I don’t know why but your description of the Crime Syndicate made me think of the Psycho Rangers from Power Rangers 
I could have thought about any alternate bad versions of heroes, but those are the ones that came to mind.
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They’re little moments, but it’s the little things that I love so much 
First, I really liked Justice League #47 (page 7), the image of Hal Jordan waiting in Ace Chemical for Bruce so that he can have a little “conversation” with him. What I love so much about this scene is Hal’s “Lazy-boy-style” recliner construct that he is sitting in (complete with an open bag of chips and an overturned soda can laying around the chair).
Second, is Justice League #46, the scene when Big Barda first busts onto the scene and Steve Trevor asks, “Who the hell is that?” and Scot Free replies, “That Steve Trevor - is my wife.”
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Ok, I see what you’re saying here. Metron does kinda serve as an Anti-Anti-Monitor lol
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Well, Grant Morrison has really played around with both characters in his more recent work. In the lead up to and the event of Final Crisis, with the Monitor’s death causing the race of Monitors, who oversaw the Multiverse in the Bleed in what is called the “Orrery of Worlds.” All those Monitors died in that story, except for the character Nix Uotan, “The Super Judge,” who would play a fairly big role in his Multiversity story.
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Oh my gosh! I screenshot that moment! I loved it as well as when Hal made soft constructs for the Lanterns he was knocking out.
I could totally feel Steve thinking, “That could be us, but you playing.” I love SuperWonder and WonderTrev, so I felt for him there. 
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Jay_Kay coming in with the facts! I still have to read Final Crisis someday. I had no idea about any of that. I still have to read about what’s going on with the Monitor in Rebirth.
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Lol, well, I was trying not to get too complicated with the whole thing, so I didn’t try to go into the Final Crisis developments to the characters. Morrison really expanded on the storyline of the “original” Monitor and how the Monitor race came on the scene in Final Crisis (it’s an amazing read BTW, I’m sure you’ll love it when you get to it @nu52).
It’s true that the “original Monitor” has not stayed the same throughout the cannon DC universe. Perhaps I should have referred to these characters as the Monitor race (emphasis on the plural here lol) and the Anti-Monitor earlier lol. But Jay_Kay really did a much better job summing up that area of “Monitor facts” than I think I could have.
Thanks, @Jay_Kay! I really appreciate the input, not only for clarification’s sake, but you also helped confirm that I was remembering the back story of the Monitors and the Anti-Monitor correctly. I’ve read all of the “DC master reading order” from right before Crisis on Infinite Earths to the present, so I was wondering how I could’ve missed multiple incarnations of these characters, but it wouldn’t be the first time that I overlooked or misunderstood something. Plus, the “master” reading orders still don’t cover everything, so it’s not like I’ve read everything published between then and now by any means.
I’m sorry @AntLeon, I really didn’t mean to take your original point so far off the rails. Your original point was pretty cool though. In the past, the Anti-Monitor has typically been accompanied by a Monitor, therefore creating a clash of opposites. This scenario always creates a stark contrast between light and dark, good and evil forces. In Darkseid War, however, we don’t get that scenario because there’s a whole lot more gray in the story.
There really aren’t many characters that are truly on the side of “light” because even the majority of the members of the Justice League are compromised and complicated by their god-like powers (or other issues like evil power rings lol). You have Darkseid (ok HAD Darkseid), the Anti-Monitor, Grail and Myrina, the Crime Syndicate, and the Justice League, which now only has a couple of members that have not been compromised by an outside force of some kind. Wonder Woman, Steve Trevor, Hal Jordan, Scot Free, and Barda are pretty much the only characters right now that aren’t really “gray” characters. So yeah, not a lot of good and bad contrast like we normally see with the Anti-Monitor…
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All of that sounds so interesting, but also overwhelming. I’m sure I’ll love it based on what you and Jay have mentioned. 
Which one-shot was your favorite?
I really liked how Billy Batson understood his relationship to his abilities. It made his face off against Zonuz not necessarily self-fulfilling, but each meeting of the replacement pantheon had that “Ok, let’s see how this plays out”. The father of Darkseid was definitely unexpected, but even Darkseid had to have come from somewhere. I like that the death of Darkseid creates a vacuum so large that even the Shazam acronym is made to change.
The kid point-of-views in the Luthor and Lantern one kind of mirror each other as they each overcome adversity. The Lantern one is more about Hal and his humanity, that becoming a god is essentially giving up free will. It is echoed when Hal asks the Mother Box Lantern Battery if it can self destruct and reset everything. I also want the mother box Ping to sound old timey like a harpsicord, but that’s just me,
Young Lex is taught not to ask for help, but becomes more powerful when he does, both with an army (this is a war you know) as well as finding inner balance with his new abilities. Of which, the Darkseid skin condition is more because the power resided in Darkseid for so long and not the other way around.
I’m torn between Lantern and Shazam as a favorite out of these 3.
Grail’s separated the Anti-Monitor from the Anti-Life Equation.
And as it played out, it was Darkseid’s death and the vacuum it creates in the universe that dislodges the Anti-Life Equation from the Anti-Monitor, which brings back Mobius and in particular, Mobius’ free will.
More to come, I hear a dog whining…
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What could Grail want with Steve Trevor?
He was referenced as the first man to walk on Paradise Island, so some sort of spell would be the most comic book logical.
How do you feel about Mobius’s personality and appearance in his new form?
Mobius with the Anti-Life Equation (bound? is it explained?) is the anti-monitor destroying wholesale, but Mobius Actual gets to choose who he kills and up close and personal. And he wants his chair. Also, i think all the energy he gathered as the Anti-Monitor is still within him. The lack of the Equation was the only thing hampering his free will.
Could working with the Crime Syndicate be a good thing, or is it bound to end badly?
As much as i want to know who Superwoman’s baby daddy is, my pickup moment is seeing her lasso which i presume after this encounter is to become the Golden Promise to be given to a certain Artemis this book club has already met.
But it kind of depends on how bad you want badly to be. As much as you can trust the syndicate to compromise under the premise of revenge, ultimately their own agendas will eventually get in the way.
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Iv was fun getting to see the gods that replaced the old S.H.A.Z.A.M. I wasn’t expecting the wizard to be one of them, but it makes sense to keep him involved in Billy’s supporting cast. Geoff Johns does good work with Shazam.
I had to look up what a harpsicord sounds like. I could see/hear it. It would be funny if all Mother Boxes sounded differently and had their own ping as if they all had their own voices since they’re sentient. I imagine Kanto’s would sound different.
I’m still lost on that. Orion also goes into a “deformed” form and I always thought it was because of Darkseid’s genes. I also don’t remember if they said it, but was the Omega effect like the Anti-Life Equation where Darkseid was bonded with it at some point or was it Darkseid’s power that remained after he died? It was creepy seeing Lex all Darkseided out, but really cool seeing the parademon army at his command. I wonder who would have commanded the parademons had Hal kept his power with Darkseid’s Mother Box.
Yeah, I would be shocked if they didn’t do something shady.
Yup! Good presumption.
No sweat. especially if it added to the conversation.
what you quoted of me is more what i want it to be. I don’t think they mentioned how it worked, just that when Darkseid died, the Omega effect is going to return to Apokolips. and the rebels wanted to join it with someone of their choice. Their prophecy described Superman but called the person the prophecy was about a human. Lex claiming himself as the prophecy is mostly for Superman to copulate with himself, but OmegaLex accepts the offer of help and becomes stronger vs Lex the man who refuses Superman’s offer.
I think Lex was trying to tell SolarPit Superman that he was dying, but got interrupted because SolarPit Superman doesn’t want to listen.
That cliffhanger at the end of JL #48 had me wondering if Grail was going to or in the process of killing Myrina.
I just realized: shouldn’t Granny Goodness and/or Desaad have known about the Omega effect and its return?
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I was wondering that too since there is that sequence where Grail is speaking to Myrina and she has blood pouring down her face, but I don’t recall her having been injured.
We also get a mention of Granny, but she and Desaad have been oddly missing. Maybe it was to showcase the other New Gods, but it’s also a bit strange to only have Lashina from the Furies.
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So, I’m totally with you guys, I’m also wondering where Desaad and Granny Goodness are running around at during this whole thing. Typically they are right in the very middle of such things plotting and scheming and trying to manipulate the situation to their benefit. I also agree that it is very strange that we only really see Lashina but none of the other Furies.
Perhaps it is just to be assumed that all of these characters are somewhere in the fray of the battle but since there are already so many characters to deal with, they are only showing the characters that have something specific to say?
When we see Lex and the Rebels on Apokolips, it doesn’t say it outright, but I always felt as though it was being implied that the Rebels and the Parademons were the only lifeforms left on Apokolips because everyone else was still on Earth fighting “For Darkseid!!”
Assuming that my theory here is right, then we will also have to assume that Darkseid was the only one who had control of the Parademons, so when he died they returned to Apokolips along with the Omega effect; while Kalabek, Granny, Desaad, and all the other big names from Apokolips are still on Earth fighting to avenge their fallen leader.
That’s the best theory I have on those discrepancies. Then again, it could simply be that these details were overlooked, but I like to try and let my imagination fill in the gaps wherever possible. Can’t force the writers to do all the work lol.
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Here’s what I REALLY wanna know. In Justice League #48, page 8, we see this fascinating little panel:
I thought that the Furies and the other children that Granny “raised” were all orphans. Who exactly is Granny Goodness’s kid(s)? This panel is absolutely hilarious, but dear lord, it raises so many questions! lol
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That’s the panel that made me realize, “Hey, where are Granny and Desaad?” I’ve been wondering about the Furies for quite some time. It’s strange thinking about Granny having kids. I always figured she ran the orphanage and chose not to have biological children as she’s already the mother to so many.
I also figure there has to be more lifeforms other than the rebels and Parademons on Apokolips. There are way too many slaves probably hiding and keeping things running. I guess it makes sense for not having all of the heavy hitters on Earth as then Apokolips would be left unprotected, but I do wonder why they weren’t around to stop te Rebels from obtaining the Omega Effect. I guess they could also have been trying to track Darkseid’s Mother Box.
That was an odd thing to put in for Granny. After a couple of searches I couldn’t find anything of her ever having any biological kids. Who knows, maybe he has ideas for a big long New Gods run where this might be addressed.
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I always imagined her as being trans because Ed Asner voiced her in the animated show. I also figured she loved being granny to Darkseid’s next generation of servants. Who would the fathers be? I could only picture her wanting to have kids with Darkseid. Who would she deem worthy? I mean if she’s a granny, I guess she must have kids? I figured it was just her senior position that was denoted with the “granny” title.
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Now that’s an interesting idea! I dunno if DC would ever do that, because I feel like you’d get one part of the fandom offended that “teh gheys are infiltrating our comics” and another part would be offended that DC would make the most prominent trans character such a horrible abuser and villain.
As for who she would have kids with, I know that the recent Female Furies series had her have a MeToo dynamic with Darkseid early on, but I don’t know if that’s really being considered canon.
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I could see what you mean. It would be bad for DC to depict Granny as trans because of the things you mentioned. It just seems like a more recent thing with this story and the Furies story you mentioned to depict Granny more definitively biologically of the female sex. If there were more high profile trans characters at DC that were heroic it could work, IMO.
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