses. He’s easily the largest threat. He’s a telepath. He could shut us all down from a distance without John.”

“So I’m your shield,” Hal says.

“Did I not mention that?” John asks wryly. “Although you won’t need to be for long. He’s here.”

John telepathically tells Flash and Cyborg where the Martian is. John has Cyborg scan to locate him despite him being invisible, and has Flash attack him with a whirl-wind, which John tells them will disrupt his ability to control his atoms- especially after Batman’s attack. Then he attacks the Martian’s mind.

For a moment Martian Manhunter and the White Martian posture, turning into vast webs of limbs and weapons, before John lowers his weapons. “You aren’t like the others. No bomb in your neck; I suppose you could phase out of it the second you wanted. What did they use to leash you?”

The White Martian lowers his weapons. “Megan. They threatened her- to drop thermobaric bombs on her, her school, your apartment. I couldn’t chance it.”

“No. I wouldn’t ask you to. But your heart’s not in this fight. Yield, and I will make it painless. You will tell them you were injured, and lost.”

He takes John’s hand. “Keep our daughter safe.” John shuts down the White Martian’s mind, and John tells Flash to stop, and the Martian falls.

Suddenly we’re in a different control room. Somewhat subtly, to start, it’s the same basic décor as Batman’s. “Martian’s down,” Flag says, as they watch on cameras.

“With time to spare,” Waller says with a smile, as she watches the Suicide Squad make their way through the halls. “He bought us our in.”

“I’m still not happy to have you on-site. You’re what we refer to as a high-value target, and we brought you into the lion’s den.”

“Had to be done,” she says. “This billionaire playboy has tech even DARPA doesn’t understand. The only way I could control this battlefield without being noticed and digitally cut off was to be on site, hard-wired into the system- a lot of which is our system.”

Waller takes control of a security panel, and tells it to target the Flash, before stopping herself, because he’s too fast to shoot. So she’ll give the hero a chance to save someone, and instead targets Cyborg with an automated gun. Flash tries to save Cyborg from as many bullets as he can, but takes several shots in the legs; Cyborg is able to build a metal shield with his tech that’s able to sop up bullets- though clearly the gun is slowly cutting pieces from it.

Back in the control room, Superman stands over Batman, both staring at a monitor. “Stop shooting at them,” he menaces.

“That’s not my gun. I don’t do guns.” There’s a flash of understanding on Superman’s face; he had an idea of who Batman was under the cowl, but that confirms it for him. “Someone else installed it. And they control it.”

“Then I’ll-”

Wait.”

“Can’t you hack into it?” Flash asks, as Cyborg protects him behind a shrinking shield.

“I can’t. It’s hard-wired,” he says, distracted by the gunfire.

“Then hard-wire.”

“Right.” Cyborg scans the nearest wall, finding the right cable, and punches into it, ripping the wiring out and inserting it into a port in his arm. The gun dies. “Whooh!” Cyborg says, raising his arms before collapsing with Flash. “Think I’ll lay back and have a little celebratory heart attack.”

“S’cool,” Flash says dazedly, largely laying in Cyborg’s arms. “I’m just gonna lay here trying to regrow my legs. I feel safe here, as the little spoon. Don’t tell Iris.”

We cut to Batman’s control room. “You’re not, are you?” Superman asks. “Going to tell her?”

“Only with a compelling reason,” Batman says.

“I assume you have one, for keeping me here, for why I’m not fighting with others.”

“I’ve seen the footage, from your coming out party, at Kansas State.”

“That’s not what it was.”

“I wanted you here because you’re vulnerable, in a way most of the team isn’t.”

“I thought you said we weren’t a team.”

“Teams train together. They trust one another. I don’t see either of those happening.”

“You really have trust issues, don’t you Bruce?”

“What?” Batman menaces. Superman is already a blur, but he’s back an instant later.

“God,” Superman says, putting his hand on Batman’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry. I know what it’s like to lose parents too young…”

Don’t.”

“It’s not healthy to stay this closed off.”

“I mean don’t get distracted.” Batman is focused on a camera, and we zoom into it.

Black Manta is advancing on Aquaman. “I thought for sure they would have sprung Orm,” Arthur says. “Or at least found a Colossal Squid salty I kicked it or something. Those diving suits are cool, but this is going to feel a lot like punching do-” Black Manta blasts Aquaman off his feet. Aquaman is wheezing, struggling as he tries to gets up. A little nozzle telescopes out of a wall, and hits him with a comedically large spray of water.

Superman grins, watching Aquaman knocked back on a jet of water. “And they think you have no sense of humor.”

“I’m about 90% sure that his powers are in part water-based, and judging from the heat coming off that blast, it dehydrated him.”

“Any defenses you were planning on using on the bad guys?” Superman asks, as Manta continues to advance. A different device telescopes out of the floor, and sprays oil onto it.

Manta’s suit gives him a warning, about low-friction, right before he starts sliding, kicking his legs wildly before doing a full Home Alone fall on his back. “Nyuck nyuck,” Superman says.

“Quiet,” Batman replies.

Aquaman punches Manta, but the suit is hardened, originally to withstand crushing ocean depths, and then redesigned to withstand Aquaman’s punches, so it barely dents. Manta tries to blast him from the ground, with Aquaman diving out of the way. “Remove the helmet,” Batman says through a speaker.

“Oh, right,” Aquaman says. He rolls out of the way of another blast. Manta tries to stand, but is even more oily than before, and falls face-down. Aquaman gets a knee into his back, and uses the leverage to tear Manta’s helmet off him. Suddenly seeing David, he feels a pang of remorse. “David, I-”

Manta punches him, knocking him back.

“You want me to-” Superman gestures in that direction.

“No,” Batman says, holding up his hand.

Aquaman lunges, reeling back to throw a punch, but Manta has ample time to punch him in the face. Manta freezes, and we see that Aquaman wasn’t throwing a punch at all, but delivering an octopus, one holding a small glass vial, sitting on Manta’s shoulder.

“I imagine you’re familiar with box jellyfish.” The octopus holds the vial up so that Manta can see there’s a little baby jellyfish inside. “Their tentacles are covered in microscopic cells that function like hypodermic needles. I’ve been working with Percy to get the dosing right; too much venom can cause cardiac arrest, but the right dose leads to paralysis. Because I don’t want to hurt you, David; I didn’t want to hurt your dad, either. You can blame me for his death, if you want; but he made a choice, not to look out for himself, or for you. He risked himself for profit. But… I am sorry. I know I played a role in his death. I was rash, and angry, and I lashed out. It was the first time someone tried to kill me, and I didn’t react well. But we don’t have to do this. You don’t have to take your obvious genius and bend it to hurt people. You could extend humanity’s reach into the deepest parts of the ocean, and further into the reaches of space. I hope you choose something better than this.” He turns to go. “Oh, the octopus is going to stay. He’ll give you a couple of injections. The first is a cocktail, some Atlantean medicine, spiked with some cholestorol agonists. It should prevent any long-term damage from the venom. He’ll also give you a dose of tranquilizer.” The octopus produces a syringe, and hovers the needle over Manta’s eye. “It doesn’t go in the eye, though.” Arthur leans in. “He’s not really a sadist; he just has a warped sense of humor.” The octopus flips Aquaman off as he walks away. “I saw that.” The octopus looms over Manta, wringing his tentacles menacingly.

“Diana,” we hear Aquaman call. Then we cut to him searching. “Diana!”

We cut to Diana parrying a strike from Cheetah. “We don’t have to do this, Barbara.” She catches another blow on her bracelet, which clearly hurts Cheetah’s hand. “I have no desire to hurt you.”

“No,” Minerva scoffs. “You just want to protect the status quo, and all the predators that protects.”

Diana ponders a moment. “I don’t. I also don’t know who preyed on you, Barbara, but I would love to help you stop them- or stop those like him.”

Minerva weighs the offer. “You might even believe that. But they don’t.” Aquaman passes on the other side of two-sided glass, thick enough he can’t hear their fighting. “The men you’re fighting with. Men can’t accept strong women. You’ll find that out.”

“They don’t get to make my decisions for me.”

“You might believe that. I can’t.” Barbara unsheathes her claws. “I know I can’t beat you. You’re faster. Stronger. And you’ve been at this a hell of a lot longer than I have. In a fair fight, I’m catnip. So why fight fair?” She produces Flag’s sidearm, and fires slowly. She’s trying to lead Wonder Woman towards a Claymore mine she and Flag set.

“You should help her,” Batman barks.

“I’m not a dog you can order to attack.” He uses his x-ray vision to ascertain her location in the prison. “I have her- if she needs me.” There’s an awkward silence for a moment. “I do have a Kryptonian dog with similar powers… but he’s shorter, cuter, likes being scritched behind the ears.”

Batman pauses a beat. “What breed?” Batman asks, both because he’s genuinely trying, and because he actually likes dogs, or at least, he likes his.

“Uh, Kryptonian, I otherwise don’t know how to answer that.” He pauses, too, realizing what’s happening. “Yours?”

“German Shepherd. Smart, loyal. Alfred named him ‘Ace.’”

“I guess Krypto resembles a labrador, a white one. He’s smart, too.”

“Do you make him wear a cape?”

“He… gets really anxious if you try to take it off him. Yours?”

“I’m not a monster.”

Pause a beat.

“Have you ever called him your bat-hound?” Clark asks.

Awkward silence, before we cut back to Wonder Woman deflecting more bullets.

“I want you to know something, Barbara, that you taught me. I always saw these bracelets as a shield. I used them to protect myself, and my sisters. I was so focused on protecting people, that I didn’t realize, sometimes the best defense,” she turns her wrists, so a pair of Minerva’s bullets bounce off the bracelets, and ricochet to hit Minerva in the knees, and she goes down, “is offense.”

Barbara’s lying on the ground, holding her gunshot knees. “If I call that a sucker punch, do I have to admit you suckered me?”

Diana holds out a bit of cloth to bind the wounds. “I can’t make promises, Barbara, but I meant what I said. If I can help you, or help you help others, I will. And may the gods make room in Hades for the men who oppose me.”

Cheetah thinks a moment, before taking the cloth.

We cut back to Waller’s control room. “Damnit, I’ve lost visual on Quinn,” Flag says. “Should I blow her?”

“If it’s permission you’re asking for, I think it’s the lady who’d be the one to give it,” Boomerang says, tapping Harley’s monitor.

“No,” Waller says. “This place was a prison, built in the old Gotham mines. There’s feet of rock, concrete and ore in places. We still have audio.”

We cut to Harley, walking into Batman’s control room, holding a white flag in one hand and cue cards, the first of which reads, “Hiya, Bats!” with a little heart dotting the I. She quickly flips to the next card. “I’m bugged” (with a crudely drawn cockroach illustrating it). “And booby-trapped.” Her next card has two diagrams, one with an outline of a chest that’s Xed out, and the other with a circle at the neck.

Batman holds up his hand to stop Superman. We zoom in on his mouth, barely moving; we hear it as Superman does, a whisper, but LOUD. “X-rays might set it off.” Clark nods grimly.

Batman pulls a device with a needle and a scalpel from his utility belt, and Harley stumbles backward, falling back into a chair. Batman signs at Clark, and we subtitle it. “Distract her.”

Superman begins pantomiming, and Harley, confused, follows along. “Look? It’s a bird? No, a plane? No- ow, my neck,” Harley moans, as Batman jabs something into her neck.

“The device is inactive,” Batman says at full volume. “It’s probably safer not to remove it in the field.”

“So it’s safer to leave it in my neck?” Harley asks, springing to her feet.

We cut back to Waller. “Detonate,” she commands, and Flag hits the red button with her name on it. She waits a moment, listening for a detonation. “Shit.”

We’re back with Batman, Superman and Harley. “You could have been wrong,” Clark says.

“But I wasn’t,” Batman says. “Receiver was using a WayneTech chip. I removed it.”

Harley collapses back into her chair. “I really need anxiety meds.”

“Who’s left?” Batman asks, leaning threateningly over her, tilting her chair to put her even more ill-at-ease.

“I’d tell him,” Superman says. “He’s really not rational when he’s like this.”

“Who is left?” he asks again.

“When I left the other control room, there was Boomer, Flag, and Waller.”

“Waller’s on site,” Batman says. “And Flag has a fractured rib; should take some of the fight out of him. Should have broken his trigger fingers while I was at it. That’s all?”

“That, and ‘the big guy’ who was apparently a big fan of eating hearts, and the only one who spooked the guards more than Mistah J.” Metallo crashes through the rear wall, and immediately the shielding around his kryptonite core slides away. “Oh, and that guy.”

“Damnit, Quinn,” Batman says, ducking under one of Metallo’s arms even as he connects with Superman, knocking him into the opposite wall.

Batman starts kicking one of the console panels. “What are you doing?” Quinn asks.

“These systems are all water-cooled.” The panel bends inward, and he’s able to tear it loose, and slices through a hose with a batarang in his fist.

“Heh,” Harley chuckles to herself, “his water broke.” The water crests against Metallo’s metal feet, where he’s using Superman, embedded in the rock at this point, as a punching bag. Batman climbs on the chair with her. “Hey, what gives?”

“We’re improvising. Lift your feet.” She does, as he flings several batarangs at some insulated cords along the wall, slicing through them. One strikes the water, electrifying the floor, frying Metallo, freezing him. Superman, no longer held in place by the force of punches, slides to the floor, where he starts being electrocuted. He struggles to the cable, and picks it up, stopping the flow of current.

“That hurts more than you might think,” Superman says.

“We improvised,” Harley says, as Batman sprints across the room. “You should have listened when he said to lift your feet.”

“I’m sure he’s shielded, we’re probably just waiting for his processors to boot back up,” Batman says as he welds a piece of lead-lining from an x-ray protection gown in Metallo’s chest. “That should help,” he says. “Just don’t hit him in the chest.” Metallo grabs Batman by the throat, but Superman is there in an instant, and knocks him back.

“You okay?” Superman asks.

“I’m fine.”

“A choking like that won’t do any more than a day of vigorous growling,” Harley says, as Metallo and Superman punch each other in the face. “It’s kinda like rock ‘em sock ‘em robots,” Harley says, having to leap out of the way as Metallo throws Superman.

“Sorry, ma’am,” he says, before flying at Metallo.

“Ma’am me again and I’ll make you sorry,” she says, kicking at the empty air where he’d been. Batman grabs hold of her chair and rolls her into the hall as a man-shaped dent appears in the door behind them.

“I think we’re safer out here,” Batman says.

“Unless they’ve got some kind of redundancies in the arming mechanism,” Harley says.

“Fair point. Stick close.”

“Yeah. Nobody wants to die alone if they can take someone else with them.”

“If they need line of sight to set off any redundancies, they have to expose themselves.”

“Ew,” Harley says, making a face.

“Now this is awkward,” a voice echoes menacingly through the halls.

“Run,” Batman says, but Harley stands her ground.

“I never thought I’d find you rubbing another man’s rhubarb,” Joker says, stepping out of the shadows with a large gun.

“I thought the emoji was an eggplant,” Harley says.

“I just can’t decide who to shoot first,” he laughs to himself, before jamming a drum magazine onto his gun. “But I’m not Dent- I don’t have to choose- I can just shoot everone!” he cackles gleefully, filling the hallway with gunfire that doesn’t quite drown out the sound of his laughter (or last as long).

Batman shoves Harley down, taking the brunt of the shots in his armor, protecting her. They’re both lying on the floor, unmoving, Batman with his face covered by a few inches of water.

Joker walks slowly, reloading as he speaks. “Of all the girls I shoved to the floor, I never thought I’d find you sleeping with the enemy, though so long as you’re both sleeping with the fish, who am I to com-” close on Joker’s feet, as we see he’s tripped a wire. Joker stops dead in his tracks, and says, “heh, booby,” before an explosion knocks him into the far wall.

Batman sits up gasping for air. “My hero!” Harley says, wrapping her arms around him. Batman is clearly uncomfortable with the affection, and stands stiffly up.

“I knew he had to be hurting you, too. It’s who he is.”

“It is who he is,” she says indignantly, stamping over to Joker and beginning to kick him.

“Ow, my heart,” he says pathetically, as Batman lifts her up and puts her down away from Joker. Batman lifts him up, and Harley kicks him back down. Batman raises a stern finger to her, and she puts up her hands. Batman gets him up enough to cuff him to a metal bar, then turns to leave, before stopping.

“You know, we’d all be safer if he was unconscious.” Unbridled joy spreads across Harley’s face.

“You wouldn’t hit a guy with glasses, would you?” Joker asks, putting on a pair.

“Those are mine!” she squeals indignantly, kicking him, taking the glasses, and then scissor kicking him into the bar with a gloriously satisfying clang. “I just use ‘em for reading,” Harley says, folding them and putting them in a pocket.

We cut back to Waller and Flag. “Given I can hear the thunder of steel men’s fists, I take it Corben’s still in the fight,” Waller says.

“That’s a bad sign,” Flag says. “He’s not supposed to go toe-to-toe. His edge was the surprise. Longer the fight goes, the better the odds it doesn’t go our way.”

“Then let’s stop dicking around,” Waller says. “Time to put our big gun in play.”

“I’m not sure how wise that is. He might decide to just kill the two of us and leave.”

“Captain, if I stopped every time a man might decide to kill me, I wouldn’t have made it past elementary school.” She cues up a mic. “Do it.” She opens a channel into a cell. “I know we’re still getting to know one another. I know you’re still considering whether to just slaughter your way free. But I have a counter-offer. Kill one of these ‘heroes’ for me, and I’ll see all Earthly records of your time and crimes here expunged. Kill a second, and you’re free. Kill them all, and I’ll tell you where I have William Hand stashed away. Whatever you decide to do with him, it will be like he never existed. Oh, and the first ‘hero’ you get to kill is a Green Lantern.”

We see sharp teeth smiling in the dark cell, lit very faintly by a red light. “With blood and rage of crimson red,” the large alien’s foot stomps, shaking his cage as Waller’s soldiers run.Ripped from a corpse so freshly dead,” his other foot stomps as he tears off his shackles, sending the metal chains flying at camera, “Together with my hellish hate,” he smashes his metal cell, and the doors and all of the walls and even the ceiling fly off in different directions, “I’ll burn you all, That is your fate!” Atrocitus screams, the final words of his oath, as a red lantern symbol burns behind him.

“So… that’s bad,” Hal says. “I thought Sinestro removed him from the planet.”

“Apparently he was stopped by the Earth authorities,” John says, gleaning that much from a superficial reading of Waller’s fleeing soldiers.

Hal’s ring fills them in. “His ring assessed that human casualties sustained in retaining custody of the prisoner were unacceptable, not to mention that the odds of the prisoner escaping during any conflict approached the 90th percentile.”

“John can you-” Hal doesn’t finish the thought before he’s knocked back by one of Atrocitus’ projections.

“No,” John says, phasing through another. “Like your ring, his provides a degree of telepathic shielding. This calls for a more direct approach.” John phases through Atrocitus’ force-field.

“Martian, huh?” Atrocitus says, almost a laugh. “Burn.”

John is engulfed in a burning red flame, before Hal is able to douse him with green foam to put him out. John is able to phase back through the field. “That hurt like fire,” John says.

“You know what else burns like fire?” we hear the words as Flash blurs by. He vibrates through Atrocitus’ shield, and punches him a thousand times, before Atrocitus stumbles backward. Flash vibrates back out. “That’s right: getting punched like a thousand times in a second. You know what that answer wins you?”

“Another thousand punches?” Atrocitus asks wearily as Flash vibrates back through his force-field. This time, however, he’s met with a second, growing field, that shoves him back, screaming, through the first.

“Okay, John, you were right,” Flash says, “that does burn like fire. Vic, you got anything?”

“Yeah,” Cyborg says, “just didn’t want to step on your moment.” He’s got the sonic canon he used on Deathstroke, only now it’s fancy and sleek, and he blasts Atrocitus with it. It looks, from the outside, like the force-field absorbs it without anything happening, but Vic explains, “See, I scanned the frequency of his field, and calibrated my sonics to harmonize with it, turning his field into one big echo chamber.” For a second we pop back inside the field, where the noise is hard to take. Atrocitus drops the field for a moment, to let the sound out. In the moment his field is down, he’s hit in the chest with a batarang that explodes. He stumbles backward, into Diana’s lasso, which she yanks, sending into to the ground, where we see that on his back is the octopuss.

“You know what else burns like fire?” Aquaman asks.

“I can’t be the only one who’s expecting him to say gonorrhea,” Flash interjects.

“Box jellyfish venom.” We zoom on the octopus injecting atrocitus. “Lantern?”

“I got you, little guy,” Green Lantern says, pulling both the jellyfish and octopus away from Atrocitus in a little protective bubble.

Atrocitus scream. “I don’t imagine it’ll cause paralysis in your species, which presumably come from another planet. But sounds like it’s still unpleasant.”

“Fools!” Atrocitus screams, lashing out in all directions with a wave of energy and weapons and flames, knocking them all to the ground. “I will peel the flesh from your skulls and eat it.”

At that precise moment, a human face barely sticking to a metal exoskeleton impacts with Atrocitus’ force-field; it’s Metallo, thrown by Superman. “I wouldn’t start with that one,” Flash says. “I’m pretty sure it’s artificial. I’m sure it would do lousy things to whatever your equivalent of a colon is.”

“Fast-men, stress his shield,” Batman says. Superman and Flash run circles around Atrocitus, pummeling his force-field. “Diana, put the squeeze on him.” She lassos his field and tightens it.

“Lantern, let John in; make sure he can’t surprise us.” We zoom in. Martian Manhunter and Green Lantern are, in effect, standing on the sheath of energy around Atrocitus’ body (the one that’s inside his larger force-field bubble). They see armies of red energy monsters form and unform.

John explains that, “The rings anticipate you; they try to be prepared for whatever you might need. I have connected you, so that whatever he attempts you will counter, automatically.” Another army rises, but this time, they’re joined in battle by a tiny green one.

“Cyborg,” Batman says. “I need the opposite of what you did before- a frequency that will cancel his field. I need a hole.”

“Then call me Dr. Stone,” Vic says, before adding, “kidding, ‘Doctor Stone’ is my father.” He blasts the field, slicing a hole in it.

“Shuck him like an oyster,” Batman commands. He manages to get a batarang in the hole, and pulls, himself, as the others grab on the hole in the field and pull. Atrocitus tries to create a red energy tentacle, but it’s caught by a green glove, he creates a battery of missiles, only for a green ramp to aim the missiles directly into his own face.

“John? I’m pretty sure he’s not fire on the inside,” Batman says.

John smiles. “You terrible, clever man.”

John oozes through the hole into the force-field, then phases past the energy sheath around his body, poring into his mouth and disappearing. “Would you like to do the honors?” John asks in Batman’s head, as Atrocitus’ sheath dissipates.

“John knows everything about your species that you or the Green Lanterns do. Like where to put pressure to bisect your spinal cord.” Atrocitus’ legs go limp, and he crashes onto his stomach. “Drop the ring, and yield, and it stops. Or John and I start getting creative.”

“Bastards,” Atrocitus yelps, peeling off the ring.

“Lantern?” Batman asks.

Hal picks up the ring in a green energy box, and his ring tells them it’s an authentic ring, that Atrocitus is unarmed. “You can come back out, John.” Manhunter phases out of Atrocitus, which lets him leave all of his bodily fluids where they had been.

“I thought he smelled bad on the outside,” John says. “Is that a reference humans still make? I’m… making a list.”

Quinn arrives with the Squad Members, and Waller in tow. Waller has a boomerang sticking out of her forearm. “Tell them what you told me, B-man,” Harley says.

“I can disarm the bombs in their necks, Waller. But you’re going to let them go.”

“Really?” Waller asks, shoulder-checking Harley as she steps to the front of the group. “From where I’m standing you’re holding an exceedingly weak hand. I know who all of you are, under the masks. Two of you are aliens. Two others aren’t human. One is in thrall to an alien military force, another a threat to modern society, and the other a threat to the very fabric of reality. This is one fight you can’t win, B-man.” She leans on the “B” in a way to make clear she considered calling him “Bruce.”

“That’s your problem. You don’t realize you’ve already lost.” Batman has footage from her control room, played holographically. Harley breaks in. Waller is nearer to the door, and tries to slow her down.

“Her bomb is disabled,” Waller barks. “She stops, or we start blowing the other Task Force members.”

“I’m not killing random people for you, Amanda,” Flag says, stepping away from the control panel.

She hits Harley with her gun, and pushes past him, “Then I’ll do it.”

Boomerang hits her with a boomerang in the arm (the one still embedded in the meat), and Harley punches her in the face. Flag puts up his hands.

The footage cuts to Waller training a gun on Cyborg, shooting Flash, shows Waller ordering Atrocitus to attack them.

“I’ll spell out for you what I have, Waller: it’s an agent of the government weaponizing a criminal army on US soil against citizens, none of whom have been accused of a crime. Worse, two of your targets are diplomatic envoys from sovereign nations. And,” documents flash across the screen, “here are the contracts for the tech you hoped to steal and then have replicated. So door number 1 is the end of your career, and your seedy little Suicide Squad.”

“Then what’s the carrot?”

“You live to fight another day. But your indentured army goes free. And so do we. An end to hostilities against anyone in this room. You still get to operate in the shadows, you just stop using us as your proving ground. There will be no reprisals- not from any of us, and not from you, or I go public, and the chips fall where they may.”

“You trust them?” she asks of the Squad.

“I trust that they understand their situation. Right now, I’m the lesser of two evils. But I’ll worry about that. This agreement is between you and me. Of course, you can always try to renegotiate with them.” Flag and Harley in particular are staring daggers at her, but Cheetah understands she could have been the one Waller tried to kill despite their agreement.

“Fine.” She shakes his hand. Waller leaves. Flag stays behind.

“You sure I can’t just kill her on her way out?” Cheetah asks.

“No,” Batman says. “But I do have an offer I’d like to make to all of you.”

“I should make sure she doesn’t make a beeline for the control room,” Flash says, zooming away.

We cut to later. “I’m not sure how I feel about you hiring yourself a mercenary army,” Superman says.

“We’ll have plenty to talk about that, though I view it more as an unorthodox rehabilitation program,” Batman says, but holds up his hand. Batman says, “Mask of Zorro,” into a bit of rock wall, and a piece of cave slides away, revealing a number pad. He removes his glove, and taps in a code, his fingerprints providing the biometric portion of the lock. The cave wall slides away, revealing a sleek black train. “All aboard.”

The ride is smooth, and doesn’t last very long, before they arrive in the Batcave. Alfred has prepared a feast for them, and set a table and chairs out for them to eat. “What is all this?” Superman asks. “You said yourself we aren’t a team.”

“No,” Batman says, “but maybe we need to be. Waller isn’t going away. I’ve known her kind. She may not be this brazen again, but she isn’t done testing us. And she’s far from the worst threat waiting in the wings. I haven’t changed my mind- not completely; I’m not ready to build a hall of justice and schedule regular meetings of our justice…”

“Family,” Superman suggests.

“Corps,” Green Lantern tries.

“Titans,” Cyborg adds.

“Legion?” Wonder Woman says.

“League?” Aquaman offers.

“Avengers?” Flash asks.

“I’m regretting this already,” Batman says. “But for tonight, we endured. For tonight, I need to say,” he removes his mask, “thank you for coming.” He can’t quite bring himself to admit that they came to his rescue, that they saved him, but they did, and they all understand- and understand that each and every one of them would have done the same for them, but also for anyone. That whether or not they say it tonight, they have built something, something that will endure.

We roll credits.

Mid-credits scene: “There’s a bloody morals clause?” Boomerang asks.

“And a death waiver,” Harley adds.

“It’s a liability waiver,” Flag says. “Death, dismemberment, other injury. Benefits are generous; life insurance if we’re killed, full disability insurance if we’re injured on the job. The morals clause just says we punch who we’re supposed to; looks to be modeled on a military code of conduct.”

“It was,” Batman says, walking into their midst. “But like I said, you don’t want to sign, you’re free to walk. You stay, you work for me. I put a team of high-priced lawyers on any prior issues you’ve had, and compensate you handsomely for your time and talents. Unlike Waller, I don’t view any loss of life as acceptable- especially my people’s lives.”

“How handsomely?” Quinn flips to a different page for Boomerang.

“Monthly?”

“Annually.”

Boomerang scoffs. “I got that much in a single day from hitting Central City Bank.”

“And how much of it did you get to keep?” Batman asks. “Scratch that. How deep in the hole were you, between boomerangs and dental work after Flash was done with you? 10 thousand? More?” He pivots away from Boomerang, who is a little pissed, but Harley puts her hand on his arm and he chills. “There are also bonuses. I anticipate us hitting criminal enterprises. Drugs and weapons we destroy, but we keep cash or anything else. Fifty percent goes towards operating costs- with the hope of reaching sustainability- the rest is yours to split evenly. So that figure is guaranteed base pay; you step on a landmine two steps into your first mission and lose a foot, you get that to live on- maybe more, if the rest of the team keeps paying out your portion of the bonuses. Oh, and if you stay on, you train.”

A woman with short red hair and military workout gear drops her bags. This is Batwoman, though we aren’t going to see her in costume for a while yet.

More credits, then one final end credits scene. Bruce Wayne is walking Ace on the grounds of Wayne Manor. He bends over to pet the dog’s head as a gust of wind blows, and the dog whimpers. “It’s okay, boy,” he whispers. “What are you doing here?” he asks without turning around.

“There’s someone I thought you needed to meet,” Superman says, before floating aside, revealing his flying dog, Krypto! The dog lands beside Ace, and they smell each other. “And you must be Ace,” Superman puts his hand out, and Ace sniffs it. Ace looks to Bruce for approval. Bruce gives a little nod, and the dog responds happily, and rubs his face into Clark’s hand.

“Krypto, meet Bruce.” Krypto floats in front of him.

“Does he shake?” Bruce asks. Krypto shakes like he was covered in water, and stares at him with a dopey dog smile on his face.

“Told you he was smart. And yes. If you put out your paw, he’ll shake.”

“How smart?” Bruce asks, putting out his hand. Krypto shakes it.

“I don’t have a precise answer; smarter than an Earth dog, not as smart as a human. The sun affects him the same way it has me.”

“Strong as you?” Bruce pulls the dog forward by the paw, and it rolls, flipping him over. He rolls, landing gracefully.

“Proportionally, at least.”

“Hmm,” Bruce says, eyeing the dog. “That might make him, pound for pound, the most dangerous thing on the planet.” Bruce turns back towards Ace. “I hope he’s a good boy.”

“You said the magic word,” Clark says, as Bruce is mauled by Krypto’s tongue, giving him dozens of slightly too-fast face licks. “Who’s a good boy?” Clark asks, and Krypto flies to him next.

“I think that depends on what you value,” Bruce says, snapping, and Ace sits at attention. Bruce gives him a treat. An instant later Krypto is sitting next to Ace, sitting just as behaved and attentive. “Touche,” he says, and tosses Krypto a treat of his own.

“Wait,” Superman says, “what’s he got in his mouth?” Ace is holding a small plush of an impish figure in an ill-fitting Batman costume.

“Damnit,” Batman says. “That’s his Bat-Mite.”

“Bat-Mite?”

“Alfred found it on a trip to India. As far as we can tell, the name is a corruption. One of the meanings of ‘man’ is ‘value,’ which can translate to “mite” in Urdu. I’m not sure how he keeps finding the damn thing; I keep hiding it.”

Ace holds it out, and Krypto sniffs it, before licking the doll’s face. We don’t see it, and neither do our heroes, but Krypto notices the imp wink at him, and tilts his head in that confused way dogs do.

End

DC Reboot Pitch: Wonder Woman

This is the fourth in a series of pitches for the rebooted DC Movies.

Note: I got really excited at the prospect of using AI art to mock-up these pitches, cause real talk, a pitch with pictures is a thousand times more exciting than one with just words (I think that’s how the quote goes). And AI is largely not up to the task. But we can still have some weird fun as we roll with this punch.

I’m going to try not to duplicate myself, despite this not being my first Wonder Woman rodeo. Or my second, for that matter…

Pitch

Little known fact: Amazons fletched their arrows with plump worms, or their own torn-off fingers.

Wonder Woman begins with a hunt. The Amazons are tracking a sacred deer, hunted only once a year and slaughtered in honor of Artemis. We cut back and forth, to earlier in the day, where Hippolyta wants her daughter to participate in the hunt, to really participate, to compete. Diana doesn’t want to; she doesn’t want to use the advantage of her gifts over her sisters, and she doesn’t like killing. Hippolyta offers her what she’s wanted so desperately for over a century- permission to leave to intervene in Man’s world. If she wins. Diana leaves, angry at her mother’s attempts to control her.

Many Amazons loose their arrows, but it is eventually Diana who overtakes the beast. She lunges at it, deflecting her sisters’ arrows with her bracelets. She refuses to kill it, and lets it free. The other Amazons are in awe; most of them can’t hit it with an arrow, but Diana captured it by hand. We intercut with earlier; Antiope pulls Diana to the side, and says winning doesn’t have to involve killing- in fact, in winning she can make sure there isn’t any death. The Amazons stare in amazement at Diana. One murmurs about her being a hunter to rival the goddess Artemis herself.

We pull back, and Artemis, the goddess, slaps the reflecting pool she was watching the hunt through. Hera, her adoptive mother is there, and asks what troubles her. She’s angry, at the deer not being sacrificed to her, at the Amazons daring to compare Diana to a goddess. Hera asks if mercy, and forgoing its flesh, is not itself a sacrifice. Artemis angrily tells her that a hunt does not end in mercy, and storms off.

We flash back, to show Wonder Woman has been asking to intervene in the world of man since the first World War. Every time, her mother consulted Athena, and every time, the goddess of wisdom told the Amazons to stay hidden.

We cut to day. Steve Trevor and Barbara Minerva are in a dogfight in the skies near Paradise Island. Her tail has Cheetah stripes; she’s developed a reputation as a Cheetah, ripping scores from the jaws of meaner and hungrier predators. For that reason one of her prized possessions is a cheetah-skin wrap she was given after the completion of a successful job, and she’s rarely without it. He’s pursuing her, but they’re both gifted pilots. The fight lasts long enough to justify featuring in the trailer, so we can go after that Top Gun: Maverick money.

Minerva’s jet crashes into the island’s invisible bubble, which keeps the Amazons hidden, even from satellite, an instant before Steve’s does. Normally Barbara could take him hand to hand, but his landing was slightly softer, since he had a moment more to prepare for the crash, so Steve triumphs, and pockets a canister of microfiche she had.

The Amazons find him standing over a bloodied Minerva. Being naturally distrustful of men, they believe Barbara’s story that Steve is a spy she was hunting, and they hold him captive. She gets free reign of the island, and begins stealing artifacts and sizing up the Amazons defenses.

This Barbara Minerva’s stepfather abused her and her mother; he made her feel small, inconsequential, vulnerable, so she joined the military immediately after high school. She told everyone it was to pay for her degree in anthropology… but both were means to never having to feel like a bigger predator’s prey ever again. Since graduating she has been working as a mercenary in world conflicts to gain access to sacred sites to pillage them, occasionally passing intelligence between shady groups as a side hustle (because when in Rome). That’s why Steve was after her- she has information that could be vital to stopping a terror attack. It’s not a huge detail, but it’s being orchestrated by higher powers; it isn’t a coincidence she ended up on Paradise Island. Eventually she finds a shrine to Artemis. Sensing a kindred spirit, Artemis lures a cheetah to the shrine, and it attacks Minerva, shredding her fur. She kills it with her bare hands.

Clearly the Cheetah has broken her right arm so badly it’s facing the wrong direction.

Artemis blesses Barbara for her killer instinct with a boon, and turns her into her avatar on Earth- transforming her into the mystically powered Cheetah, in the hopes to use her new disciple to gain revenge for the snub during the hunt. She’s capable of transforming into a lethal cat woman and back at will- subterfuge being one of a hunter’s greatest strengths. She continues hunting for artifacts and intelligence, but also has new prey in her sights: Wonder Woman.

Diana wants desperately to leave the island. She knows with her gifts she could be doing so much good in the world, even if she’s naïve about what the world actually is. To that end, she splits her time between Barbara and Steve, trying to learn as much as she can, initially building a friendship with Barbara and a rivalry with Steve. But she personally knows the goddess of wisdom; eventually she starts to realize something isn’t right about Barbara, and that Steve maybe isn’t what her prejudices tell her.

Good God, what have they done to his hands? The monsters!

During the day, Trevor is interrogated brutally by Amazons. At night, Diana sneaks in, to question him about world conflicts she regrets them not intervening in, and the state of the world. He sees it as a technique; she’s keeping him from sleeping, while also playing good cop. Eventually he snaps and confronts her, and her naivete convinces him that she really is genuinely concerned about the damage their inaction makes them complicit in. He tells her he’s been through SERE school- Survive, Evade, Resist and Escape- that the first principle of interrogation is that all the prisoner has to do is hold out until his intelligence is no longer valuable. The problem is he’s on the other side of that equation- the intel he needs to get out to the world to stop harm is only useful for a very short, very set period of time. Minerva was the go-between, putting teams in place for a strike. She doesn’t know what it is, only that she needed a diverse team from certain groups, to make an assault look like a coordinated attack from the Axis of Evil, potentially touching off World War 3, but at a minimum hurting a lot of innocent people and sowing conflict.

Meanwhile, Hippolyta uses her tiara (which will eventually be part of Diana’s costume) to open a portal to Olympus. She asks Athena what they should do with Trevor. Athena tells the queen he must be executed- but not just any execution, it needs to be shown to the world, so that they know Amazonian sovereignty is not to be infringed on. Hippolyta is troubled by the demand, but has learned over the years not to question the Gods, and sets about making preparations.

Diana discusses with Trevor her reservations, finally resolving to confront her mother. But on the way she’s attacked by Minerva. She’s a fierce, formidable woman, now, even beyond her mercenary skills and training, and nearly kills Diana before Steve intervenes, having picked his restraints some time ago. After helping her chase off Cheetah, he willingly walks back into his cell and puts back on his chains. Diana tells him he should flee, that they plan to execute him. He says he knows- that she’s stayed because of him, but when she leaves she might be able to pass his intel to someone who can stop the attack- that the mission is more important than one man.

Diana goes to her mother. Hippolyta doesn’t take much convincing, and agrees to take Diana to speak with Athena, believing that a goddess of wisdom must see reason. Athena gives a speech, a sweeping one, about the old Gods not being respected, and the Amazons, as their chosen daughters, similarly not being respected, that the only way to place both in the esteem they deserve is with a sacrifice. Diana squares to Athena. “I was gifted wisdom by the goddess Athena, and he is no Athena,” her hand instinctively goes to her lasso, to telegraph that her next step is forcing the truth from him.

Ares laughs, ending his charade. “I overplayed, didn’t I? Ah, well, the deed is done. You’ve delayed Trevor’s mission long enough there is no stopping what comes next, and the nations of the world will still blame you.”

They leave, and Diana asks if they finished studying Steve and Minerva’s planes- it turns out the Amazons have been reverse-engineering them since the incursion. Hippolyta says yes. Diana tells her to feed the information into their invisible dome- a gift from the gods to keep them hidden- that if she can form it into a plane it might be able to get her there in time to stop Ares’ plan. Hippolyta objects, because that will leave their island exposed for all the world to see, and Diana says, “We are rejoining man’s world, mother; that decision has been taken from us by Ares. But we can still decide who we are when we do.” Hippolyta allows her to go.

Steve flies, since the plane is largely designed after his aircraft; as it takes off we see Minerva latch on to the underside, before all three of them and the plane disappear.

Steve gives Diana the microfiche, and she’s able to form one of the panels of the ship to make it readable. She studies it on the trip.

The attack is on Brussels, and the European Union seat. Three teams, one Baltic, one Middle Eastern, and one Asian, attack the EU. The perimeter guards aren’t up to fighting off this many trained infiltrators, who start setting bombs. Wonder Woman lands on one of the teams, and proceeds to systematically take the teams apart, knowing precisely where they’ll be and prepared for the fight thanks to Steve’s intel.

There’s a final fight with Cheetah, who ambushes her at an inopportune moment- say as a bomb is about to go off near a pair of wounded guards. Minerva baits her, believing she can force Wonder Woman to sacrifice herself to save the men- which would make her worse than prey- she’s a willing sacrifice for the men around her. Diana lets herself be knocked towards the bomb; an instant later it flies into the air, where it explodes relatively harmlessly. Diana catches Cheetah in the lasso, pulling her back for one last haymaker.

In retrospect, expecting it to paint me a were-cheetah might have been asking too much.

An EU security team descends on Diana, guns drawn. Steve arrives, shouting that he has an Interpol contact, that she’s with them, and they aren’t with the terrorists- they stopped them. They get confirmation quickly- Steve’s handler knew the attack was imminent and was waiting for his intel to try to stop the attack.

We pull back, and see that it’s Ares rewatching Diana through the watery portal. He’s smiling. “You’re in high spirits, considering you lost,” Artemis pouts.

“Did I?” he asks.

“Didn’t we both?” she sulks.

“I sowed chaos, forced the Amazons to reveal themselves, and their nature. You taught your most ardent believers not to take you for granted. We’re Gods. We don’t lose, we just evolve the game.”

Artemis is getting tired of him. “I think you are about to lose, some teeth, maybe an eye.” He doesn’t see what she does: Wonder Woman is behind him, and throws a punch that knocks his helm off, and sends its sliding across the floor.

“Where’s Athena?” she demands. Ares believes they can strike up a compromise, but Diana isn’t hearing it. “Produce her, or I’ll be the only one doing any striking.” Artemis is now actively amused, and taunts him that Athena is going to be very cross with him, idly wondering what happens when a God and Goddess of war go to war. Then Artemis, always on the hunt, goes for the kill, and taunts him that Athena is the goddess of wisdom- intelligent combat and strategy. He’s the god of drunken bar brawls and soccer riots. You can see how much it grinds Ares, because he knows she’s right.

We cut to Athena, Hippolyta and Diana later. Athena’s apologetic over Ares impersonating her, but also restrained- she knows what would come of a war with Ares. She also knows what Ares’ plots have cost them. Hippolyta is glad to have her wisdom back to guide the Amazons, especially now. Athena is more concerned; her wisdom tells her that the consequences of Ares’ plots are not yet complete- but recognizes that her absence has allowed one particular conflict to grow, and bids Hippolyta to tell her daughter the truth. Hippolyta tells Diana that she leaned on Athena not just for her wisdom, but because… “You raise a daughter, hoping to protect her from the world, knowing you will utterly fail. I couldn’t stand the thought of failing to protect you… which became a failure of a different kind.”

Diana puts a hand on her mother’s arm. “A mother’s task is not to protect her children, it’s to ensure they have the tools, strength, and courage to defend themselves, and the wisdom to know when to show mercy.” She pulls her mother close. “You’ve protected me long enough.” She lets her go. “Now it’s time for me to protect our sisters, our home, our world.”

“Our world,” Hippolyta says breathlessly. “I dreamed of a day the Amazons’ world would not be so small… now I worry it’s grown too wide and too wild.”

“Then it’s good I have so many sisters to help me keep her safe,” Diana says, throwing an arm around her mother.

Roll credits.

In an end-credits scene, Cheetah is being escorted away by Interpol in cuffs. They’re met by Amanda Waller, and a detachment from Task Force X to take her into custody. Minerva doesn’t look up at Waller, not until the very last word. “Dr. Minerva. You’re going to spend the rest of your natural life in prison- possibly an unnatural life- depending on what exactly Artemis did to you. There might be an alternative, though it’s not without risks. Some might even call it suicide.” Minerva fixes Waller with a glare; she’s practically feral, but we cut to black before she can snap her restraints.

END NOTE: Okay, so I feel I have to justify the image I shared this with. See, after attempts to get the AI to create a were-cheetah failed, I just had it create Wonder Woman fighting a werewolf. And for some reason, in one of them, the werewolf was wearing her costume. I don’t… know why. But it’s an amazing image. I couldn’t not use it (I don’t personally have that kind of restraint).

The Secret Bonus Wonder Woman Pitch

Back in 2013, I pitched this Wonder Woman movie. I still dig it, as a coming-of-age version of her story- a true origin for her.

The Wonder Woman Movie

In the Amazon throne room, Diana’s mother forces her to choose in a Solomon-like conflict between two Amazons. She finds a solution that seems to half-please all involved. Hippolyta gives 18-year old Diana a dressing down. She says her daughter has absorbed too much of the philosophical ideas about being an Amazon, without learning their practical application- that a leader must be prepared to be tough and ruthless. Diana is more concerned with what she saw as right, and storms off.

Cut to a US fighter jet. He’s flying in a joint NATO exercise over the Mediterranean, when one of the French planes breaks formation. Over the radio, the pilot, Steve Trevor, is informed that they can’t raise the pilot- he isn’t responding. A moment later, more excitedly, they explain that the plane has been ‘mistakenly’ armed with a nuclear warhead.

Trevor breaks formation to pursue the other craft. Over the radio, Trevor hears a command from an unknown source. “Kill the American.” The other French planes break formation, and attack him. Trevor manages to shoot down two of the planes, before his own jet is damaged to the point of being incapable of firing. Rather than let the rogue pilot escape with a nuclear warhead, he smashes his plane into him, and both planes go down.

Trevor wakes up on Paradise Island, surrounded by beautiful women. He asks if he’s in Heaven. Hippolyta tells him that for him, it’s closer to hell, and stomps him into unconsciousness. We cut to Trevor in a cell, looking haggard. He tells them what he can: his name, rank, and serial number.

Cut to Hippolyta, discussing with her inner circle the man’s presence and its implication- someone has discovered their island- and worse, he brought war to it. Both planes crashed on the island. The advisers tell Hippolyta there were casualties and she storms off, and into Trevor’s cell. She rages at Trevor for the deaths he caused. He’s visibly shaken by the news, and apologizes. He explains that the man he killed had stolen a weapon of great power- the kind of weapon no sane person wants to wield. “Peace through force,” she says, signaling a kind of understanding. But his presence is still troubling, and his methods still violent and imprecise. Hippolyta retires to think, but also calls her advisors.

Meanwhile, Diana converses with an Amazon of African descent a few years her junior named Lyta. Because of Diana’s mother, they know about Trevor, while it’s being kept secret from most of the Amazons at this point. And they’re fascinated. Diana admits that she’s always felt stifled on the island. She feels like she’s been a caged bird, or a fish in a tank, when she’s meant to swim and to fly. Her friend is skeptical, and tells her it must be terrible being the beautiful daughter and heir apparent to the most powerful and respected woman on the island. Diana asks if she’s never wanted to see more of the world. Lyta hesitates, because she knows that look: Diana is about to do something reckless.

Cut back to Hippolyta, now meeting with her advisors. The outside world has made contact. She knows they can’t maintain their isolation any longer. Her scouts tell her that US ships patrol the area near the mouth of the Mediterranean, where it meets the Atlantic, looking for Trevor, his ship, the French pilot or the bomb. Hippolyta discusses with her science and military advisors. Her scientists are skeptical that their cloaking tech will stand up to this kind of scrutiny. Moreso, they understand that while they’ve held a technical edge, they are going to lose it; a small island nation can’t continue to outpace an entire industrialized world. One military advisor, Antiope, wants to attack the ships, while the other, Philippus, says, “There will always be more ships.”

Hippolyta knows that there must be peace; perhaps through force- but peace is her ultimate goal. She tells her advisors that they need an ambassador. Antiope quietly tells her second in command, Drucilla, to interrogate the prisoner, to see what else he might know. Drucilla is about Diana’s age; she’s a mirror image of Diana, what the character might have turned out to be if she was a part of the Amazon’s military instead of its Princess. And yes, this is a stealth introduction of Donna Troy- Wonder Girl.

Diana sneaks into the prison where Trevor’s being held. She brings him food, and water. She asks him about his world. He assumes he’s being played- that she’s good cop, but he plays along. Diana hears Drucilla enter, and hides. She throws the food Diana brought him against the wall, then throws him into the wall after it. She sneers, and reels back to hit him. Diana intervenes, and uses a martial arts roll to redirect the attack and leave the lieutenant on her back. She’s stunned a moment, before realizing who attacked her. She knows she can’t brutalize the prisoner with Diana there, but needs to leave, quickly. “Your mother will hear of this,” she says, and storms off.

“And your commander will, too,” Diana hits back. 

Cut to the throne room again, and Hippolyta is holding back her daughter while Antiope holds back Drucilla; they’re arguing, but it’s moments from becoming a brawl. Hippolyta asks if it’s true, and the bickering continues, until she directs her glare to Antiope. She sighs, and admits that it is. Hippolyta says that she’ll overlook the indiscretion, so long as she and her second can be more discreet in the future. Then she instructs them to leave.

Hippolyta tells Diana that they’re going to nominate an ambassador, decided by a trial. Diana’s excited. She talks at a fast clip about how the island should share its advanced technologies and philosophy, of all the lives they could change and save. Her mother forbids her from participating; she says by right the position should be Diana’s, but that she’s proven that she isn’t ready for the weight of the responsibility- tonight being the most recent example.

Diana storms off. Lyta follows her to the beach, still scarred by the wreckage of Trevor’s plane. She sits on the shore, and stares at the ships patrolling just a little ways off. The friend talks about Diana, and how she’s special- particularly in that she’s not a clone, like most of the Amazons. But beyond that, she’s always known Diana was special, that she’d do special things. She hated it a little, because it also meant she’d leave her. But she never blamed Diana- she can’t blame birds for flying away, it’s simply who they are.

Hippolyta posts her personal guard outside Trevor’s cell to prevent further attempts to harm him. Drucilla is at first annoyed, because it means they can’t further interrogate him. Antiope sees it as an opportunity. Without her guards, Hippolyta is vulnerable. She tells Drucilla to assemble likeminded soldiers for a coup, set for the climax of the trials.

Hippolyta announces the nature of the trial. There will be three parts, centered around the most important values of their culture: strength, wisdom, and stamina. The first test is strength- personal combat. Diana defies her mother, and stands for the trial. Hippolyta tries to argue that her daughter should be disqualified. Philippus disagrees; if they gods favor her, who are they to disagree?

Diana is well-known for her fighting prowess, and the gathered Amazons quickly favor her with chanting and applause. But coming up on the other side of the bracket is a fighter whose brutality is difficult for the other warriors to cope with, named Artemis. During their climactic fight, Diana allows herself to be bested, while protecting an Amazon bystander from some environmental hazard caused by the fight (debris, a loose spear, whatever).

Hippolyta argues for her daughter to lose. The advisors, in this capacity also serving as judges, discuss it, and one of them announces that “Strength is not to be equated with unchecked violence. On occasion, that means having the strength to lose with grace, and the strength to protect others over ourselves.”

Diana is presented the tiara for winning, but is warned that because it increases her empathy, it could tilt the rest of the contest in her favor, in particular the next event. She wisely sets it down at the table in front of her mother, for safe keeping, a move that pleases the other judges, and annoys Hippolyta.

Next comes wisdom, an oral argument for each candidate’s place as the Amazonian ambassador. Artemis believes that “Man’s world” needs to be brought to heel. Diana argues persuasively that, “It isn’t man’s world. It’s ours. We’ve spent too much time living apart from it, pretending like we’re above it. We have failed this world with our silence. We can brook that failure no longer.”

Hippolyta is furious that she seems to have won the crowd. One of her advisors points out, “She’s every bit her mother’s daughter.” She’s still angry, but it’s hard for her not to look on her daughter with some pride.

Diana is awarded the bracelets, and is permitted to wear them, as they should have no bearing on the next contest. Hippolyta reminds all the candidates that the contest is not over. Her daughter’s awards for besting individual contests does not rule her the winner. Because the trial is about their conduct, how they maintain themselves in the face of odds, against dangers and adversity- particularly the adversity of defeat. She looks at Artemis when she says this.

Next is the stamina trial, to quest for a sacred lasso. It’s essentially a foot race, over the island. But the island is filled with dangers, and animals our world has never seen. Artemis plans out a trap for her. She captures Lyta, and uses her as bait, to lure Diana into a fight with a monstrous lizard. It’s doubly clever, because violence in this contest will cause Diana to lose instantly. Diana manages to evade the creature, while saving Lyta, only for Artemis to then be attacked by the lizard. Artemis panics, and assumes that she’s about to die, largely by her own hand, when Diana rescues her, and gets the lizard to trap itself beneath the roots of a large tree.

Diana gets Artemis to safety, then goes back to the lizard. Artemis doesn’t understand, but Lyta does. “You don’t get it, do you?” she asks.

“It will kill her,” Artemis says.

“And it will die if she doesn’t help.” Even while the lizard snaps at her, Diana works to free it from the tree. She manages to get its head loose, and it immediately attacks her. She runs for her life. Artemis notices that she’s being careful where she leads it, particularly away from the other contestants, and away from the city. “They could help her,” Artemis says.

“They’d kill it. And maybe some of our sisters would be hurt, too.”

Artemis goes back to the chase. We see her climb a rocky tower, intercut with Diana, running through the trees as the lizard tramples smaller trees chasing her, getting closer with every second. Artemis lays hands on the rope, which glows. Diana turns, and the lizard chomps on her bracelets, but can’t break through them. She scrambles out from underneath it, and runs again. We see her run between two trees. Suddenly, the golden rope is pulled taught between them, and catches the lizard in the jaw.

Artemis loosens the rope from the tree, and runs at the lizard, and manages to tie the rope the rest of the way around the lizard. Once it’s done, the rope glows brightly, and the lizard lays down, docile. She unties it. She walks to Diana, with the rope in hand. Then she kneels, and presents Diana the rope. “I was never worthy of it,” she says. Diana refuses to take it. “Worth is something proven, and earned.” She helps her rival stand. “We’re worth our measure only when we continue to strive to be better.”

Artemis holds onto the lasso, until they reach the arena. She places it on the table before Hippolyta, beside the tiara, to make it clear she believes the lasso to be Diana’s. Hippolyta is first confused by the gesture, then understands it. She recuses herself from the final judgment; she realizes that she’s been feuding with Diana as a daughter she wants to protect, not the woman she is.

Philippus delivers a speech, “That true leadership means inspiring the best in all of us, even from our rivals.” She commends everyone’s performance- and says that she has never been prouder to be an Amazon, and mentions in particular Artemis as a woman she wouldn’t want to stand on the other side of a spear from- or a lectern. Then she instructs Diana to rise, and join them on the podium.

That is when Antiope rises, and stands menacingly over Hippolyta. “Your daughter isn’t going to be ambassador. Our ambassador will be the point of a spear.” She levels one at Hippolyta.  At that moment, Drucilla runs Antiope through with a short sword. She’s heartbroken, and explains to Hippolyta that she tried to gently guide her away from her destructive path, but failed. It’s clear from the guards’ and soldiers’ reactions that the coup never went farther than her. Hippolyta asks Philippus to take the woman into custody, for debrief. Then she says that it’s her honor to name her daughter their ambassador.

In private, Hippolyta reveals two things to her daughter. One, the Amazons have reverse-engineered the two planes, and crafted one of their own. Second, as the Amazon’s champion, she is bestowed with additional gifts, bestowed by their gods: strength, speed, flight, hardiness.

Diana leaves the meeting with her mother. And then she runs, all the way across the island in the blink of an eye, overshooting, and running across the water, past one of the US ships, before taking to the air. A lookout on the US ship asks another seawoman what he just saw- a UFO. “I don’t think I saw anything,” she says, “and I don’t think you did, either.”

Cut to the exterior of the prison, where Diana lands somewhat roughly leaving an impact crater. She walks inside, and asks if Trevor’s ready for transport. One of the guards explains that the doctor hasn’t cleared him. Diana tells one of them to get the doctor right away.

The next day, she flies herself, Trevor, the remains of the two planes, and the bomb, in a stealth jet- based on the same tech that hides her island away. She tells him it’s her first flight, though it looks to be the same interface they use for all of their computer systems- which doesn’t make him feel at ease.

The plane cloaks as it leaves the island’s own cloaking shield, as Hippolyta watches from the throne room from the first scene. Cryptically, Philippus says to her, “You didn’t tell her.” Hippolyta says that her daughter has a world to protect- now isn’t the time to burden her with an Underworld, as well. Philippus is concerned- they’ll need her for the coming struggle. Hippolyta is convinced her daughter will come when the time dictates it. Essentially, Paradise Island sits on top of a Hellmouth- it’s the place on Earth where things from the Underworld can spill over. Gotta lay ground for that sequel.

As Diana’s plane approaches New York, Trevor implores her to let him contact his superiors. “You can’t just fly a nuclear bomb onto a US air field and expect to be greeted as anything other than a threat.” She lets him set up a landing at a US base.

They’re met by the entire base, including its commander, all pointing guns at Diana. He tries to arrest Diana. Trevor protests. “That woman’s an ambassador, from a nation so technologically advanced you can’t fathom it. They built that plane over the course of a week after looking at scraps of mine and the French one I shot down. You don’t want to start a war with the one nation we might not be able to beat.”

The commander hesitates a moment, before the US Ambassador to the UN walks out, and nods at him. He puts away the cuffs, and asks, “Is there anywhere I can escort you, madam ambassador?”

Cut to the UN. Diana is presented by the US Ambassador to the general assembly. Trevor is with them. She thanks Diana, and by extension her people, for returning the nuclear weapon, and for not proliferating their use- possibly getting in a dig about discussing international patent law over the tech in her plane. Diana looks uncomfortable at the applause she receives, as Trevor leans over to ask the ambassador how the hell the weapon ever got off the chain.

A diplomat sitting near them listens intently in his headphones. Through an unused set of headphones, Trevor hears the voice from earlier say, “He heard my voice.” The diplomat takes a pistol from his desk, and tries to shoot Trevor.  Diana steps between them, and blocks the bullets with her bracelets.

Diana uses her lasso on the would-be assassin. It breaks the diplomat from his hypnotic spell. Trevor and the US Ambassador convince the police to give her a moment with the diplomat. He explains that he saw a therapist, and that he heard that therapist’s voice a moment before he tried to shoot Trevor, and found it irresistible. He claimed not to know how the gun got there. Diana believes him, but the ambassador’s skeptical. Diana hands her a piece of the lasso. “Tell me something true you don’t want to.” “Your age and weight,” Trevor adds. Before she can, Diana takes the rope back. “I would have told you; I don’t even like that my doctor knows.”

Trevor accompanies her to find the diplomat’s therapist. He drives, remarking that he can’t believe all of this was caused by some, “Psycho Doctor,” (the character’s comic name is Dr. Psycho). She asks why a woman wouldn’t want to admit her age or weight. He explains that some people think women have a shelf life. He says he thinks they get better with age.

We see men on the military base. We hear what they hear over their radios: “Stop them.” Suddenly, a tank drives out into traffic in the streets ahead of Trevor’s car. Diana opens the door. “Don’t stop,” she says. He tries to tell her that’s a tank, as she rolls out of the car. The tank fires, and she’s engulfed in smoke and flame.

Music swells as the fireball dissipates, and the concussion from the blast carries the smoke away. Diana has her arms crossed in an x in front of her, where she blocked the shell with her bracelets. She reels back, in a fighting pose, then sprints toward the tank. A machine-gun mounted on the tank tries to track her, only managing to pepper the ground where she’d been with bullets- perhaps occasionally requiring her to deflect the odd one with her bracelet. She reaches the tank, and tears the turret away. An instant later she’s on top of the tank, and drops her lasso around the tank crew. “Where is he?” she asks.

“The doctor is in,” they say in unison, before coming to their senses.

Cut a few hundred feet down the street. We see the outline of a plane flying overhead, towards the tank, and pull back to reveal the fighter jet itself, flying low between the skyscrapers. It begins to fire from a machine-gun, strafing fire towards Diana. She looks behind herself, at the tank crew who would be caught in the fire if she simply sidestepped. She stands her ground, and deflects the shots from the plane- though these knock her around a bit because they’re bigger, and require more jumping around to deflect.

One of the bullets ricochets back down the plane’s fuselage, breaches its engine and fuel, and the plane catches fire. She flies after it. The plane is about to smash into a bus full of frightened but also entranced schoolchildren. We see Diana’s reflection in the window as a young girl watches her fly in front of the plane, drop her lasso around it and yank it above the bus at the last second. “Whoa,” the little girl says.

Diana uses the rope to guide the plane to a controlled crash on top of a building. She rips the canopy off the plane, and the pilot fires a shot at her from his sidearm. She deflects it, and lassos him. He stares unbelieving at the gun, then manages to mumble an apology. She flies off.

Trevor has arrived at the high-rise offices of the diplomat’s therapist, and he’s got his service weapon in hand. He’s mumbling about her telling him, “Don’t stop. Not all of us can stop bullets, in ways that don’t,” he jabs himself in the chest, “hurt.”

He hears the voice again. “An excellent idea. Stop all the bullets.” We see the owner of the voice, a short, but relatively handsome man, in a suit. He points his finger as if it were a gun at his own head. Trevor follows suit, with his gun. He’s trembling, trying to fight it, but he can’t.

Diana’s lasso wraps around his hand, and jerks the gun down and away as he fires. “Don’t,” she says. “K,” he mumbles, and drops to the floor.

“You,” the doctor says, “should tell me how to get you out of that little number. Zipper in the back, snaps in the front?” He smiles, pleased with himself. She tosses the lasso around him, and cinches it tight. “Crap.”

Trevor gets up off the floor, complaining that it feels like he was kicked in the head by a donkey. Then he asks if he can kick the doctor. A helicopter strafes the building, filling it full of gunfire that conveniently misses the doctor. Trevor, huddled behind a desk, asks her if she can fight off a helicopter, and when a second appears, firing on them from the other side of the building, “or two.” She says she can, but innocent people will get hurt. “Stop them,” she says to the therapist. He picks up his radio, and sighs. “Stand down,” he says.

Then she tells him he’s going to explain what he wanted with the weapon. He tells them that the weapon was merely a means to an end. “What ‘we’ wanted was violence, chaos.” A world where a man like him could rule. She asks what he meant by “we.” He tries to resist, to not tell the truth. Then he screams out in pain, and passes out.

Trevor says that he thought she said that no one could avoid telling the truth under the lasso’s sway. She says that’s what she thought. They get the doctor up, and lead him to the reception area of the office. A befuddled guard is trying to keep a gathering of reporters outside, to protect patient confidentiality. Trevor remarks that the vultures descended fast. He tells her it’s a whole new world out there, now, and asks her if she’s ready to meet it.

“No,” she says, “I’m ready to join it.”

Credits.

Stinger: We see Ares. “That was fun,” he says. A beautiful if bookish woman is with him, and seems bored by their conversation. She’s Athena. “That’s what you said after the Balkans. And the Gulf Wars. After every war.  But it’s over. Your attempt to create a perpetual conflict failed. Again.”

“This fight might be over. But the world just got a little smaller. And as the world gets smaller, humans more and more feel the press of their fellow rats in the cage, and the more they trample over one another, for resources and gain. No, sister. I think this conflict is only just beginning.”

Couple of side-notes

The Amazons speak several languages. Their original language was an offshoot of ancient Greek. But as outside societies changed, and the possibility of discovery increased, they learned others, to be prepared for the inevitable contact- and to better be able to stave off conflict. They’ve spoken English primarily since the Second World War, when it became clear that the US would dominate world culture for some time to come. Though a few of the older Amazons still speak German- they hedged their bets, just in case the Germans won the war.

Fashion-wise, I think it’s silly if they go the full on toga route. It would also be boring for them to just go full modern. Instead, what I’d like to see is kind of a fusion- basically a parallel evolution of fashion from a Greek-heavy beginning, but then only marginally influenced for thousands of years by occasional contact with the outside world. If designed right, it would be modern, but almost sci fi, but with a hint of their togic origins- but always with an eye to practical active wear.

DC Ten Year Plan

Introduction

For those of you who may not have heard, James Gunn and Peter Safran, new heads of DC’s movieverse, are putting together a ten year plan. So I thought I’d pitch my own.

Assumptions

1. We’re playing it where it lies. That means no rewriting 2023’s The Flash to get rid of Ezra Miller, or assuming he’ll be killed in the final five minutes (he might be… but that’s a much easier thing to fix in my pitch than the reverse).

2. Budget is now one of the names of the game. So we’re a lot less likely to see the kinds of big-budget ensembles I prefer for my comic movies, (as you can tell from my other pitches). But I still expect team-ups and duos to be the norm.

3. Covid makes some movie failures an open question. WW2 could have been a winner at the box office, even if it wasn’t a great movie. For that reason I expect sequels to be greenlit that wouldn’t otherwise (you wouldn’t normally do a Suicide Squad 3 after that kind of a box office drop… but the pandemic creates this odd uncertainty- so I expect sequels to happen if only to keep the talent happy).

4. We’re assuming none of these balls get dropped, which is a big assumption. No one expected Black Adam to thud quite as hard as it did; it was supposed to build out the Justice Society, but it won’t get a sequel, and I suspect the Society won’t get a spin-off, either, at least not in its current state.

5. I’m assuming 3 movies per year. I know next year will have 4, but I think that’s entirely because DC blinked and moved Aquaman off of Avatar 2’s weekend- no reason to give up $100+ million just to play chicken with Disney- maybe a lot more, if Avatar is well-received and Aquaman isn’t. I expect 3 movies is the max DC will try to do on average; anything else risks glutting the market and stretching their producers too thin. It’s possible that changes; if they can consistently produce 3 per year without major duds, they might step up to 4… but I suspect savvy executives would recognize Marvel’s quality has slipped somewhat due to Feige being stretched thin, and try to avoid that.

6. I’m assuming we stop at trilogies. Marvel are experimenting with Thor 4 and Cap 4, but that happened later; for now we’re assuming after trilogies that things evolve.

7. You could read the statement about not having 4 Batmen as meaning literally that… but I think it points to a collapse of the multiverse- a Crisis on Infinite Earths as dictated by corporate fiat. Which we can work with.

TWIST

Given that reports have put Wonder Woman 3 as getting the ax, Momoa being out as Aquaman and Gunn rebooting Superman without Cavill… it looks like they’re aiming for more of a tabula rasa than I initially assumed. Because my procrastination is an onion of infinite leaf, I will still pitch my original version below, and then also pitch a wide open, blue sky version after that here. Honestly, I think a clean slate is the way to go… but I’m frankly a little shocked Warner/Discovery are moving ahead with it.

2024

I figure this is kind of a rebuilding year. So I’m only pitching one project, the only one I think has a chance of getting greenlit and made in time to come out in the same year as Joker 2.

Wonder Woman 3: War of the Realms

I’ve seen the reporting. I don’t believe the sequel is dead; the first one made $800 million, and the sequel suffered because of the pandemic. So it’s getting a sequel, and it’s one of very few projects that might make a 2024 deadline at this point.. To me the main question is whether or not Patty Jenkins will be involved. The next is whether or not they want to recast Gal Gadot- which is far riskier (most people don’t know Jenkins, but they know the actress in the role).

I think 1984 got made largely because after the first one blew up, Jenkins had too much clout. They thought the Wondertrain could never be derailed, so they might as well keep milking prequels, and if it ever did, you could just start making modern sequels. I think it’s time to pull that rip-cord.

This one takes place in the aftermath of Justice League. Wonder Woman has come full-circle, rejoining the world as well as now essentially leading the League. So it’s going to involve at least a little of her role as part of the world. I’d lean into it, make her ambassador from both Themyscira and also from the Hall of Justice- so she represents her people and the Justice League to the United Nations. That also neatly sets up an arc for her, in that there’s bound to be tension between the League and her nation.

The other big narrative thread we have lingering is Steve. She needs to get over Steve. Personally, I prefer the Frozen route; she’s the world’s premier superheroine, so it’s not great if her movies are all about the boy she likes (and we can’t even lean into her sex-positivity of the first film because she’s been portrayed at this point as being an emotional shut-in after Steve’s death). So I’d introduce Artemis. I’d make her literally Diana’s little sister, bratty, brash, spoiled and snotty, in all the ways a second child to the perfect first can be. She’s also incredibly hurt that Diana abandoned her, and the Amazons.

Perhaps that’s why, when there’s a minor territorial scuffle with Atlantis, Artemis fans its flames into outright war. Now, obviously, this sequel would be more financially viable if you get Momoa as Aquaman. But you could also do Mera, running Atlantis in his stead while he attends to League business, perhaps settling up a cool, strange superheroine cat fight. Or you could have it be Orm, Black Manta, the bench of, “briefly took over Atlantis to cause trouble” villains is reasonably deep (this pun is intentional).

Regardless, it becomes clear to everyone, the Amazons and the world, that she can’t both be their ambassador for peace and a part of the world’s unofficial superhero justice department. She has to choose. I’d have her speak to Athena (because again, the Gods are real in her world), and the Goddess of wisdom says that she can be a true and faithful sister to her people- or she can embrace the world as her people, and be faithful to them, and leave rule and representation of the Amazons to those without a foot in both worlds.

So she helps put an end to the conflict, first, then resigns as the Amazonian ambassador, because she can’t be both a peacekeeper and a peacemaker- and her heart and her skills are more in the one than the other. And at the same time she reconnects with her love for her sister- with her love for all of her sisters- and realizes that at some point Steve became a symbol for the loss of all of them, as well.

2025

The Batman 2: Hush

I’m assuming Matt Reeves maintains largely full control, but I can’t pass up a chance to pitch some Batman, and it’s taking up space in my schedule, anyway, so loosely tracking the comic story, in the same way that The Batman loosely tracked a few different stories; Joker is treated like Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs in the original story. We could go a step further, keeping him in shadow for most of the runtime. That would allow us to, if Joker 2 makes anywhere near what the first did, have a cameo from Phoenix, canonizing his Joker as the post-Flashpoint Joker (or at least one of them). Because we’d need Dick around, and because I think the idea of Robert Pattinson trying to foster a child would be funny, one of the segments of the story involves the death of the Graysons and Bruce taking Dick in- then immediately realizing he’s an emotionally stunted adolescent, and in no way ready for a kid.

The Suicide Squads

Sequel box office is usually a referendum on audience enjoyment of the previous film; it can be helped by marketing, but only so much. People were intrigued by Squad 1, then let down, so they were less keen to be bit a second time- even by a superior product. But this superior product was also the baby of the new boss of DC, or at least one of them, so I expect it to get a third entry.

I assume James Gunn would be writing and likely directing this one himself. As the name implies, it’s Squad 1 vs. Squad 2. Amanda Waller re-recruits her first squad to go after her rogue squad, headlined by Redemption Tour Will Smith. She wants them dead or back on her leash, and their leverage destroyed. How can you not salivate at the idea of Deadshot vs. Bloodsport, King Shark vs. Killer Croc, Harley and her Spear vs. Kitana and her Kitana? It might even be fun to do Ratcatcher 2 vs. Enchantress.

Given the casualties 1 suffered, we could either add characters. My preference would be to recruit Clayface, but a brainwashed Clayface who believes he’s Steve Trevor, and that he’s been serving as a deep cover black operative since his ‘death,’ with the aim of eventually putting him and Wonder Woman together for some emotional fireworks. Or you cold just have Peacemaker show up and join their squad. Either way, 2 is outmatched and things look dire… until Harley cashes in a favor from the Birds of Prey! Waller is lead away in cuffs (handed off to General Wade Eiling), and Task Force X is officially disbanded, with both squads freed.

Of course… that just means Waller and her special project go deeper underground… but that’s a concern for another day.

Green Lantern Corps.

Not to be confused with my more pie in the sky version I pitched before, this would be smaller.

Given that Ryan Reynolds was essentially doing a variation on Guy Gardner’s personality, and I’m assuming we’re going to be doing this as small-scale as you can do something like this, we have two human main characters, and they’ll be John Stewart and Kyle Rayner. John’s been around the block, and Kyle’s the rookie.

We play the GL Corps. almost like a police department, that kind of bureaucracy, codes of conduct, etc. Assuming we want to make this as cost-effective as possible, we can do it almost like Men in Black, that there’s essentially a sector house stationed on Earth, that they work out of. The front office is staffed by humans, or at least shapeshifters and humanoids. As they get deeper in, their coworkers get weirder. Then John leads him into an interrogation room.

Stewart tells him they’re at war. One of their own, Sinestro, has been recruiting. Their rings run on willpower. Sinstro’s runs on fear. His theory, the same of many petty dictators, is that fear is more powerful than will. And Kyle’s there because, right now, they’re losing that war, and doesn’t want to talk about what happened to Hal. He asks Kyle to tell him how they got there.

Kyle was a graphic designer. Mostly freelance. Hard to keep a single gig going in this economy. Between gigs he liked to station himself at a coffee shop and sketch, to keep his design skills limber.

A Sinestro member crashes through the shop. Kyle’s slashed with a piece of broken glass. The Sinestro is blasted by green light, and we see that he landed on a Green Lantern. It holds out its ring to Kyle, and tells him to take it- take it and run.

We see Kyle running down the street as yellow energy flies past him. Someone vulnerable is frozen in his path, a child, maybe a stroller or an elder person. Kyle turns, the ring clutched in his hand, and holds up his arms and closes his eyes- he can’t let someone else get hurt because of him.

We’re back in the interrogation. “For the record, that blast would have incinerated both of you. For the same record- I’ve never seen a civilian activate a ring, let alone one they were only holding.” We’re back. Kyle opens his eyes, and sees the green bubble he created. The Sinestro starts to punch it, and the bubble cracks. Kyle tries to reinforce it with his mind, a flurry of motion as he imagines intricate defenses, but they’re too weak to hold the creature back, it’s going to break through.

A green burst of energy knocks him down and back, and Stewart lands in front of Kyle. In the interrogation room, Stewart asks for the ring, and says they can’t be taken. Kyle says it was given to him. “Be that as it may, the odds of you getting it to work again are astronomical, and even if you do, you won’t have a way to recharge it. Unless I swear you in.”

They talk about what joining the Lanterns means, and eventually has him repeat the oath after him, then has him slide on the ring, and he transforms into a Green Lantern.

We meet Sinestro. We’re going to do something different, here. The Sinestros are mostly working on Earth. They’ve taken over a Central American cartel- converting some of them with rings, killing others. They did this for access to their chemical processing and networks. And the reason is that they’ve partnered with a human with expertise in creating fear chemically, Dr. Jonathan Crane, and they intend to use his chemicals to amplify their strength a hundred fold and crush the Green Lanterns, first on Earth, but eventually on Oa.

So you can do a lower key, earth-based crime story with the Lanterns for a lower budget, but with the promise of potential space-based chicanery to come- but depending on box office you can keep the action mostly Earth-based- so it doesn’t have to be a Star Wars to justify sequels.

2026

Flash 2/Earth 2

I’m assuming that with as risk-averse as WB-Discovery has been, they don’t want to keep Ezra Miller around. In light of that, I expect they’ll recast- maybe a cameo of Ezra, but replace him, maybe with Wally from a different universe, the future, whatever.

So at the end of Flashpoint (I’m assuming they keep him through that- if only because they want him around, at least theoretically, for press), Barry emerges on Earth 2. At first he doesn’t understand it- he’s never emerged in the wrong universe before. We play up the similarities between this world and the Snyderverse, hinting hard in promo material that Flash will actually be returning to Snyder’s DCEU.

I’d honestly keep that going as long as possible. Flash is captured by people who look a lot like his Justice League… only they aren’t. And they’ve also captured another Flash, a Wally West. He came with his Barry here, summoned by some kind of mad science that pulls those in touch with the Speed Force there. Because this Earth is dying. It’s a wrong Earth. They want to use the Flashes to escape it before it’s destroyed.

The two Flashes are able to escape together. They have a conversation at superspeed, Wally at first thrilled to see Barry, before the realization hits him- he isn’t his Barry, which means his Barry really is dead. The Crime Syndicate are just behind them. Barry realizes they can’t both get away- and sacrifices himself so Wally can make it out- because I’m a sucker for the classics, I’d have his death happen like it did in Crisis on Infinite Earths. Suddenly Wally is our lead.

He’s found by Lex Luthor- this planet’s greatest hero. They team up with a heroic version of the Joker, called the Jester, to destroy the stolen LexTech that is drawing Flashes. While the Syndicate were distracted looking for their own way out, Lex evacuated the rest of the Earth- but he and Jester stayed behind to make sure the Syndicate didn’t follow- or escape to some other unsuspecting Earth.

The pair fall fighting the Crime Syndicate, and Flash both manages to destroy the Flash lure, and escape back to Barry’s original timeline. If we can wangle the cameos, Flash goes to the Justice League. Most of them just assume he’s Barry. But Batman sees through him. He waits until the others have given them distance. “You aren’t Barry. Just who the hell are you?”

Aquaman 3: Return of the King

I’ll assume James Wan (or at least his bank account) are pissed at the cancellation of The Trench. But that was a silly idea- an unbranded Aquaman spin-off designed around… Black Manta? But there’s no reason the concept, and the production design has to go to waste. I’m assuming from the synopsis that it’s Black Manta Aquaman will be teaming with in 2, otherwise he would be the main villain here. If he’s in 2, then we’ll swap in Charybdis… and we’re going to do a lot of foreshadowing about severed hands- but we’re probably not going to chop off his hand… no matter how big of a fan of the Evil Dead movies I am (though if we do, we aren’t giving him a hook- we’ll give him a turbine hand). But if we do do Charybdis… I’d have him claim to be the rightful king of the seven seas, with the Trench’s legions at his back to enforce the claim.

This would be, overall, a much darker story. The creatures of the Trench have been riled by a new leader, promising that their old foes, the Atlanteans, the Amazons and the Lost Kingdomians can no longer hold back their strength. And… they win, around the halfway mark. The terrible creatures of the Trench overrun Atlantis, which is forced to evacuate, half of their forces going to Paradise Island, the other to the Lost Kingdom. I’m just… going to assume that Arthur’s arc is accepting his role and responsibility as Atlantis’ ruler, which means Atlantis falls in part when Arthur refuses to lead, expecting the generals and army to handle things. He fights with them, even at the head- but he is not their figurehead.

I’ll assume including Aquaman, or at minimum Aquaman elements, in Wonder Woman 3, will have both cemented a connection between the two places, and helped juice box office. So I’d say the reverse would work here, and also, Wondy sort of owes Arthur a return of the favor. The Amazons sustain casualties as part of the evacuation, leading Diana to lead the Amazon forces. She’s a natural at it, something that awes Arthur (it’s one thing to command seven heroes, another to command an army and a nation without breaking stride). She gives him the tough love pep talk he needs, inspiring him to be the leader Atlantis needs. As part of that he pleads to let the Atlanteans take the first line- they were beaten back, but not broken. They need to reclaim their dignity nearly as much as they need to reclaim their home. The Amazon generals are reluctant; if their front line doesn’t hold their defenses overall weaken- the Atlanteans could lead to the fall of the Amazons if they can’t hold long enough. Arthur is adamant they’ll hold. He gives his warriors a Braveheart speech, and they drive the Trench warriors back into the sea.

They continue the fighting all the way back to Atlantis, and retake the city. Atlantis’ generals argue for driving them back into the trench, then mining the cliffs; that will close the passage, and collapse the trench, killing most of them, and sealing the rest away. But Aquaman, during the evacuation, saw some of Atlantis’ worse-off, those left behind by previous regimes, and sees the parallels. At first he resists, and the generals press harder, assuming, from his inexperience, that he can be cowed, until finally he bellows, “No. They are angry because we have, again and again, made them lesser. We are not their betters- we are their brothers. I am not the king of the beautiful parts of the ocean, I am king of the seas, and they are my people, too.” So Arthur sues for peace, and with a little humility, is able to end the conflict without bloodshed, reuniting the two kingdoms under his rule.

Shazam vs Black Adam

Yes, this essentially functions as Shazam 3 and Black Adam 2, and is probably the smart bet whether or not Shazam 2 is a breakout sequel. Black Adam is one of his big antagonists; one of the other two is a telepathic caterpillar… so I’m going with the one played by the Rock (although I now desperately want Vin Diesel to voice Mr. Mind at some point).

Now… I’ll admit, I haven’t seen Black Adam yet. I don’t know whether or not he retakes his country in that film or not… but that’s a minor detail, because that’s how this movie begins. He remakes the ancient city-state of Kahndaq. This bugs the crap out of Shazam, because people assume it’s him, because they both have a lightning bolt chest. I just imagine Zachary Levi, exasperated, telling an old woman he saved from being hit by a truck and is now beating him mercilessly with her purse pointing to a TV in a shop window bearing news footage of Black Adam rampaging, telling her, as she hits him, “I look nothing like the guy. I have hair. And a cape!” She starts swinging underhand, and while the swing goes off screen, we can tell she’s whacking him in the crotch. “Stop that,” he says, catching the purse.

Shazam convenes the rest of the Marvel family. They discuss; most of them argue for cooler heads; but Billy’s really struggling, here. He wanted to be like Superman, but he’s becoming, “Thanks for saving me, I guess, but screw you, man!” So Billy goes off on his own to fight Black Adam… and has his clock pretty thoroughly cleaned.

I imagine there’s a lot of comedy to be had, excitable Zach Levi trying to convince Black Adam that his relatively naïve and idealistic morality is superior… and Black Adam just really not having any patience for this child in a man’s body.

The Marvels arrive to rescue Billy, and they start to have a big superhero fight… before Billy realizes the damage they’re doing, and all to salve his ego. He realizes what’s really important- the little people, the ones who can’t stop tank shells. Billy convinces the Marvels to stop fighting.

Just then, the warlords Black Adam took Kahndaq back from, counter-attack, seeing the Marvels’ intervention as an exploitable crisis. And they’ve upped their game, getting some magically infused tank shells that actually do hurt him. Billy recognizes that the warlords are the worse of the two evils, so they team up with Black Adam.

At the end, the Marvels tell Adam to leave Kahndaq alone. “No.” He tells them the only way they can pry his home from him is with a war that will level the country- and he knows they wouldn’t do that.

Billy’s angry, but recognizes Adam has a point. “Today, you’re the lesser of the evils. The day that changes, I’m dragging you out of here myself.”

Now… if Shazam 2 is a breakout sequel, you might be able to get money enough for a Justice Society cameo. Say the tanks, given that they’re specifically designed with Shazams in mind, could be a problem for all of our heroes… until the Justice Society show up to help out. This could foster good will with the Marvels, and pave the way for Shazam to continue as a part of the Justice Society.

2027

Justice League: Dark

Okay… this one is wild, even for me. It starts as we’d expect, Constantine, Zatanna, Swamp Thing, and Tim Hunter, dealing with a magical threat. Because I’m trying to save Justice League movies the way Marvel does for Avengers events, and Wonder Woman’s series ended at 3… she ends up here, to add some star power to the line-up. The magical threat ends up shunting them off into a different DC Universe- essentially a thinly veiled Snyderverse. Something is deeply wrong with a world where Batman is gunning people down on the streets from the safety of his own personal tank. Flash (paralleling Ezra Miller’s real-life problems) is having mental crises faster than anyone can think up solutions. Superman, after the death of Lois Lane, is going full-on fascist. So the characters are caught in this dark, increasingly dystopian world, and have to figure out if they can save it, and if they can’t, whether or not they can at least escape it. Depending on how it plays, this could lay the groundwork for Injustice Lords or the Injustice universe. This exists both because the concept has been a high priority for adaptation, and because elements within WB/Discovery really want to bring back the Snyderverse in some capacity, and presents an opportunity to have your cake and eat it, too. When they finally escape, the end up in the Batcave.

The 3 Jokers

Okay… assuming everything is going to plan, we need to square why we have 2 Jokers running around, and also multiple Harleys. So here’s how we do it, by roughly adapting the 3 Jokers story. Phoenix has a run-in; depending on whether or not a Batman shows up in Joker 2, it can just be with police or a rival mob. Harley saves him, narrowly. She’s concerned for his safety. So they hatch a plan to create more Jokers. He starts experimenting with psychoactive drugs on people they kidnap.

One will, eventually, be the gangster version from Suicide Squad.

This also involves Batman, who at the end of the story captures the Joker, and puts him in Arkham- where he is in Hush.

Personally, I’d also make the original Joker the only one aware of the shifting timelines, first after Flashpoint, then after Wally takes Barry’s place (time rewrites, so that Wally was always their Flash- Batman seems to be the only one who remembered Barry).

Blue Beetle 2: Justice for All

Similar, but distinct from my Justice League: International pitch.

Assuming Blue Beetle does well, it will likely in part be attributed to it catering to the Latino audience in the way that Black Panther’s success was partly attributed to the underserved Black audience (and given the success of Coco is likely a savvy move). So the next logical step is to put him on the International Justice League. Wonder Woman resigning her post as dual Amazon ambassador and Justice League ambassador leaves the UN feeling vulnerable. She’s still their liaison, but in effect it has made the League more independent. So they request the right to build their own League, an international one that can cater to the world’s needs, not just whatever the gods among them deign to intervene in. Some of this is prompted by Russia fielding their own hero team, the Rocket Reds, think a team of Russian Iron Men, and China their own. The world is getting nervous.

Given Blue Beetle has already had one success, and he’s both an American with Latin American roots, he’s viewed as an ideal candidate to lead the team. We want to be as international as possible, so I’d bring in Fire from Brazil, Ice from Iceland, Vixen from somewhere in Africa, Dr. Light (Dr. Hoshi version) from Japan.

I’m thinking a goodly portion of the story is assembling the team, finding and convincing them to work together. Then a crisis occurs, as the Chinese superteam and Russian one combine forces to take over Mongolia, with the stated aim of dividing the country between them. Just as the JLI are about to go fight the good fight, their new handler, Max Lord, pulls Beetle aside. They’ve been waiting for this eventuality. They had warning. From a visitor claiming to be from the future.

He’s been kept in a bunker, a UN safe house that’s essentially its own little Gitmo in New York. Beetle goes to the heart of it, and meets Booster Gold. He told them three things would happen, and two have come to pass. The third is the combining of the Russian and Chinese teams. He’s told them that without him, the conflict will escalate to a full-scale nuclear war. As part of his intake, Max asked Booster why a man from the future would let them catch him. “You’ll let me out. When you need to.”

So the JLI fight the combined forces. They’re tough, but the JLI prove tougher… except Booster stops them. He knows the Russians and Chinese can’t lose face like this- if they can’t compete in the next arms race, they’ll rattle their sabers in the old one… but their fear will lead to launches, and nuclear devastation. But the real truth is they aren’t the aggressors here. Someone is pulling their strings.

There are a lot of directions you can go from here. Any number of telepaths, mind controllers, etc. Whoever it is, I’d make their plan a part of the Anti-Monitor’s plan, meant to soften the Earth up so it provides less resistance- in the same way he guided Sinestro to Earth to weaken the GLs, and eventually Oa. Despero might be the best option, because he can both control some of the characters, but also provide a good boss fight at the end.

Booster’s future tech is able to detect the hidden adversary, and he attacks them, freeing the 3 super teams to fight together and end the conflict.

2028

The Batman 3: Knightfall

I’m pitching this one as much because I get the sense that Reeves just kind of wants to play with all the toys, and this would let him put his imprint on whoever was left. Bane cracks Arkham wide open. This sets up a gauntlet for Batman, who has to capture as many of the inmates before they hurt innocent people as he can. All the while, Bane keeps taking shots at him, to weaken him more and more. But unlike prior, crappier adaptations… Batman doesn’t get his back broken. You could do that in the comics and spend a year on that storyline. But for a film, even a 3 hour one, that makes for a lousy story. So instead… Batman figures out Bane’s plan. It takes a toll on him, true. But he prepares for the moment Bane’s going to attack him, and puts Dick Grayson in the costume; he’s been champing at the bit the entire movie, wanting to help while Batman held him off. It’s for this moment. Bane trashes Dick. He’s brutal, and with the venom Dick can’t win. Bane hoists him over his head, and we hear the sound of a bataring whip through the air. It doesn’t stop Bane from smashing his knee into Dick’s back, but it does cut him off from his venom supply. The real Batman emerges from the shadows, and beats Bane, who slices open his veins to jam the venom line directly into his arm. This fight’s harder, but Bane gets tripped up by Dick from the floor, and Batman knocks him out. Batman asks Dick if he’s all right. “First thing they teach you in the circus is how to fall…ow…”

Green Lantern Corps: Parallax

The Green Lanterns managed to beat Sinestro. As he’s being transported to a launch facility for escort back to Oa, his convoy is attacked. It’s part of a series of raids and attacks the Lanterns are dealing with from a terrorist group calling themselves Parallax. They’ve been targeting Green Lantern support staff and allies, those without rings themselves, bombing their cars, their homes. Energy signatures at the crime scenes indicate presence of both Sinestro and Green Lantern rings- leading to paranoia about who among them have turned, causing Kyle and John to not be able to trust anyone.

What takes them longer to understand is that the terrorists are also targeting remainders of Sinestro’s cartel. This is somewhat hidden, because they take their rings after death, a missing finger being the only indication there was ever a ring there to begin with.

The leader of this ring-powered terrorist organization turns out to be none other than Hal Jordan. He blames both the Green Lantern Corps. and the Sinestros for the destruction of his home town of Coast City. He’s holding Sinestro prisoner, and using his ring as part of the attacks as he makes Sinestro watch his empire crumble.

Kyle and John find and free Sinestro, but are caught by Hal. They prove incapable of defeating him, until Sinestro puts his hand on Stewart’s, adding his will to John’s ring. Together, the three are able to forcibly extract Parallax, the fear entity, from Jordan, and he’s horrified about what he did under its influence.

Sinestro testifies in Jordan’s defense, telling them that under the Parallax entities’ control there’s very little a host can do to resist, that while he certainly aided the entity willingly, Jordan did not.

Batgirl and Supergirl: World’s Finest

We’re at the point where extrapolating from what is to what could be gets… interesting. Because I’m trying to pull together what nearly got made as a gauge of corporate interest… despite management changes wildly altering that interest several times over.

But presumably, there’s confidence in some kind of a Batgirl project. We’re also, if we’re building towards a Crisis, going to need a Supergirl. So I figure combine the two. Give it to whoever the current equivalent to Juno-era Diablo Cody is, maybe Emerald Fennel.

Kara Zor-El arrives on Earth. Jor-El sent his brother on the colony an identical ship to launch Kara, and he did so. But her ship was damaged enroute, and had to use orbital sling-shotting to arrive at Earth. Because she spent more time at near-light speeds, she incurred more time dilation, and Clark’s older cousin is now his younger cousin.

What neither of them know, however, is that the Kandor colony didn’t suffer Krypton’s fate. They were bottled at the last minute by Brainiac… but he considers the city incomplete, given that one survivor managed to escape. He tracks her to Earth, intent on shrinking her down as part of his collection.

Meanwhile, Batman tasks Batgirl with being Supergirl’s handler. He figures she’s good at blending, but can also protect her in a pinch. This leads Batgirl to training Supergirl to fight; she’s only absorbed a small amount of solar radiation, so she’s a lot more vulnerable right now than she will be.

I’m assuming it would kill the budget to actually show the Justice League, but we could have a news broadcast showing that the League, including the entire Hall of Justice, has been frozen in a solid block of ice. The ice seems to be mildly radioactive, so attempts to break free would spread radioactive dust across the city- Batman confirms to Batgirl via radio that the isotope is Kryptonite, that someone knew about the League and how they would be vulnerable. Batgirl doesn’t think it’s a coincidence this is happening right after the arrival of Supergirl.

Their paranoia proves correct, when both girls are kidnapped and brought aboard Brainiac’s ship. He largely ignores Barbara, thinking her to be a human, and of absolutely no consequence, casually threatening her before ignoring her completely to monologue at Kara. Batgirl manages to break the encryption on Brainiac’s computers, waging technologic war on him as he tries to fight Supergirl. It’s a tough fight, since she’s still mostly relying on the self-defense Barbara taught her. Eventually they force Brainiac to flee, and get into an escape pod back to Earth.

2029

The 3 Flashes

Wally keeps getting shunted to alternate worlds. Whatever the Crime Syndicate did, it continues to pull him from reality to reality. He meets another Flash, an older one, named Jay Garrick. Garrick postulates that, as Hawking theorized, there’s a cosmic editor, putting things back to where they were, fixing impossible paradoxes- that the multiverse is trying to send him home.

Both Flashes get pulled to another dark timeline. During their down time, Wally reflects on his Barry, and how he was the better hero, and he would be able to save them. Jay tells him that he was one of the first heroes on his world- he didn’t have anyone to look up to- he had to be the hero he wished he could look up to- and just as crucially, learn to forgive himself when he fell short of that ideal.

They’re met by one of the Monitors. He explains that his people are ethe editors Hawking theorized- that when a tear in reality threatens all existence, they fix it.

This dark reality, however, is actually the future, or at least a possible one, run by Eobard Thawn, the Reverse Flash. His connection to the Speed Force is artificial. He created it with technology, forcing himself into it. He can only maintain that by draining the life of other Flashes, recreating tech created by Lex Luthor to do so. So presuming that Reverse Flash is the antagonist of the first Flash movie, this serves as his origin.

So we get a pretty wild superspeed fight, during which Zoom absorbs enough of the Speed Force to have a legit connection, leading to him going back in time to attack Wally (accidentally attacking Barry, due to the continuity bending that attack created).

The Monitor appears at the end, sheepish over having used them. Reality is safe, for the moment… but they’re also a step closer to a Crisis point. Because the existence of Monitors means the existence of Anti-Monitors, anti-matter, opposing forces from the dark multiverse. They feed on matter, converting entire realities into energy- and one has set his sights on their Earth.

Justice League: Dark Multiverse

Justice League Dark thought they were home- thought they finally found their own universe. We start in the Batcave, where the last film ended. Batman tells them that he’s glad to see them, he could use their help. Joker’s won. He united all of Gotham’s villains under his banner, killed half the police and forced the remainder to disband. With the help of a mysterious, ragged stranger, he erected a magical barrier that’s keeping Gotham separate from the other heroes. Worse, he systematically killed all of Batman’s allies, all his Robins, Batgirls… he’s the last one left. Now he’s executing parents. Every hour, on the hour, he’s killing parents in crime alley, orphaning their children. He says the only way he’ll stop is if Batman kills him. He’s been up for days, at this point, trying to figure out a way to beat Joker. He’s a shell of a man, but he’s terrified that if he kills Joker, he’ll never stop. He knows Joker’s a singular threat, but how do you justify drawing that line? He already crippled Joker… but he still won’t stop.

Wonder Woman offers to do it. He reveals that he knows Joker has a failsafe, that he’s secreted a more virulent version of his toxin in his body that will transform whoever kills him into him. Batman is just a man- he can be beaten- but a Joker with the power of Wonder Woman might not be.

Batman’s plan is to wage an all-out assault on Joker’s compound, hopefully long enough to distract the ragged man and let them remove his magical bubble. They barrier is pouring from a giant bat totem, and is protected by dragons with the Joker’s face. They fight their way to the barrier, as Batman fights his way to the Joker. Batman tries all kinds of things, but he just can’t outmaneuver the Joker. Turns out the Joker isn’t even there, he’s doing all of this by remote. But there is a teleporter, that takes Batman to him. They’re locked in a cage, with a minute to go before the next parents die. They’re related to some member of the Batcast, and the resemblance shakes him. He tries to find a way out of the cage, some way that he can escape after he kills the Joker, biding time, hoping the Dark League can manage to bring down the barrier in time to let the League rescue the family. They only need a second, a fraction of a second, for Flash or Superman to arrive. We watch the clock as he tries desperately to escape, with seconds left. We cut back to the Dark League, destroying the barrier. They realize the ragged figure is behind them, and in a haunting voice he tells them, “Too late,” before disappearing.

We cut back to the cage with Batman and the Joker in it. We can see that the timer stopped, and the family is still alive. We pull back, to see the cage is filled with gas, and the Joker, his neck snapped, hangs limply from Batman’s hands.

An instant later, Superman is there, about to punch a hole in the cage. “Don’t,” Batman says. “Can’t risk you getting exposed to this gas.”

Now… dependent on budget, I’d have the full League and Dark League with him in the cave, still sealed inside the cage, running diagnostics on him. He seems to be fine, and convinces them that he feels fine, and that if they’re going to counteract the poison he needs to be out there, with his equipment. It’s Superman who makes the call, because he’ll always trust Batman. The second he’s out, Batman activates the Babel protocol, countermeasures for the entire League as he systematically murders his way through them. He hadn’t planned on the Dark League being there, and being magic, they survive him a little longer- long enough to open a portal away. But he hitches a ride, coming through with them back into their universe (though that fact will only be revealed in the end credits).

Lobo

The Main Man takes a contract in a hive of scum and villainy. Seems that someone’s special captive got loose. She’s armed, extremely dangerous, and hiding out on Earth. During their first fight, she kicks his butt. Badly. Embarassingly so, to the degree the he never even manages to peel her out of a cloak. The last thing he sees is red glowing eyes.

In their second fight, he bushwhacks her, having finally read the brief provided by his employer. This time he brought kryptonite to the party. For a moment we’ll assume he’s after Supergirl… and you’d be half right- he’s caught Power Girl. Now… to try not to give you a nosebleed, but also tie her into the multiversal shenanigans we’re building up… she is originally from an alternate Earth. However, when her rocket managed to shatter through to a different universe, the Monitors rewrote her history, to be a clone of Kara created by her parents in the bottle city of Kandor to replace the daughter they lost. During the fight in World’s Finest, a little of Earth’s radiation managed to break through into the bottle city, giving Kara enough power to escape, vowing to marshal forces to free them all.

Lobo returns to Brainiac with his prize. Brainiac notices something amiss, and accuses Lobo of playing a fast one. Her signature is wrong… but she is genetically the Kara he was seeking. He deems it worthy of further study, then turns his attentions to Lobo.

See, Lobo is the last Czarnian, a worthy addition to Brainiac’s collection. He captures him, and houses him in a place he doubts very much Lobo will want to escape from.

It is a civilization consisting entirely of prostitution, gambling, liquor and cigar production. Lobo’s eyes light up, and we fade to black. We put up white text. “Fifty black-outs later…” Lobo is drinking alone. An alien prostitute makes a pass, but he’s melancholy. It’s a world catered entirely to his whims… except for his lust for violence and conflict. He’s getting restless. Even tiny, Lobo is able to crack his bottle. But once free, he realizes that without being able to fly, he’s not going to be able to make himself big. On the one hand, that means he can get hammered for pennies. On the other, it means only insect hookers for the rest of his days. He decides to bust out Power Girl. They make an uneasy alliance. She grows him first. He considers reneging, until she starts smacking him around as a superstrong fly- which should be very comical to watch. Finally he grows her. Lobo takes the shrink ray and the bottle he was trapped in. Kara takes the bottle city of Kandor.

I’m assuming Kara had been searching for Ray Palmer, the Atom, to help her try to regrow her city. He tells them that the cities have been shrunk too long; Brainiac’s tech can be reversed over a short period, but after that regrowing becomes impossible. But he promises to keep searching for a cure.

2030

Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths

The World Forger has been a busy little bee, creating a nigh-infinite multiverse. Feeling slighted that less attention seems to be paid to his dark, anti-matter universes, the Anti-Monitor devises a plan to consume the positive multiverse’s energy and usurp the World Forger, creating only dark universes.

With each destroyed universe, the Anti-Monitor becomes stronger, leaving the heroes with a single possible path to win: merging the multiverse into a single reality. They manage it, and then beat back the Anti-Monitor. Supergirl and Jay Garrick die in the offing.

Brianiac reports on the failure of the Anti-Monitor. Darkseid smiles. Brainiac doesn’t understand. “We exist beyond any universe While the wall between his realm and the universe remains intact, there is now a crack, through which we may directly influence events. Desaad proclaims, “Darkseid is coming. Darkseid is.”

Beyond

I mapped out three phases, the first ending in the Crisis, the second in defeating Darkseid, and the third ending in a fight with the Dark Knights.

Supergirl would have survived, encased in Kryptonian crystal and eventually revived by the Legion of Superheroes. The New Gods would have lost to Apokalips, as would the Greek Gods, before Darkseid laid siege to Earth

Batman would have paid Lobo to form the Outsiders into a nonlethal black ops team from remnants of Task Force X, who would eventually rebel against him, not realizing his plan was to convince them to use nonlethal means, not keeping them as Waller had.

Next

I’m going to work on my own DCNu movie universe, mostly because I’m jealous Gunn and Safran got that much leeway. Could take me a couple of weeks, but check back soon.

Pitchgiving 2021, part 13: Birds of Prey 3: Birds of a Feather

This follows directly after the Batwomen pitch, and while all my DCEU pitches are in continuity, it really builds off my Birds of Prey 2 pitch from last year.

The Birds of Prey (along with the balance of the Batwomen) have to team up with the Gotham City Sirens, because the male crime-lords in town partnered with Jason Woodrue to use Ivy’s pheromones against all the men in the city (I’m thinking at least Penguin, Two-Face and the Ventriloquist will be our fodder villains for this one). To complicate things, before the Sirens sit down with the Birds of Prey, Ivy made a desperate plea to Alec Holland to try and stop Woodrue… only for him to fall under the spell of her purloined pheromones. We probably start the story en media res, with Harley, Catwoman and Black Bat managing to break Ivy out of the clutches of Woodrue. This leads Woodrue to unleash his altered pheromone into the city, where all of the men turn incredibly hostile- basically normal men on the street attack them. The crime bosses use this chaos to their advantage; Batman is able to quarantine Gotham’s male heroes in the cave while he works on an antidote… all while being a pretty demented bastard all the same on their video link. This leaves things up to the ladies to fix. I think the way we first introduce this, is Harley is sneaking off from Ivy to meet with Jason Todd. Black Bat knows that, because she also knows the context: Harley feels terrible for her part in kidnapping and torturing him. She’s trying to make amends, and at the same time there’s really no one else who understands what she went through like Jason does. It starts as a two-person support group, but will grow from there.

Harley is nervous being in the back of a plane again. The last time she was in one, everybody died, and she’s having flashbacks. It’s mostly an excuse to show a montage of moments from the Suicide Squad (I figure if we build it into our mythos eventually people will watch it enough for it to become profitable- and it is a fun movie- which is why next year I’ll pitch a follow-up… but shhh). The montage ends with Flag, and we cut back to Harley in the back of the plane, a tear sliding down her cheek, “I miss Milton.”

Black Bat notices, and sits beside her in the plane, and takes her hand, “Harley, it’s going to be okay.”

“Is it?” she asks, trauma clearly having taken the wheel. “At any second Waller might kick in the door and decide to try to kill me again. And this plant dick took Ivy… I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to her.”

“I know,” Black Bat soothes, “we’re getting her back.”

“How’s our mental patient?” Catwoman asks, emerging from the cockpit.

“Still crazy after all these years,” Black Bat says. “But she’s good. Because she has to be.”

“She’s your responsibility. I’m getting Ivy out, because I don’t like owing favors. But the headcase is yours to babysit. If she goes to pieces, we may not have the space to put her back together.”

“I trust her. She’s just… her last time in a plane didn’t go so great.”

“We don’t have time for trauma. We need to jump in fifteen seconds.” Catwoman flings a parachute at Harley, and it flies past, before she raises her hand. Catwoman looks at Black Bat.

“She’s good,” Cassandra insists. “She’s rallying.”

Catwoman runs out of the plane and leaps gracefully past camera. Black Bat helps Harley into her parachute. “What if I can’t do this?” Harley asks.

“I’m pretty sure,” Black Bat glances at the cockpit, to see the stick is tied in place with a whip, “yeah, by engaging the autopilot Selena meant this stolen plane is going to crash as a distraction, so we don’t have much choice. Come on.” Black Bat takes her hand and pulls her to the door and jumps with her.

They’re buffeted by a bad wind, and separated, and Black Bat gets caught up in a tree as a patrol arrives. For a moment it looks bad. Then Harley pops up out of the grass and takes the patrol apart with swift, acrobatic efficiency. Catwoman’s already up in the tree and slices Black Bat out of her chute, and she falls with a somewhat comedic thud, before standing and brushing herself off.

“Jumping out of a perfectly functional plane is just crazy enough to be in my wheelhouse. What I meant was what if I’m not functional enough to save Ivy, to infiltrate this ‘compound,’ to be the kind of partner I’ve always wanted…”

“Harley,” Black Bat interrupts, “I love the brilliant, fucked up way your head works. But the reason I trust you, even now, with my life, is that when you follow your heart, I’ve never seen it steer you wrong. So when I say you can do this, I mean that you will, if you can just stay out of your own way. Okay?”

“Yeah,” Harley says.

“You two ever consider motivational speaking?” Catwoman asks, slinking down the tree. “Or getting your own Lifetime movie? Or maybe just starting a nationwide hug tour?”

“Ignore her,” Harley says, “she deflects genuine emotion because she’s worried if she doesn’t immediately bat it away people will understand how desperately she craves it, and to belong.”

Catwoman is not happy being analyzed; Black Bat puts up her hands. “You poked that bear.”

“Doing this for Ivy,” Catwoman says, annoyed. “Silver lining: maybe the two of you will get shot in the process.”

I’m assuming, since this is a big, ambitious swing already, that we should just montage them breaking in, taking out some guards, and rescuing Ivy, where we slow down again, because Harley wraps her arms around Ivy and kisses her. It needs to be a moment… but afterwards, it needs to not be a big deal, too (because I want them together, and happy, but if we make it too much of a thing then it’s like there’s something atypical about women finding love together… and there isn’t).

“What took you?” Ivy asks gently; she’s trying to keep it light, bantery, and not let on how scared she’s been, how much being used by Jason Woodrue has psychologically or physically taxed her, because she knows Harley has been merciless with herself, so she has to compensate by being kind.

“Traffic,” Harley says, half a laugh, half a sob.

“No crying,” Catwoman says, almost accusatory, but we can tell, too, it’s because it’s affecting her.

“In baseball?” Harley asks, raising her bat. The Sirens stomp together, as we do another quick montage (because we have so much story to get through on this one).

They get free, and we’re going to do a quick little flashback. Again, I don’t want to make a thing about them, like there’s anything odd about their pairing… but I like this moment. This is the moment it all comes out in the open.

“I didn’t look for you because you were probably the only person at Arkham who tried to understand me. I knew the tendency for a patient to put their doctor on a pedestal; I told myself you were doing a job, and doing it well, and that can be sexy, in its own right. I knew not to assume it meant anything, either about how I felt about you, or about how you felt about me.

“But then I saw you, with Cassie, and out in the world, as yourself, strong, confident, but with a heart so big and open that of course it flashed like a giant kick me sign to a monster like the Joker, but also… that showed just how warm, loving, and compassionate you were, how much you wanted for someone to love you like you love everyone. And that you could see people like us as… people. That’s a damning statement, to be sure, about our society, and the mental health profession, but you’ve always been a diamond,” she touches the diamond pattern on her right wrist, “and you’ve always deserved someone who saw that,” she kisses her.

Black Bat interrupts the story, and we reveal that Harley and Ivy are cuddling on a loveseat, while the other two are sitting in the same room. “I’m out. It’s like listening to 2 out of my 3 moms talk about making out. I’m out,” she reiterates as she leaves the room.

Catwoman sits quietly in her chair and stares.

“I had a cat like you,” Harley says. “Would just sit in the corner of my room and stair. Until I brought a guy home. Or a girl home. Or anyone else. And then, she’d lock eyes with me, and only then, she’d start to bathe.” Catwoman frowns, trying to figure out her meaning, before just leaving the room.

“I don’t mind an audience, but a part of me did want you just for myself.” I want her to have that, too, so we’re going to fade to black.

We fade back in the next morning. I don’t care who wants what, but I really want to emphasize the humanity in this moment, the normalcy; one of them is snoring buzzsaw loud, and the other has just left a puddle of drool on the other. And even this, I know, could be filmed with the male gaze in mind- but it shoudn’t. They should look like the room got hit with a hurricane, their hair should be mussed, as little makeup as possible (I mean, the characters are usually caked in it, so I’m genuinely not sure what’s supposed to be their skin and what’s makeup), but they are frumped to a degree that even Margot Robbie (and presumably Lake Bell, because that’s great casting I suggested in the last one) look like normal human beings. Black Bat knocks on the door, and comes in, keeping her arm over her eyes. “I really, really, hate to intrude on your love nest- like, I don’t know the words in English to express how much I don’t want to intrude,” (I like the idea of her spouting something in Mandarin or whatever to prove that the words exist, at least somewhere).

Harley wakes up, and feels self-conscious, picking up that Cass expects a sexed-up Adventureland, “Yep, the air is thick with the smells of sex and sensual oils and lubricants and just,” and tries to mop up the drool, wake up Ivy, all while making the both of them look a little more put together than they were (this should be silly and fun, not for gratification).

“Okay, whoa, already way more information than I would have ever wanted to know. But before I exit, you should know… it’s spreading. Ivy’s pheromones, Woodrue had enough of them that he’s blanketing the entire city. It isn’t just our neighborhood that’s a nightmare. It’s the entire city.”

“Let us get dressed.”

“Oh, God, no more,” Cassandra moans.

“We’ll be out in a minute.”

“Why didn’t you tell her the truth?” Ivy asks.

“What, that I took a beautiful woman to bed and then proceeded to drool all over her stomach? That I was snoring so loud it bugged me even in my own dreams. That despite my days being consumed with thoughts of sex and death the entire time you were missing, once you were back, all I could do was pass out next to you?”

Ivy, again, is gentle with her, recognizing Harley’s spiraling. “I didn’t know if I’d ever see you again. I just needed you to hold me.”

“And I couldn’t even do that right.”

“The drooling wasn’t exactly what I expected. But I slept like a baby. I felt safe with you. It was exactly what I needed.”

“Yeah?” Harley asked.

“Being with someone isn’t just about rocking their world sexually. You also want to be comfortable just being with them. Feeling safe, and secure and, and loved.”

“Yeah,” Harley says, realizing how much she needed to hear that, and cuddling up against her. “I love you, Ivy.”

“I love you, too, Harls.”

Damnit. Okay. That’s on me. I promise I’m going to try and stop being so damned enamored of the two of them together that I can get back to pitching. I think the best way to get this story moving again is to take a peek at the other side of the aisle, namely the ‘good’ guys.

We watch Barbara walk by her suit in the Clocktower; she’s wearing clothes for a run. She tells Oracle that she needs to pick up an assignment from school, but then she’ll be back, and asks if Oracle needs anything. She asks for a Yoohoo (or other product placement to be paid for later).

There’s something on the air as she puts in her earbuds and puts on some music. We’re going to leave the music on for most of her run, at least until the insanity gets to be so much she silences it, and suddenly is forced to confront exactly how screwed up the few blocks she’s ran are. I figure this is one long take (but possibly with some hidden cuts, if need be). First she runs by a man who is clearly screaming at her, partially dodging to avoid specks of spittle flying through the air. Unfortunately, this is Gotham, so angry men yelling at random women on the street is a thing, and doesn’t phase her. At a hot dog cart, a man and a woman with a baby in a stroller seem to be altercating, when the man raises his hand. Barbara grabs the hook of his elbow and uses it to roll him over her back without stopping. She runs a little further, and a man takes a swing at her. She puts him down without any problem, only for another man to attack her. And a third. She puts them all down with ease, but we pull back, to reveal that this has all happened on the same block. Barbara turns down her music and calls Oracle. “Oracle, what the hell is going on?”

“You know that weird fog on the waterfront that turned any man who came into contact into a woman-hating troll? Yeah, well, it’s spread across the whole city. It’s chaos. Figured you knew.”

“I slept in. I’m going to head back to the Clocktower. Something tells me we’re going to need to handle this.”

We cut to Batgirl arriving. Oracle is clearly phased by what she tells Barbara. “So I called Batman, like you asked. He’s aware, by the way. Um… I’m struggling. I know this isn’t a typical workplace or… anything approaching a normal situation. I guess I just never imagined I’d ever hear Batman call me a c-word.”

“What?”

“And he called you, uh, B-girl.”

“Well, that is my-” she realizes Oracle means the other B-girl.

Oh. I’m sorry you had to hear that.”

“It was more, comically surreal. But… he’s terrifying. Most of the time I don’t breathe when he calls. And I even noticed he noticed, and has tried to emote more, which should make me feel more comfortable, that he’s trying, but it’s like watching the Tin Man try to be more emotional by wearing Totos face. But it’s only right now, when I actually saw what he’s like when he’s threatening. And the idea that he could stay like this…”

“We’ll fix it.

“Almost makes me feel sorry for criminals. Not because of what he does do, but because… because of what he could do, what I now realize he might do. Gives me the feeling he is one day where they give him a shot of espresso instead of decaf from being Joker in a cowl.”

“Maybe that’s why he doesn’t drink caffeine at all- just doesn’t trust himself.”

“Really? Does he even sleep? And he still doesn’t touch caffeine? How does he stay up?”

“Obsession.”

“The Calvin Klein cologne? Does he chug it?”

“Will. Same way he’s still remaining functional, if a bit… jerkier than usual.”

“Feels like an understatement, but yeah, he’s still working, with all the other Robins, Nightwings, Red Hoods and whatevers in the cave with him. He’s isolated the compounds. Definitely bears some signatures worth being concerned over. Three names, at least trying to read between the lines; he was editorializing some, especially when it came to Ivy. But it was her pheromones. But they seemed altered, in a way that makes him suspect Swamp Thing and Jason Woodrue are involved.”

“That’s bad,” Batgirl reacts. “Really bad. Ivy on her own is trouble. Ivy and Woodrue are extinction level trouble. Swamp Thing would have been our go-to guy to help with it, but if he’s working with them, or they have him… call everybody.”

Everybody?”

“Let me rephrase. Everyone without a y chromosome. Anyone who can help, we need on standby, or here if they can swing it”

“What about Batwing?” Batgirl doesn’t follow. “They’re nonbinary.”

Barbara sighs. “I’ll text Batman. If this goes down to the chromosomal level, it might make sense to have Batwing sequester with the rest in the cave. But if not, it’s all hands on deck.”

We’re back in Ivy and Harley’s apartment. Ivy is wearing a shirt from Arkham (yeah, like she did in the first Arkham game), and is drinking coffee. “So… I’ve been talking to some of the houseplants.”

“You, too? They only seem to want to talk to me about celebrity butts. You?”

“That’s not them, hon, it’s a voice in your head. No, the plants tell me Alec was here.”

“Alec, Alec… why doesn’t that name ring a bell?”

“He was my ex. Is sort of dead. And a plant elemental.”

“You used to bang the plant guy?” Harley asks, amused, horrified, intrigued, confused. “I mean, there’s bumping uglies and then there’s bumping uglies.”

Harley.”

“I swear, I did not know, or I would have at least straightened up before he grew out of a few bags of fertilizer in the tub- we may have to replace the tub. He said it was the fastest way to get here from ‘the Swamp,’ which I really hadn’t expected to be all so literal. One of the bat people owed me a favor, got me his number, when you went missing. I thought plant guy, wearing a trench coat, he must be some kind of plant dick, and, not you know, your old plant d-”

“It was his friend who wore the trench coat. But it worked, I guess. You found me.”

“We did… just not at first. He led us into a trap. A trap for him, I think, or at least a trap for if he came looking for you.”

“Oh, no. A couple nights ago? When Woodrue’s experiments got a lot worse.”

“Yeah,” Harley says meekly. “But he did get us the lead that got you back.”

“For which I am grateful, but… do you understand what Alec Holland is?” Harley shrugs. “He is basically a plant god. Meaning, he could take my pheromones, and increase their potency. He could probably even reproduce them. That’s why Woodrue didn’t put up much of a fight when you came for me- because I was redundant-maybe even a distraction at that point. And now it’s a race against time, and we’re starting from behind.” She finishes her coffee and turns around. “How much pull do you have with these bat people?”

“Like I asked for a tour of the Batcave or for them to drive us around in the Batmobile while we made out in the back seat.”

“And they said ‘no?’”

“No back seat. The rest all depends. Are we asking to work with them, or trying to scam ‘em?”

“If you don’t at least leave the possibility of the latter open I’m never talking to either of you again,” Catwoman says, pouring herself a bowl of milk.

Ivy’s prepared. “I spoke with the city’s Economy Development Corporation, and they estimate there are half a million cats in Gotham City. I know cats are survivors and all, but what happens if jilted men decide to take their anger out on women’s cats, or worse, if my pheromones end up working just as well on male cats.”

Catwoman stops lapping at the bowl. “Can I at least steal something, when this is all over, so I don’t feel like a complete sap?”

“Sure,” they both say with a shrug.

The Birds of Prey/Batwomen assemble at the tower, with the promise that the rest of the women heroes are dealing with a bigger threat outside of Gotham, but will be there as soon as they can wrap it up. Then they get the call from the Sirens, all agreeing to work together.

Oracle has been able to put together the records from all of their Woodrue-related locations so far. And it seems he’s been using places, money and resources from three separate crime families. Analysis of recent police surveillance has proven that the three seem to be working together, and that they need to hit all three crime bosses at once, to mop up as much of their men and resources as possible. They split into three teams, with Ivy’s team going to where they think Swamp Thing is/Penguin, Batgirl and the Birds of Prey going after Woodrue/Two-Face, and Batwoman and the other Batwomen going after the location where the pheromones are all stored to destroy them/Ventriloquist (he’s squatting on old Joker territory; he lost clout after fallout from BoP2, especially with his willingness to sacrifice his henchmen for a joke, nobody really wanted to work for him)- that meant the Ventriloquist had a lot of territory with abandoned chemical storage/disposal, perfect for the pheromones they pumped out of Ivy.  

The Batwomen easily deal with the Ventriloquist, Scarface and his vanilla mooks. Then they realize there was a lot more pheromone than they realized- acres of it. Batwoman calls her father. The base is still observing chemical weapons protocols, so they’re fine, if somewhat understaffed. He agrees to help her bomb the pheromone storage (I think he loads a plane with explosives and arranges for Kate to steal it, having learned since the last movie how to fly a plane… ish- the main sticking point being her landings are still mostly crashes in the simulator).

Ivy leads the Sirens to rescue Alec. Penguin, slightly impacted by the pheromones (but having always been a dick) gets the snot kicked out of him, and realizing how ridiculously powerful Ivy is, decide not to screw with them and leave without much of a fight. The true brawl, though, is with the Swamp Thing himself. He’s still under the influence of Ivy’s pheromones, only a stronger, more robust variant he helped concoct. Thankfully, midway through the fight Ivy realizes that the Swamp Thing they’re fighting isn’t Alec at all, that he essentially grew himself a bodyguard, so while the others fight him off (badly), Ivy reasons with Alec, that he’s a good man, the man she admired, the one she fell for. She kisses him, and it brings him out of his stupor, and then some. The bodyguard keeps fighting, but some of the life has gone out of it; this is amplified by the fact that Harley, seeing the kiss, goes berserk, and will hit him in the twig and berries frequently with her big-ass mallet. Alec’s still a little influenced by the pheromones, and clingy; Ivy says she thought he got engaged, and he says that’s complicated. Ivy tells him things are a lot less complicated for her- that she found someone who makes her happy, and looks over at Harley, practically glowing. Ivy uses the Swamp Thing’s arm to pull Harley to her, and kisses her. Harley stammers that she thought… before Ivy tells her she thinks too much, and kisses her. “I do.” And they kiss again.

Finally, Two-Face’s place is where the real fight happens. One half of his mansion is overgrown. The Birds of Prey split up, Batgirl leading one segment into the overgrown side, since she’s got all the weedkilling toys, and Question leading the other up the pristine side. Question and Huntress make short work of Two-Face, before wondering where all his goons are. Both Harveys smile. Woodrue knocks Batgirl and Canary through a door, rolling into the room. Harvey tells them the reason he didn’t see a point in putting his men in harm’s way tonight was that it was going to be a bloodbath- that they were just waiting for all the guests to arrive.

At that moment, the Sirens and the Batwomen arrive. Two-Face brags to Woodrue that his timing is impeccable. As you can see, we’ve got a ridiculous cast of women here already… but things are about to go just completely nuts. I wasn’t screwing with you when I said that this was Endgame for DC’s women. Well, here it goes.

I think for the ending we bring in a big Big Bad; personally, I’d swing for the fences and have it be Granny Goodness with a team of male furies; Granny Goodness has basically been taken to task by Darkseid. He thinks her Furies need to open up to male members, that she’s been artificially holding her elite soldiers back. So she’s testing his hypothesis, by recruiting a team of men. She explains that there’s a part of her rooting for the women, because they’ll prove her right if they win, not that she could ever gloat to Darkseid. But she wants her ladies back; she was the one who gave Woodrue the necessary upgrade to be able to adapt Ivy’s pheromones.

At first, the combined Birds of Prey are outmatched. But then… those other heroines we teased earlier on, who would show as soon as they wrapped up the bigger threat… they arrive. This loops in all of the most powerful of DC’s women for a fireworks finish as they beat a team of men under Granny’s control, before all of the rest of the women show up. This list is in no way all-inclusive, and will likely swell. But it should give you an idea of who’s punching who.

Wonder Woman Lobo
Big Barda Scott Free
Supergirl Granny Goodness
Power Girl Superboy
Zatanna Jason Blood/The Demon
Ivy Jason Woodrue
Catwoman/Black Bat (snatches Granny’s control rod)
Harley Quinn (souped up) Joker, like from the first Arkham game (can really be Clayface, if that’s too silly)
Batgirl Nightwing
Mary Marvel Black Adam
Fire  
Ice  
Huntress  
Mera  
Jesse Quick  
Natasha Irons  
Artemis  

Wherever possible/necessary, we can replace the menfolk with their CGI counterparts (having the Demon in a fight wouldn’t necessarily require paying Jason Blood to show; I’m all for paying him to show, mind, but I know some actors really hate showing up to film what is essentially a cameo, and it’s possible the budget on this will also be insane, so building in places where we can cut costs might be helpful).

But the women are winning. Granny is conflicted; she’s winning the moral argument even as she loses the fight. But she also knows that Darkseid doesn’t brook failure… she sees an opportunity to slink away, taking Jason Woodrue with her.

And, personally, I’d bring in at least 3 men, here: Batman, Superman, and whatever other male Justice Leaguer would be most impactful (could be Aquaman, given current box office). We start with whichever of them has the most recognizable voice, calling from offscreen. Camera pans, and we see those three, and think this is round 2 and it’s about to get brutal…. Only the men aren’t attacking. Or cursing. Batman explains that he’s synthesized an antidote, that he’s got Flashes spreading across the city administering doses.

Harley asks Wonder Woman if this means she’s in the Avengers- “I mean the Justice League, clearly you weren’t my safety squad.” Wonder Woman pretends not to have heard, and walks away. Harley is, for a moment, disappointed. But Batgirl is behind her. She tells her some people might look at them as minor league, but if Harley, Ivy, or Catwoman want, they always have a place in the, and before she says Birds of Prey, we go to black, and smash in the Birds of Prey logo. We quickly do the cast credits, before cutting back, immediately to the same scene.

Catwoman runs up to Harley and Ivy. “That thing I needed to do, it’s done, and we should go. Now.” She turns, and we can see she has a utility belt slung over her shoulder. It literally doesn’t matter which of the Batmen she took it from, but it’s slightly funnier if it’s a Robin and he has to hold his pants up. Batman bellows after Selena, and we cut again to black.

More credits. Then we’re on Apokalips. Jason Woodrue has seen better days. Clearly, he’s been tortured for a while. Desaad is overseeing that, but Darkseid is working with Woodrue’s figures. Desaad is becoming more concerned, that he’s been working with Woodrue’s information tirelessly, without speaking. Desaad is trying to get an answer from him, if the Antilife Equation is complete, if he’ll be able to mold the minds of men to his will. He’s not going to reply, but I would like to have him turn to camera, similar to Thanos at the end of the very first Avengers, and smile. But while that CGI Thanos looked a little cartoony, this one should be horrifying- and his smile should be a thing of nightmares. That Darkseid is happy at all should be something we’re all worried about.

Note: That puts an end to Pitchgiving 2021. Because I’m at least as crazy as Harley, I’ll be rolling right into Pitchmas, with 12-ish MCU pitches, building off the last several years of pitches.

Pitchgiving 2020, Part 12: Kingdom Come

Starts just a few years in the future, with Superman failing to save Lois from the Joker at the Daily Planet. Superman is frog-marching him into the Metro PD building, when Joker is shot by Magog, essentially a Cable parody, wrapped in some trappings of ancient Egypt/Sumeria. Cut to the future, Clark tending to his farm. Wonder Woman and Batman visit him, trying to get him to rejoin the modern world, that a world without a superman is a lonely place (in the timeline of the story, this is shortly after he first disappears- it’s also a very trailer friendly sequence). This is the superhero movie Zach Snyder always wanted to make, full of epic grandiosity, pretentiousness and a conservative mindset, and would serve as a fitting denouement to his DC Universe, so I’d say let him make it; just give Mark Waid final cut, a cattle prod, and keys to the Snyder residence, to keep some of his worst excesses in check.

A further note: you can get more bang out of your buck with this concept by hiring old Hollywood legends, folks usually thought of as past their prime. Imagine doing what Tarrantino’s been able to do for a handful of older stars for a whole Justice League.  

We tweak the story to cut out the preacher man, and instead keep an aged Wesley Dodds around as our viewpoint character. The reason is this: we’re going to have our cake in this movie, and in subsequent JSA movies, older Dodds is going to get a message to his younger self to try and get him to eat this cake before so many people have to die unnecessarily. And here you thought I was pitching a JSA movie just to exploit Power Girl’s cleavage window. We see one of Dodd’s visions, mostly impressionistic but terrifying, before zooming out to see Dodds talks to Norman, who I won’t cut out entirely, who views the superhuman conflict- and the nuclear detonation in Kansas- through a very human lens. But he’s got a sermon to get to, and doesn’t know how he can find the hope he’s supposed to give to his congregation. Norman leaves, and Wesley is confronted by the Spectre. He tells Dodds that the dreams he’s having, of superhuman annihilation, are visions, that there is a coming calamity- that they must bear witness.

Dodds is curmudgeonly about it- his heroic side refusing to accept that there’s nothing to be done to change things. He and the Spectre talk, about the new breed of metahumans, who lack the discipline, care and empathy that made their forebears heroes- they are a collective menace, and their danger grows daily, to the degree that it will boil over in time, burning the world.

Wonder Woman returns to Superman’s ‘farm,’ and we discover it’s a hologram in his Fortress of Solitude. She tells him that Kansas is gone- and he flies through the wall. His parent’s farm is gone, the home flattened by the compression wave, the untended fields scorched by the fire that followed. He picks up a headstone, knocked over by the blast, and repositions it in the earth, and we see that it’s his mother’s headstone. His eyes are full of emotion as Diana lands behind him. “How many?” he asks without turning to face her.

“Early estimates are 2 million dead. There’s another million suffering from severe burns radiation sickness… best guess is half of those die soon, the rest have a greatly increased chance of cancers.”

“Lana?” he asks, this time turning to her.

“Her family were away at the time, staying in Metropolis.”

“How did it happen?”

She shares footage of the fight, as recorded by a news crew. We watch a pitiful, shrunken parasite pleading for mercy. Magog’s team grants none. In his flailing, Parasite manages to tear Captain Atom’s containment suit, then sucks the nuclear energy out of him, growing immensely, unstably. He screams that he can’t contain it, and an explosion tears through the gathered heroes before hitting the camera.

“Magog,” Clark whispers, angrily. We cut back to the Joker’s still smoking corpse. Superman takes Magog’s weapon from him, and marches him into the MPD building instead. Cut to a courtroom, where a judge is summing up. “I concur with the Jury’s verdict, but feel I must go a step further. In light of the Joker’s crimes, the thousands of deaths and the tens of thousands of lives mutilated in his wake, you did not just protect innocents, but you did what our system of justice is designed to be incapable of. We may never be able to fully thank you for what you’ve done today, but I hope your acquittal is a start.” Magog, a free man, stands and smiles.

Cut to the blackness of space, as we watch the Earth spin placidly beneath us. We see a red streak across it, again, and again. Suddenly, there’s a second, criss-crossing in the opposite direction, on a collusion course. We cut in, to see Superman flying, rage and anguish playing across his face. He’s struck by Wonder Woman, the force of her blow knocking him into a mountain. He emerges an instant later. “Clark,” she says.

“No,” he answers. “Everything that Clark was is gone. The world he lived in is dead. I’m not him anymore.”

“Wait,” she puts up her hand, but he’s gone.

Cut back to the present, the pair of them standing in the ruins of his family’s farm. “Cla-” she stops herself, “Kal.”

“I could have stopped this,” he says. Her eyes are full of empathy; inasmuch as you can get across the words “this wasn’t your fault” with a look, she does. “I should have tried.”

“That doesn’t matter. It’s too late to stop what happened here. But there are more fights like this one coming. The world has been too long without a Superman.” His eyes flash, filled with anger, or purpose, we don’t quite know.

We cut to the Statue of Liberty, where a group of fascist ‘heroes’ have decided that there isn’t enough space in America for immigrants, and are attacking boatloads of them. Superman’s new league, including most of our key players, like Diana, Green Lantern, Flash, Hawkman, Power Woman, descend and save the day.

“They look familiar,” Dodds says, scratching his head. Spectre tells him he knows some of them, but they have all changed profoundly since he was last active, and we do the montage of character introductions from the book, that Green Lantern has a floating emerald satellite where he monitors for extraterrestrial threats, that Flash isn’t so much a person as an unseen force righting even minor wrongs in his city. Dodds asks about Batman, and we find out Bruce has a swarm of robotic Bat sentries that keep Gotham safe. Superman flies over the ruins of Wayne Manor, and finds the Batcave beneath. Superman asks what happened, and he says that when he was outed as Batman, Two Face and Bane destroyed the mansion. Batman wears an exoskeleton over his suits that lets him move about despite years of injuries. Bruce is stand-offish, though I’m not thrilled with how that works in the book. See, I think Batman needs a better reason for it- that he’s seen the statistics, that metahuman accidents are on the rise, even though they’ve ostensibly eliminated all of the villains. That they’re on this path, where eventually either humanity or metahumanity is going to go extinct- likely the one at the hands of the other.

“I don’t believe that,” Superman says.

“Doesn’t change the math one bit. Right now you’re asking me to side with the few at the cost to the many, Clark.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Isn’t that what Martha named you?”

“Don’t say her name.”

“Isn’t that who Lois married?”

“Don’t say her name!” he booms.

“Or what, Clark? Either you’re Jonathan Kent’s boy, or your Magog’s father.”

“I had nothing to do with-”

“I’m not interested in your denial. You had as much of a hand in creating him, as the Kents had in creating you. I notice you haven’t tracked him down, yet. Would it help if I told you where he is?” He turns, and Superman is gone.

Superman arrives in front of the UN, where Wonder Woman is standing at the podium. She smiles graciously, before stepping down. “You’re late,” she says. “And Bruce?”

“Playing his own games.” Superman gives a speech, about how the superhumans were wrong to step away, to leave the newer generation unheeled, that it’s their job to correct them- that these are but the first.

Cut to Superman’s Fortress. They set up their captured fascists in cells, but it’s already a problem, with alien animals from his menagerie displaced. Superman is perturbed. “I hadn’t wanted to be anyone’s jailer,” he says.

“This never occurred to you?” Wonder Woman asks, wielding the second largest lantern in this story, after Alan Scott. “We’re fighting a war, Kal. There are going to be prisoners- unless we decide to give no further quarer.”

“Don’t even joke-”

“I wasn’t. Paradise Island didn’t become a paradise because we spared the rod. Our justice is firm, and severe. Very few people infract, and none infract again.”

“No,” he says, and she shrugs.

“That’s what I thought,” she says. “I’ve also thought about some possibilities. I want you to go to Apokalips. I’ll see if we can make a deal with Arthur in Atlantis.”

Cut to Atlantis, an aging Arthur and Mera on the thrones. “The answer’s ‘No,’ Diana.”

“But it wouldn’t even need to be near your subjects.”

“The ocean is already home to far too much of the surface’s refuse.”

“Then at least lend us your strength.”

He chuckles at that. “You have 30% of the planet, and 99% of its metahumans. I rule the other 70%, just myself and Mera beside me. You even have my children fighting in your war, Diana. Atlantis has already given enough.”

Superman Boom Tubes to Apokalips. He floats overhead, his senses drinking in the hellscape of the world. Then he flies into the throne room, where a dark figure sits, mostly in shadow. Menace radiates off of him, and those who know should be permitted a moment to quake at the thought that this is Darkseid. He leans forward, and we see that he is Orion, looking more like his father every day.

Superman starts, “I came to ask-”

“I know what you would ask-”

“What happened to you?”

“We won. Overthrew Darkseid. Freed Apokalips- only to find there was no true way to do either. The people, if you would stretch the term to cover these wretches, refuse freedom- refuse anything but the yolk of Darkseid. Even dead, this world remains his slave. I may look its ruler, but I am just another prisoner here.”

“Then why not leave?”

“Because the only thing crueler than leaving this Hell in place, would be abandoning it. So yes, if you ask me to house your wretched refuse- what, I would ask, are a few more damned souls in Hell? But I would ask, as a friend, if your soul could handle damning them so… and I suspect we both know the answer. But if you are interested in constructing a better, more humane mouse trap, the best possible engineer is nearby.”

Superman arrives at Barda and Mr. Miracle’s place. “I need your help,” he says.

The smile conspiratorially to each other, before saying in unison, “We’re in.”

“Don’t you want to know what I need?”

“In due time. But we know you. We trust you. We’re in.”

We cut to a board room, where an older, bald Luthor sits at the head of the table. Luthor is attended at all times by a body man he calls Bill. “We’ve all worked together before, on various enterprises. We’ve called them various silly things, like an Injustice League, or a Legion of Doom. But I believe, at our core, that we have always operated on the same core value, that humanity was not meant to bow and scrape at the heels of gods, but to be master of his own fate. Allow me to make introductions. To my left is Damian Al Ghul, perhaps better known as Ibn Al Xu’Ffasch, head of the League of Assassins as well as the rest of The Demon’s vast empire. To his left is Lord Naga, head of Kobra. To my right is the King of the Royal Flush Gang- now King of… well, some island nation in the Atlantic. His companion is Vandal Savage, who makes up for his lack of tact with millenia of experience. The return of a certain Kryptonian has accelerated our plans- though not significantly altered them. Metahuman events continue to escalate- even before our… encouragement. Through various channels, we have warned them that they’re playing with explosives. Their response has been to gather them together in a single powder keg. It’s not surprising that self-styled heroes are victims of their own hubris. It might surprise some of you, then, the newest member of our enclave. Some of you know him; other perhaps fear him. Bruce, would you like to introduce yourself?”

Bruce Wayne clears his throat before dramatically stating, “I’m Batman.” We pull back, and can see that Batman has his own entourage of heroes, mostly second-generation leaguers.

We cut back to the superhuman prison. Superman and Wonder Woman are on a platform that lets them look down at the gathered inmates. Its designed to look as little like a prison as possible. She tells him, “Nearly every metahuman is accounted for, either joined our side, or housed below. Nearly.”

“Diana.”

“It’s time, Clark- Kal. He began this. You’ve known where he is; you had to. He’s practically living in the shadow of this place. It’s past time you deal with him.”

Clark flies to a hovel, assembled from materials clearly scavenged from the fallout. It’s dark inside, lit by candles. There’s simple furniture, three chair, a coffee table, and a cot. Magog is sitting farthest away from the door, watching as Superman enters. We circle around the room as he talks. “I grew up here. Did you ever know that? Kansas, born and raised. Like you- except you not being born here. Maybe that’s why, when I got word Parasite was in Kansas I thought, ‘Not in my backyard,’ and formed a posse. We weren’t even all that green; between us we had fifty years under our belts. I ever introduce you to my folks? This is my dad; he don’t say much; and opposite him is mom. She never shuts up.” We finish panning over the occupants of the two chairs, skeletons, burnt badly in the explosion, tattered rags and baked flesh all that keeps them upright in their chairs. “I grew up thinking you were a pussy. That if you just took things seriously, put a hand through the Joker and every other psycho, that the world would be a Norman Rockwell painting. I thought I was doing what you didn’t have the strength to do. I learned it’s easier to break things, than it is to fix them, with maybe one exception.” Magog holds out his gun. “Can you fix me?”

“Not like that I can’t,” Superman says, and pushes the gun towards the ground. “But I’d like a chance to try me way.”

“We need to talk, Luthor.”

“Lex, please. Bruce.”

“You got your coup. Now we need to talk strategy.”

“And you don’t want to share with the rest of the class?”

“The rest of your board might have organizations behind them, wealth, power, but no vision. Without a plan to deal with Superman, none of our plans will come to fruition.”

“I have a Marvelous anti-Superman strategy.”

“So you’ve said. But he can tear through my robobats like tissue. He’ll make short work of all of our countermeasures, unless we neutralize him.”

“I’m sure your stock of kryptonite has decayed just like mine; doesn’t have the same punch as it used to. Meanwhile, Kent has spent years soaking up solar radiation. I tinkered with a kryptonite atomic weapon; all the test device did was give Power Woman bronchitis.”

“Stop telling me things I already know.”

No. You’ll forgive me, if your convenient last-minute conversion isn’t entirely taken on faith. Or you won’t. I don’t see as you have an alternative.”

“Alfred, my coat.”

“My god. Pennyworth is still alive? Did you drop him in a Lazarus Pit? There really is no escaping the Batman, is there? Not even in death.” He leans into Bruce, eyeing him, before menacing, “I’m afraid you’ll find me equally inescapable,” before he exits.

“John?” Bruce asks ‘Alfred.’ Alfred transforms into a feeble-looking version of the Martian Manhunter. He is all but completely broken, and stammers out his replies.

“I know what you want, but I can’t,” John says. “I can’t stand the thoughts. I can’t let anyone in. You don’t understand what it was like.”

“I know what it did to you,” Bruce soothes. “And I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important. I need to know if Bill is Marvel.”

“There’s so much noise. So many voices. Too much.” He gasps, collapsing into Bruce’s arms. “Too much,” he whimpers.

“Is Bill Marvel?” Bruce asks. John nods.

“What now?”

“Now you rest. This was already almost too much.”

“I can help.”

“You have. Every time you’re asked. I’m trying not to ask too much. Rest now. If it comes to the worst, I’ll call you again. But only as a last resort.”

Cut to Green Lantern’s satellite base, which has become the headquarters of the new Justice League. We’re following Red Robin as he runs through the various halls to get to the main hall, where Superman is watching earth below through a window. “It’s happened!” Dick yells. “The prisoners are rioting.”

Superman hesitates, and Wonder Woman leaps to fill the void. “Flash, Green Lantern, Power Woman, subdue the rioters.”

“With reasonable force,” Superman tries to assert.

“By whatever means necessary,” Wonder Woman barks over him.

“Everyone else, form up in your battle groups, and prepare in case you’re called to join the fray.” Everyone scrambles, quickly clearing the room. Wonder Woman and Superman retreat to a side chamber. “You undermined my authority.”

“I acted when you hesitated,” she corrects him. “Now control yourself. We’re overdue at the UN. I’m sure by now they know about our prison.”

His eyes narrow. Match cut, to a room at the UN. Superman and Wonder Woman are being upbraided by the US Ambassador to the UN, furious that they’ve built a superhuman prison in the middle of a US state. “We tried to find another way- another place,” Superman says.

“Most of these prisoners are Americans,” Wonder Woman says. “Americans you let run roughshod for years.”

“To be clear, Princess,” the US Ambassador starts, “am I talking with the Ambassador from the Amazons, a woman whose dedication to peace and diplomacy most at this table have admired for years, or am I listening to the general of an alien warlord whose set up his own Gitmo in the ruins of the state of Kansas without so much as asking Uncle Sam what he thinks about it?”

“We’re trying to solve a problem,” Superman says. “I hear you; we should have spoken with you about this sooner.”

“You mean before your little prison had its inaugural riot?”

“You two are hanging by a thread,” the UN Secretary says, stepping in. “If you want to work with us, first you’ll put down that riot. Then you’ll come back here and we’ll figure out next steps, as equals. But know this: both of you are subject to justice at the International Criminal Court, both of you on a trajectory for a long stay at the Hague. Measure your next steps accordingly.”

Superman and Wonder Woman fly away. He’s angry. “You didn’t think they’d wait forever for us to solve this, did you? Like it or not, you’re a public figure- a world leader. They need you to take decisive action- we need you to. Before things get so bad there’s no coming back from them.”

We cut back to Luthor’s shindig. He’s popping champagne, thrilled at his good fortune. “The riot is bubbling over. The UN has been made aware, and are furious. Our moment of maximal leverage is at hand. One little push- and we can rid the world of these tyrannical Ubermensch once and for all. And for that, it’s time we finally loose or secret weapon.” Luthor strokes Captain Marvel’s cheek. “Tear the walls of their prison down. Start the last battle of this war, so we can finally finish it.” He says he’s scared, and Luthor tells him that he has faith in him- that he’s humanity’s last hope for peace- but that he’s secure in that fact.

Suddenly, Batman punches Marvel. “Hello, Billy.” He tries to speak, but Batman crushes down on his windpipe with his shoe. “Billy Batson’s been missing for ten years- as has Captain Marvel. You’ve kept him that entire time, twisting his young mind, terrifying the hell out of him. I suspected it, and John confirmed it.”

“But our goals,” Luthor stammers.

“My goal was figuring out your secret weapon. Marvel was a wild card- and I hate wild cards. So I’m taking him off the table.” Green Arrow asks if that’s the signal? Bruce smiles, and says, “Strike,” and the members of his second generation Justice League attack Luthor’s goons.

Billy manages to twist out from under Bruce’s foot, and he gives chase. “Billy, wait! I understand better than most what happened. This dark, new reality, it’s been hard to adjust to. Captain Marvel was the best of us; fools saw it as naivete, but he was an inspiration, and an aspiration. But all the death, all the pain, and horror, and hate… one day it gets to be too much. I hid in my cave. He hid inside a scared little boy. But it’s time we both stopped running.”

He runs down a different hall. “I know Luthor found you. Took fear and turned it into something worse, guilt, paranoia, and paralysis. And it only got worse, because with each passing day, you felt more responsible for not doing more- and more terrified of what the other part of you would do if you let him out. Luthor’s lost. We can still fix things. We just have to-” Billy crashes into a tank filled with mind controlling caterpillars. He’s buried under a wriggling pile of them, more traumatized than we’ve seen.

“The worms secrete chemicals that eat away at you. What Luthor did to you was torture. And I know you’re scared. But if you stay calm, we can-” Stuttering, Billy eventually gets out the magic word, “Shazam,” and is gone, leaving Batman alone with a hole in the wall. Green Arrow catches up to Batman. “Marvel’s no longer a wild card,” he says, as they both stare out of the hole in the wall. “God help us.”

Cut to the orbital HQ, where Wonder Woman, dressed in her metal bird armor, unsheaths a sword. “I can’t sanction lethal force,” Superman protests.

“We don’t all have heat vision.”

“We’re better than this. We have lines we don’t cross- because human life is too precious.”

“No,” she says. “You have lines. And because you’re invulnerable, you can afford to. But your rules won’t save our friends here. And they won’t prevent the next Kansas if we fail. You’re welcome to join us, and save as many as you can. But I’m don’t fighting with an arm behind my back, and I’m through asking anyone else to.”

The silence for an instant is deafening, before we hear a transmission from Green Lantern, pleading for help. He tells them the walls are breached, that Captain Comet is dead. Wonder Woman smashes the table they’re gathered around, and walks out. The rest of the League follow her, leaving Superman alone.

He flies down to Earth, smashing through the Earth’s crust and emerging in the Batcave. He pleads for help, which Batman refuses. He explains that the League has the prison surrounded, ready to bring it down on the prisoners’ heads.

“Did you ever consider this might be the optimal outcome?” Batman asks. “That perhaps humanity’s only chance is for the superhumans to swallow each other up?”

“I know you don’t believe that. We don’t always see eye to eye, Bruce, but when you scratch everything else away from Batman, you’re left with someone who doesn’t want to see anybody die. Please, tell me you’ll help me.”

“I don’t know that I can. Captain Marvel’s back. Luthor had him, spent ten years turning him inside out. He’s header for the prison, to break it wide open. You don’t need Batman, you need a m-” he turns, realizing Superman’s gone. “So that’s what that feels like,” he says with a smile on his face.

We cut back and forth between Wonder Woman, as the horror of Marvel’s intervention dawns on her, and Superman, flying faster than he ever has in an attempt to stop what he knows he can’t. From over Superman’s shoulder we see the prison, but also a red and gold streak that’s going to get there faster, and it does, blasting the prison open.

From here on out it’s a lot of punching. Superman vs. Shazam (he’s pretty vulnerable to magic so Superman doesn’t really stand a chance), the League vs. the new breed of heroes.

Cut to the Oval Office. The US Ambassador to the UN delivers the news, that the General Secretary agrees with his assessment- that if they let the Superhuman threat outside of Kansas, the human race is lost. The Defense Secretary tells him that the bombs and bombers are hardened against superhuman powers- that one ought to do the trick, but three guarantees success. The President is tentative, and wants to be sure the world will stand with him, and aren’t going to leave America holding the bag. “They’re behind us, 100%. It’s the only way for the human race to survive.” The President asks for his speech, says he needs to be talking at the UN when it happens. They need as united a front as they can have.

Fight fight fight, going badly for Superman and the League. In fact, they’re losing, perhaps definitively. Until Batman and his young league arrive, him in his mechanical Batsuit. This might be harder to get across on film, but Batman’s forces in particular try to stem the loss of life, intervening to stop both Leaguers and bad guys from killing.

Batman stops Wonder Woman from running through Von Bach, subduing him instead, and then they get into it. He pokes at her over the inconsistencies in the Amazonian philosophy (peace through strength); she’s mostly just got her blood up and angry, perhaps fighting more with Superman than with Bruce when she screams that she won’t be judged by him (it’s subtle, but in the fight she damages his communications). Their fight takes them above the fray, above the clouds- and they see the incoming bombers, and realize what’s about to happen. They break off the fight immediately to deal with the bombers.

We cut to the ground, Superman pleading with Captain Marvel to remember that they’re friends, to remember their shared goals of helping people. When that doesn’t work, he asks him to say something, to which he says, “Shazam,” hitting him with magic lightning. We pan around and see the rest of the fighting as we hear the thunder again, again, and again.

Batman and Wonder Woman each take out one of the bombers, (Batman trying but failing to raise help via his comms), but one remains, dropping its payload.   

Back to Superman and Marvel, but this time Superman springs forward, picking him up and putting him in front of the lightning while covering his mouth, and Marvel is transformed back into Billy. Superman sees the bomb, and tries to use heat vision on it, but it glances off. Superman is full of rage, but he catches sight of Billy’s eyes, full of fear, tears welling up. “I don’t know what to do, Billy,” he tells him. He holds Billy so he can see the fight raging around them. “Every decision I’ve made, everything I’ve done, has been wrong, has brought us here. Bruce says if we survive this fight, we’ll unleash this Hell on every corner of the globe. If the bomb drops, almost every good person I’ve ever known dies in an instant. I can stop the bomb- but I don’t know if I should be allowed to. Lois used to say I too often put the man before the super; I know lately I’ve put the super over the man. But of all of us, you were always the best of both. I’m sorry to put the weight of this whole world on your shoulders- especially given how many times I’ve buckled under the same. But I’m not fit to choose. You have to.” Superman lets him go, and flies up towards the bomb.

We close in on Billy’s face, a tear sliding down his cheek as he says, “Shazam.” Marvel rockets out of a cloud of smoke and lightning, grabbing Superman by the ankle and hurling him at the ground. Marvel continues upward, grabbing the bomb and screams, “Shazam!” and both he and the bomb disappear in a cloud of smoke and lightning, that becomes a blinding white light.

Superman, kneeling in the fallout, screams silently.  We pan over the battlefield, covered in bleached skeletons. Superman struggles to his feet, his eyes glowing, a being of pure, incandescent rage. He flies off.

We linger on the smoke and stillness a moment, and start to see signs of life. Green Lantern has preserved a small bubble of people, and there are others who survived, as well.

We cut to the UN, with the President speaking at the front. “It was with a heavy heart that humanity severed the bonds between our community and superhumanity.”

Superman bursts through the wall, spraying chunks of rock into the assembly. He flies to the ceiling, and presses against it, spiderweb cracks forming out away from him as diplomats scatter. We see Wesley Dodds and the Spectre, witnessing the scene as Wonder Woman flies in through the hole Superman made. “Clark,” she says, “Don’t.”

“I know anger, Clark,” Batman says, flying in. “And you have every right to be. But you’re forgetting what it feels like to be a human in the presence of a Superman.” Bruce nods towards the people below, continuing to scatter, or staring up at him in awe.

“You’re not real. You’re not here. You both died.”

“Not all of us,” Green Lantern says, as a whole slew of those who survived, filing in.

Wonder Woman strokes his cheek. “This won’t solve anything. Because you aren’t angry with them. You’re angry with yourself. You’re angry it came to this. But you have to let that go. Right now, the world doesn’t need a Superman, it needs Clark Kent.” He lets go of the roof.

Clark lands, collapsing even under his own weight. “How?”

Wonder Woman: “Marvel detonated the bomb above ground zero. Green Lantern and others were able to shield some of us.”

“How many?”

Batman: “Enough that we have the same problem as before. The same impasse. The same dangers. Distrust. Everything.”

“Then it’s time we tried a new solution.” Superman walks towards the President and the UN General Secretary. “Years ago, we let those we protected drive us away. We saw ourselves as… superior, above it all. We were wrong. But I’m tired of dwelling on past wrongs. What we need- what we all– human and superhuman- need, is to come together, to build a better tomorrow. So many of our mistakes come from trying to solve problems for you. I realize now, we need to solve them with you. As partners. As equals.”

Superman hands Captain Marvel’s cape to the General Secretary. “I asked Captain Marvel to choose between humanity and superhumanity. It was the wrong question, but still he found the right answer. Which is life. We’d like to join you, formally, with his cape as our flag.”

Cut to Superman, in Kansas, building a memorial with rows of tombstones spanning as far as the eye can see (remember, we’re talking 3 million dead in Kansas). Superman is putting the finishing touches on the nearest one. Wonder Woman flies in. “Quite the memorial.”

“As it should be. Not just to those who lost their lives to the bomb, or to Magog, but in memory of all those who lost their lives to our mistakes.”

“I hope it helps you let them rest in piece, Clark. Remember what they taught you, but don’t let their loss haunt you. Speaking of which…” she hands him a hand-carved wooden box. “A gift,” she tells him, handing it to him. “To help you see more clearly.” They’re a pair a spectacles. He puts them on, and smiles. His hand brushes hers, and he pulls her in for a kiss.

It’s the present day, and a younger Wesley Dodds wakes up, a little freaked out. “That was a messed up dream,” he says, yawning. Then he sees the reflection of the Spectre in a portrait, and nearly jumps out of his skin. “Oh, crap,” he says, and we cut to black, and roll credits.

Mid-credits scene. At the Planet Krypton restaurant. Clark and Diana are seated, Clark rolling his eyes at the cheesiness, and Diana soaking in the adoration, as she puts it, “accustomed to seeing mortals pay tribute to the gods.” They speak conspiratorially. Bruce sneaks up on them, surprising Clark. Clark asks him about his kids, and Bruce asks how much time he has, mentioning Dick is making a swift recovery Damian just might clear the fog of his brainwashing, Tim’s well, Barbara’s still not speaking to him but otherwise healthy…

A man at the table behind taps Bruce, and asks if he… is using the ketchup, because they’re out. Bruce smiles and hands it to him. Depending on how much epilogue we want we can get into lots of the little world-building, but the important point is this. Diana’s about to make an announcement, but Bruce, not bothering to even look up from his steak, says, “You’re pregnant.”

“Always the detective,” she says. “So I’ll test your escape artistry. I want a commitment from you. I want you to be the godfather.”

“My record as a parent is hardly spotless,” he replies.

“There are things Batman can teach our child that Clark or I couldn’t. Some we would never even think of.”

“Our child more than any other will need the leavening influence of a mortal man,” Clark offers, “a moral man. One we can count on. And despite our differences, I’ve always counted on you.”

“So have I,” Diana says. Bruce is touched. And shocked. And shocked he’s touched. “So it’s settled, then?”

Bruce rubs his chin. “The child of Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman. Almost makes you pity the villains of the future.”

“Really?” Clark asks.

“No. Not really.”

And resume credits.