#81: The Widening Gyre (Part 1)

Previously, in JUSTICE LEAGUE…

After years off the board, THE JOKER returned, and with him came a superpower-inducing plague that infected countless men, women and children across the globe. The kicker? He’d smuggled the plague into life-saving cancer treatments, so the unknowing victims were already on the brink of death, and he dragged them back with the sole purpose of spreading chaos. As another twist of the knife, inoculations and medications used by the military were also tainted by this plague, meaning that those relied on to help… would eventually become part of the problem too.

While the rest of the Justice League teamed up with superheroes and superteams on an international scale to put an end to the hundreds of outbreaks taking place, BATMAN, SUPERMAN and WONDER WOMAN tracked THE JOKER down to the sunken ruins of Laputa, their headquarters that the Clown Prince of Crime had sunk during his opening attack on the team!

After a violent battle, the trinity managed to take down the Harlequin of Hate and secured the kill-switch capable of deactivating the nanomachines he’d spread throughout army bases and hospitals worldwide, but in the aftermath, hundreds died, not only from the superpowered attacks he’d sparked with his madness-inducing plague, but also when the plague was disabled. Cancers thought cured returned with a vengeance, and those who days before thought they were free from the ravages of the sickness died as it returned.

While all this was taking place, a member of the team was taking the attack harder than the rest-- and it was not the one you might expect! THE GUARDIAN’s daughter had fought a long battle against cancer and accepted her death, in the process reuniting her family with her long-absent father, but it was through the Golden Avenger that she eventually received specialized treatment that sent her sickness into remission… the same treatment containing the superpower-inducing plague that eventually laid waste to the planet!

During the fight to save the world, his daughter-- driven mad by the plague and imbued with powers similar to that of a Kryptonian-- slaughtered her entire family, before committing suicide in her father’s arms!

Finally, with the day won to the best of their ability, the team came together to take stock of the aftermath. CYBORG and MERA stepped down from active duty, the former for reasons known only to himself at this juncture, the latter due to her husband AQUAMAN’s debilitating injuries sustained during THE JOKER’s attack. Meanwhile, SUPERMAN officially rejoined their number.

And then a gunshot rang out, and the team raced down to their holding cells to find that THE GUARDIAN had just shot THE JOKER in the head, killing him instantly.

With all this in mind, please join us now for the continuing adventures of the JUSTICE LEAGUE--


The words hung in the air like a bell that one could never un-ring, "What did you do? Harper-- what did you do?"

“Had a bad day.”

Held in place by Superman, the Guardian looked blankly past the accusatory figure of Batman, who looked like he was about to explode at the crime scene he’d just walked in on.

Nearby, the still heavily-restrained corpse of the Joker was sprawled out, an empty grin on his face, a quickly emptying hole in his skull.

Brain and blood and bone lined the floor.

The pistol the Guardian had used to do the deed had stopped smoking. The moment had passed. The execution was complete.

Harper fixed his gaze on Batman, and said, “Door.”

Behind the Justice Leaguers present in the room, rectangular, orange portals opened up-- the same ones they used to travel from crisis point to crisis point-- and in one swift motion, the tunnels in space moved forwards, snatching the heroes out of the room and away to parts unknown.

Superman was taken aback by the action, pulling the Guardian round so the two men were facing. “James, what are you doing? Where have you sent the others?”

Harper shook his head and held up his closed fist, and Superman’s brow furrowed. It’s not as if a punch from a super soldier like the Guardian would hurt him, but the action would be a betrayal. But no blow came. Instead, Harper opened his hand, and the Man of Steel doubled over in pain as the radioactive thrum of the green kryptonite the Golden Avenger held was released into the room.

“Wh-wh-wha’re… wha…” whispered Superman nonsensically, his heart racing as he felt the solar energy in his body revolt in contact with the alien radioactivity.

Where mere moments before the room had been drenched in the sterile illumination offered by the overhead light strips, it was now bleeding emerald, every nook and cranny filled with the glow of the toxic kryptonite the Guardian held up.

The Man of Tomorrow couldn’t control his body, couldn’t do anything to swat away the xeno-mineral that was in the middle of debilitating him horrendously, all he could do was shiver, and suffer, and try not to let the darkness that was bleeding into his eyesight take him away from the land of consciousness.

The Guardian looked at the Joker’s corpse, then back to Superman. He visibly shivered but said nothing.

In the corridor outside the holding area, a Boom Tube opened, and Mister Miracle stepped out, confused at his forced removal moments prior but steely in his resolve not to be kept away. The Engineer turned the corner at that moment, not having been present during the initial moments of the confrontation.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“The Joker’s down-- I think Harper snapped--” said Miracle, as the pair entered the holding area.

“H-Harp?” whispered Angie, her eyes opening wide at the sight of her mentor holding the kryptonite aloft in front of the suffering Man of Tomorrow.

The Guardian didn’t look back as he stepped through the portal that opened before him, vanishing from the room-- and from his membership in the Justice League-- without saying another word.

JUSTICE LEAGUE

DETROIT, MICHIGAN:

“I’m always surprised by how little of this world people are aware of,” said Apollo, his bright blue eyes piercing the darkness as the pair carefully roamed the halls of the abandoned warehouse. “All these little nooks and crannies, just sat here, gathering dust. Easy enough to walk in and explore.”

“You always wax poetic about such inane nonsense,” replied the Midnighter.

How long had they been roaming the secret underside of America, doing the dirty work that no one else knew needed doing? Simple: Ever since the Engineer helped free them from the control software installed in their brains by that evil bastard Henry Bendix*.


The pair kept a low profile, stayed off the radar of the superhero-- and villain-- communities, as well as other assorted super-agencies. From their vantage point on the mean streets and back alleys, they’d fought a secret war, searching for answers to the mad science questions buried in their bodies, as well as the man who’d done this super-surgical damage to them in the first place.

The Midnighter smirked, but his lover had him enraptured, and he would give anything to hear him speak forever. And to be fair, Apollo’s saw right through him, could see through walls and flesh and straight into his soul with those beautiful eyes of his, and that meant the Night's Bringer of War knew that the blond would never abandon him, not now, not after everything they’d been through, and everything that promised to come next.

“Best way to keep myself grounded, which is ironic enough,” said Apollo.

“Okay, so this is the seventeenth of these places we’ve been too. Does it ring any bells? The memory implants have done more of a number on me than you, so we’re following your nose on this one. Was this the hospital we were manufactured?”

The Sun King grimaced. Forbidding was not a look he wore well, but the fact that it had managed to creep itself onto his features said a lot more than his words. “Tortured. Mutilated. Rebuilt into whatever it is we are now.”

“I know how you feel about it, but this is our life now. Until we find the factory, we have no choices. Let’s--” The Midnighter hesitated and held up his fist. Precise. Military. “--Wait.”

Apollo did as he was told, and whispered, “What is it?”

The leather-clad assassin shook his head. “Something… about this room…”

There were six walls that surrounded the musty old side room-- a large reception area and a small antechamber that went nowhere in the far-right-hand corner. It was like a doctor’s waiting room, plastic chairs screwed to each other in a row, and bolted to the floor. The kind of chairs that you could just as easily slip off as sit on, depending on the angle and trajectory of your backside.

A smell hung in the air, dust and disinfectant. But this place, a building located in the Rivertown Warehouse District of Detroit, had apparently been abandoned for decades. The only smells should have been piss and vomit, the smell of faeces from the homeless contingent taking up residence here at night. But they’d walked the halls for over an hour now, and there were no itinerants, no suspicious brown marks on the walls… just dust, and silence.

Apollo’s eyes flashed. “This room is cleaner than the rest.”

The Midnighter motioned toward the antechamber. “Can you hear that? Behind that wall?”

“I’ll do you one better…” replied the Sun King.

He stepped forward and tore the wall away, revealing a state-of-the-art elevator. Red lights were flashing inside, and the word ‘ALERT’ was visible on a panel on the wall.

“…We’re here,” he said.

“And they know it,” growled the Night's Bringer of War.

Below, in the belly of the beast, the enemy hordes stirred… their weapons were readied…


Alfred Pennyworth attended to his charge with the level of professionalism expected between them.

Seeing the look on the face of the man he’d raised since the death of his blood parents, the current interaction had been spent in silence, the butler sewing up the vicious holes in the vigilante’s skin with a precise dip and weave of needle through flesh.

He’d already set the bone in his wrist and the cast would hold for the time being. It was a dressing of Pennyworth’s own design, as thin as possible but rigid enough as to prevent the bones slipping out of place if, say, the person wearing it threw himself off a rooftop with little warning…

It was odd, considering the previously pristine condition of the vigilante’s body. After his rebirth several months ago*, his body was restored to its glory. No muscle or nerve damage. No post concussive syndrome to contend with. His knees were knees, not just gristle and bone dust. Even the fractures throughout his skeleton were long gone. He was the man he should have been, not one held together by painkillers, twine, duct tape and a cape and cowl.


“…He killed the Joker,” Bruce said, finally.

“…Excuse me?” replied Alfred.

“We had him in custody. After everything he’d done to the world, we took him down. We had him locked up at the hall, and then… he killed him. An execution.”

Pennyworth was speechless. After everything that laughing lunatic had done to them all, the attacks on both the city and their selves, he was dead? “…Who did the deed?”

“Harper. Shot him in the head. I should have… I should have gone back. Taken the body into custody. But… I…”

“You do not have to rationalize any decision you made, sir. I know it was done with the best of intentions in mind.”

“They’ll want to track him down. Take him in. But I have to be the one to do it. I have to find him,” said Bruce.

“That explains why I found you bleeding into the good chair in front of the computer when I came from upstairs,” said Alfred.

“Search parameters. Tapping into international security grids. I’ve got backdoors into every system known to man. Facial recognition. Gait tracking. I’ll find him.”

“…And then?” asked Alfred. He tied off the final stitch and pulled off his gloves.

There was a long pause, before Bruce replied, “I’ll bring him in.”

“Why do you have to be the one who brings him in?”

Bruce exhaled. “Because I’m the one who let this whole situation come to pass. My action… or inaction… left him no other choice.”

“You didn’t kill the Joker before, so Colonel Harper did now, and that’s your fault?”

Bruce had his back to Alfred, so the elder Englishman couldn’t see that the younger American had his eyes closed, but he’d raised this man since he was eight years old, and could tell when he was wracked with guilt. “…Yes.” He finally said.

“That’s not your responsibility to take on, Master Bruce. We each own our decisions, and if James Harper made the decision to execute a man, that was his to make. Now we must deal with the aftermath of that action. His responsibility. His burden.”

Bruce stood and rotated his shoulder, making sure he had all the movement he needed. Fighting a superpowered Joker had done a few numbers on him, but it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. He looked over to where Alfred had discarded his tattered costume, and then toward the tubes containing other suits. He’d need a new one for what came next.

“I can tell my words are falling on deaf ears, but they bear saying regardless,” said Alfred, as he collected the used medical supplies ready for disposal.

“It’s difficult. No matter the inches I’m able to claw from the dark, it pushes back a hundred times as hard. I can’t help but feel responsible.”

“You’re not responsible for the actions of others. All you can do is hold them accountable for their own.”

Bruce grimaced. “Accountable…” he said, like a curse.

Alfred looked up from his chore, curious as to why his charge responded in such a manner. Instead of questioning it, he allowed it to sit, and changed the subject to something that had been hanging over him for some time now. “Ms Madison… her fingerprints were on the mask Harley Quinn wore as the Red Hood…*”


“Alfred…”

Pennyworth shook his head. “I have to know…”

Bruce exhaled. “The Joker was telling me that nothing was sacred. And that he always knew. He always knew who I was under the mask. And that he didn’t care. Until now.”


“Where in Seven Hells is Batman?” asked Hawkman angrily, settling into his chair at the meeting table as his eyes darted about the room at the others.

In a matter of minutes, the Justice League had been reunited. The Door teleportation method was somehow unavailable to them-- the Engineer suspected that some kind of kill-code had been installed by the Guardian prior to his exit. The targeting array was signal dark, and even Superman couldn’t locate it in orbit above the world.

That said, the old teleportation tubes still worked, and those removed against their will from the Hall of Justice had landed near various teleportation installations from the early days of the team…the Guardian hadn’t wanted his teammates to be marooned, apparently.

Batman hadn’t made the return trip.

“He teleported back to Gotham City,” said the Engineer, checking the logs.

Who was present? After recharging in the warm glow of the sun, Superman was recovering from his exposure to kryptonite. He looked agitated, an expression they’d never seen on him before. Wonder Woman was glancing over to Batman’s empty chair. A conversation was waiting to be had, but without him there, it would have to wait. Firestorm was sitting rubbing her shoulders uncomfortably, unsure of what her place should be in this situation. Mister Miracle rapped his fingers on the meeting table, which you could tell irritated Hawkman, while Doctor Light leaned forward, her elbows placed next to each other as she listened to whatever was being said at the time.

And that… was the Justice League.

“Where’s the Guardian?” asked Wonder Woman.

Engineer shook her head morosely. “I don’t… I don’t know.”

“The Doors are logged, aren’t they?” said Hawkman.

“Yeah, sure, but the entire system has collapsed. I can’t even begin to access them, it’s… we’re completely shut out.”

Hawkman shook his head. “How can that be? You’re the one who introduced them to the team, and now they’re all down?” His voice was fierce, the events of the last few days having ground him down to the bone.

Engineer opened her mouth to speak, but then thought a second longer. Then she said, “I… it’s not that simple. I didn’t build them. I barely understand them! I just… he was the one who introduced them to me. Salvaged alien tech from one of his adventures, he said. He used them to flit round the world, fighting whatever evils he needed to, and he asked me to dig into them, see what could be done. Sure, I plugged them into Laputa’s systems, and backed them up into the Hall of Justice, but he was the one who had master control. I’m sorry… I don’t know what to do. Sorry.”

Hawkman sighed. “Don’t apologise, Angela. I’m sorry. I’m frustrated. I shouldn’t take that out on you. The teleporters are back up and running, so we can get around. We’ll find him. We always do.”

“I can’t hear his heartbeat,” said Superman.

“You’d know it if you heard it?” Doctor Light asked.

He nodded. “Everyone’s heartbeat is unique to me. When I’m around people for long enough, I begin to retain them, just in the back of my head. Harper worked with Metropolis’ police department for a chunk of time a few years back, so it’s up there.”

“He pulled kryptonite on you… That’s… next level…” said Mister Miracle.

Wonder Woman shook her head. “He’s a soldier, first and foremost. We forget that. He probably has contingencies to take each of us down. And if he worked the Metropolis beat like he did… kryptonite isn’t that hard to come across in the right circumstances.”

“He’s probably masking his biological signatures somehow,” said Doctor Light.

“I can… uh… work on circumventing whatever he’s put in place. We can… track him. I dunno how, but we’ll… I can figure it out,” said the Engineer.

Wonder Woman reached her hand out and placed it over the younger hero’s fingers. “Angela, we know this might be difficult for you. He introduced you to the fold. You’ve been through a lot. But he killed a man. That can’t stand. We have a very specific place in this world, and we cannot take advantage of that.”

Angie sighed. “I get that. I do. Umm. Right, while we’ve been talking, I’ve also been working on bringing the security feeds from the holding areas back up. We can… we can see what happened.”


The Midnighter’s uniform was covered in blood and gore and he didn’t care one bit. He almost laughed at the sound of his leather boots on the already congealing pools that swamped the floor, but that was more performative than anything. “You know who I am!” he barked. “You know what I’m capable of! You were dead before the elevator even arrived on this level! Your hearts just haven’t caught up with their last beat yet!”

“I hate your murder speeches,” said Apollo, floating over them all, his costume pristine and white. Looking at him was like looking at the sun, and blood never did seem to settle on there for long. Nothing did. No dirt, no grime, just the sun, and inside the suit, him. Beautiful, radiant.

He disintegrated one of the attack droids launched his way with a steady gaze, then slammed his fists into another, sparks flying as he went about the steady march forward through the depths of the facility.

“I should get them printed onto little cards and post them to our enemies,” replied the Night's Bringer of War.

The Sun King grinned. “And give away the element of surprise?”

The Midnighter shook his head. “To let them know we’re coming. And that it doesn’t matter.”

The Midnighter smiled again. It was an animal’s smile. Canine. All tooth and fang. And yet, despite that, there was something deep inside him, something his solar-powered opposite saw at night, in the quiet times, that meant that it didn’t matter what he said in these moments, because everything he ever did was because of the wanting to do the right thing, and to protect those who needed protecting.

He believed in people. It was just hidden deep under leather and carbon fiber.

The Night’s Bringer of War dodged three attacks simultaneously and broke the arm of one of the men trying to murder him. He slammed the exposed, broken bone that jutted out his attacker’s armoured suit into the face plate of one of the others, then twisted the screaming man’s arm off until it came loose with a wet snap and a pop. He began to batter the third with the limb, until both the weapon and victim were pulp.

Then he moved onto the next.

The Sun King laughed, despite the grimness of his lover’s actions and comments. “We’ve been at this for months now. One black site after the other, all long abandoned. We’re seventeen in, and no matter where we look, we can’t find him. I’m sick of cleaning up his messes.”

“I want my hands around his throat as well. Months of tracking black market arms deals and breaking them up as violently as possible. Making his name a dirty word in the mouth of all the monsters he deals with. All that freak tech he’s selling… Bio-conductive rifles. Endo-skeletal purgers. Psychic fragmenters. All the nasty little ideas he had as a child made real, all taken off the street. But it’s not enough. Not until my fingers feel the last beat of his heart struggle out from his neck.”

He released the throat of the man he’d just throttled to death, and then moved onto the next wave of attackers who swarmed toward the pair.

“That thing I said about not liking your murder speeches? I think I found the exception to the rule,” said Apollo. “So, you think this is the place?”

The Midnighter shrugged, dragging the head and still-connected spine of the last of the attackers who rushed them out of its owner’s neck stump. “You think he’d throw so much between us and him if it weren’t?”

“Sixteen dead ends mean I’m a cynic for the seventeenth. This could be anybody. Kobra. Brother Blood. DEM--”

“Bendix,” said the Midnighter, dropping the wretched anatomy lesson he had been using as a bludgeon.

“Or Bendix, sure,” said the Sun King, rolling his eyes as he snapped a large energy rifle casually, before discarding the fragmented halves.

“No, Bendix--” The Night’s Bringer of War gestured to the end of the corridor that was swimming in the corpses of all the men and women who had stood between them and their goal, to where a blue holographic representation of a familiar figure was now projected.

The thin, bald man was smiling smugly to himself, and it made them both sick to their stomachs.

“Hello, my boys. Long time no see. You have been quite the pain in my rear, these last few months. Ever since you slipped the collar and had your new lease on life, you’ve just had to go out of your way to be difficult. Well, now you have my full attention. Let’s see how long you last under god’s gaze, shall we?”

Apollo and Midnighter looked at each other, then back at the monitor that held Bendix’s image.

“Let’s,” said Apollo.


After he helped Alfred swap the bloodied chair out for something a little less stained, Bruce positioned himself in front of the main computer in the cave. “The Guardian’s been active since the second world war. He’s got bolt holes and bunkers situated across the country.”

“Sounds like somebody I know,” said Alfred, rolling his eyes.

“Yes. Well. He scrubbed the Door’s logs before he exited the hall, and now he’s in the wind. The Engineer will attempt to reactivate the Doors, because that means retrieving the logs, but I doubt he’ll have made it easy. We were stupid. We installed that technology at his behest*, didn’t even think to ask where it was from… or how to control it, beyond the scantest of details.”


“Perhaps someone else might be able to help? Master Kord?”

“Beetle … perhaps. I need to speak to him. He wanted a consult regarding his work on President Stuart’s super-human research commission…* but no. I already have something,” said Bruce, typing a command string into his console.


“Of course you do,” said Alfred, watching as numerous security feeds appeared on the large computer screen. “…You have surveillance on the Guardian’s caches?”

“Yes. I put a large degree of trust in him when he joined the team, and I don’t do that without due diligence.”

“You were spying on him,” Alfred added.

“And now my pragmatism has been rewarded,” Bruce said.

Alfred cocked an eyebrow. “‘Pragmatism’. Hmm. I don’t know if you have noticed, sir; but a number of those locations are on fire.”

“Scorched earth. He’s scrubbing himself off the face of the world. In preparation for what, I wonder?”

“Surrender?” offered Alfred.

Bruce exhaled. “I don’t have all his bunkers under surveillance, but I’m hoping if he’s gone to ground, some may be--”

A video feed enlarged on the screen, the name of the location-- Norfolk, Virginia.-- stamped at the bottom. The Guardian, dressed in civilian clothing, a hood over his head, entered a hidden door in a back alley, and vanished from sight.

“-- There.”

“That location has yet to be the subject of arson,” noted Alfred.

Bruce stood abruptly. “He’s still there. There’s a teleportation site a few blocks away. I can get there within minutes.”

Alfred handed Bruce his cape and cowl. “Do what you need to do. But remember. Even with everything you have been through, Colonel Harper has been through his own. You each have actions you must take responsibility for, but don’t take his on top of your own. Do what’s right.”

Bruce pulled his mask on, making sure it was secured in all the right places. He checked his wrist for movement and grimaced. He could feel the bones grinding against each other. “Monitor the situation remotely. I’ve already activated drone surveillance from our own cache in Norfolk.”

“And be careful,” said Alfred.

“I’m always careful,” said the Caped Crusader, vanishing moments after as he stood on the teleportation grid nearby.


The Engineer’s comments hung in the air. They had the execution of the Joker on camera.

“As ugly as it might be, I feel like--” started Superman, but he was interrupted by his belt buckle as it hummed audibly. “I’m sorry. I have to take this.” He immediately excused himself from the briefing, leaving the others confused by his sudden absence.

Thing was, there were only six people who had the number to his buzzer, namely his Ma, Kon, Kara, Bruce, Diana and… his fiancée. Hers was the specific tone that played out, so he listened for her heartbeat across the city, and used his vision to locate her in the Daily Planet building. She was standing in her office, and a moment later, so was he, dressed in his civilian clothes.

“Lois, what’s wrong?” He asked.

“C-Clark? Oh… oh, man. It’s really bad,” she said, gesturing toward the television screen.

Crystal clear and recorded on state-of-the-art alien technology, the Guardian entered the Hall of Justice’s holding cells. The Golden Avenger approached where the Joker was sequestered, bound at the joints and completely immobilised,

“Why?” he asked, simply.

The Joker craned his head back and giggled. “Why what, Jim-bob?”

“Why… did you kill my family?”

The Joker laughed once, loudly, and replied, “After everything, that’s the question? I just murdered thousands, old man. Tens of thousands across the globe. I engineered all of that just to make a statement. Gotham’s too small for the likes of me now. I’ve gone worldwide. Joker, International. But why did I kill your family? Why-oh-why? Because you compromised. You can’t compromise in your position as a major league super-muck-muck. You can’t allow yourself to even try. You know who never compromises? My main man. The Dark Knight. The Cap-ed Crusader. He’d never come to me, asking for help with his sickly sick daughter.”

“I didn’t know it was you,” Harper said.

“Should that matter? You still used your position as a bona fide superhero and highly respected and decorated military man to get your way.” The Harlequin of Hate shrugged. “And so, here we are.”

The Guardian clenched his fist and turned away from the Clown Prince of Crime “This is the end of the line for you. You’ll get the needle or the gas chamber. Premeditated murder on a global scale, and you admitted it. You’ve admitted it to us, and you’ve admitted it on camera.” Harper gestured toward where the security camera was recording them. “No insanity plea. No getting out of it. No Arkham or Iron Heights. A hole. And then the end.”

The Joker shrugged. “Clearly, you don’t know the rules. You lock me up, I get back out. You thought I was dead, or gone, but I was only waiting. When you don’t see me, that’s all I’m doing, waiting, waiting and waiting and waiting until my moment to tear your lives apart. If you throw me into a hole, I’ll claw my way back out. If you kill me, I’ll just come back. I’m bigger than this world. I’m chaos. I’m the dark. Lock me up. And see what happens.”

“…You really are insane then, aren’t you?”

Thrashing against the restraints that offered no give, the Joker shouted, “Consistency, Jimmy! Am I mad? Am I sane? Pick and choose, pick and mix, just make a damn decision!”

The Guardian’s hand moved across his holster, as if to check that his pistol was still where it should be. “You could have been the absolute greatest hero this world had ever seen, if you weren’t so completely insane.”

That took the Joker by surprise, and despite himself and his bravado, he rasped, “Say again?”

“The nanotechnology you unleashed. Before you flicked a switch, it saved lives and extended others. But you couldn’t help yourself. You had to inflict hurt. Pain. Death.” You could see the Guardian swallow down the anger that visibly rose up in his chest. He continued, “All that genius, all those smarts, and you are what you are. So much wasted potential.”

“I’m a performer, Jimmy. I think my potential is limitless. I had your attention these last twenty-four hours, didn’t I? Rapt, weren’t you? All of you? The whole world was my stage, and humanity my captive audience. I’m at the peak of my princely powers.”

“We only listened because you threatened lives. But we have dozens of situations like that every week. Twenty-four hours. You tied us up for a fraction of a moment in time. I’ve dealt with muggings that lasted longer than that. This big return of yours… was kind of pathetic, wasn’t it? Sure… You went on a killing spree. Nothing new there. That’s you. But it was all for nothing. Batman still took you down. You’re going to be locked up again.”

The Joker smiled, “Po-tay-to, po-tah-to.”

“But you say you’ll never stop. And I believe you. You’ve hurt so many. And you don’t care. Not one bit. You threw Batman’s real name around like it was nothing. Used his past against him to stab at his present. In the end… you came across as a spurned lover. It’s almost embarrassing.”

“Oh, I care. I care how well I do. There’s a points system, you see, and I’m the big winner. Master of the combo. This? This whole thing was a speed run. Next time, it won’t be super-powered riots with a few overtaxed hearts and cancer-ridden gimps giving out. It’ll be constant, unending death. Instant death across the globe to every single man, woman and child I manage to infect. I’ll put the drug in energy drinks. Candy. Balloons! Make-up! I’ll put it in--”

Turning back to face him, the Guardian took his pistol out of its holster and the Joker’s smile widened.

“Oh. What’s this? Over-compensating? Mine’s bigger, daddy, I promise.”

“I’m not a hero. I’m a soldier. You killed my daughter. I’ll take the hit.” The Guardian pointed his gun at the Joker’s head and pulled the trigger immediately, a massive bang echoing out of the holding cell as the bleach-skinned murderer fell to the floor with a wet, pathetic thud.

The footage ended there, and Lois turned to Clark and said, “Every news station has it. Every media outlet. Someone leaked the security footage from the Hall of Justice, and now everybody knows what happened to the Joker. They know he’s dead. And that a Justice Leaguer pulled the trigger.”