5 key ways DC is resetting Batman and Wonder Woman in Infinite Frontier # 0

Wonder Woman is missing, the multiverse is in flux, and DC Comics has just given us our first look at the brand new status quo. If the DC Universe was a game Infinite limit # 0 would be the patch notes – and it’s not just UI improvements.

DC Comics did something different in 2021: the moment the year was over, the company took a break from every book in the DC Universe, replacing them with new titles, new characters, and two months worth of new adventures. Editorial Future state

[Ed. note: This piece contains spoilers for Infinite Frontier #0.]

But we had no way of knowing how much of it Future state would make it back to the main DC universe by now. Here are the five largest takeaways from Infinite limit # 0, a collaborative one-shot comic hit the stalls today, and DC’s first showcase of what’s in store for the New Year.

There are infinite worlds in the DC Multiverse, and Darkseid is coming for all of them

Image: Joshua Williamson, James Tynion IV, Scott Snyder, John Timms / DC Comics

In the 90 years of its existence, the DC Universe has switched several times between non-parallel earths, infinitely parallel earths, or exactly 52 parallel earths. From the end of Dark Nights: Death Metal and affirmed by Infinite limit # 0, we’re going back to the Infinite Earths model.

In addition to the new infinite multiverse, some of the parallel earths our main earth heroes know seem to have restarted or restarted their timelines, paving the way for DC’s writers to pick details for a parallel earth without worrying too much to do about what came immediately before.

With this new multiverse there is also a new villain – who really is an old villain with an upgrade. The last pages of Infinite limitWe Darkseid emerge from a prison on the mysterious and unknown Earth Omega with a monologue on how he was reborn from all his previous aspects into his true form. It is a finite and ultimate limit powerful enough to put an end to even an infinite multiverse. We will definitely see him again.

There are three Batgirls again

Image: James Tynion IV, Jorge Jimenez / DC Comics

It’s not a secret Batman Writer James Tynion IV is a fan of a certain era of Batman comics where Tim Drake was Robin, Barbara Gordon Oracle, and the lives of many different vigilantes were chaotically woven into Batman’s daily life. And during his career in the Bat books, he made an effort to bring these characters back into the Batman comics in an updated way.

With Cass Cain and Stephanie Brown putting bat symbols on their chests again, a new (or old, depending on how you look at it) era of Batgirls begins. And Barbara Gordon is back at the Clocktower as an extraordinary hacker / superhero, Oracle – although she doesn’t ignore the idea of ​​being out there in costumes every now and then.

Oh, the magistrate too, the vicious figure who turned Gotham City into an overpowering, drone-controlled cyberpunk nightmare Future stateis on the rise in regular Gotham City as well. And it looks like someone murdered the Bane Joker style, which likely suggests that Tynion’s new Joker series is out this month.

But the most important thing is the Batgirls, trust me.

Image: Becky Cloonan, Michael W. Conrad, Alitha Martinez and Mark Morales / DC Comics

Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons, gave her crown to someone else

At the end of Dark Nights: Death MetalWonder Woman was absent from the DC Universe, and in the end it still is Infinite limit. But now we know what the Amazons do in their absence. Queen Hippolyta has taken on her daughter’s mission to bring Amazonian values ​​to the human world – not the first time in DC Comics history that she has served as Wonder Woman.

To rule Themyscira in her place, she has elevated Amazonian Nubia to the throne, a character with her own comic book story as Diana’s long-lost sister and co-wearer of the wonder woman’s cloak. And one of Hippolyta’s tasks in the human world is to track down Yara Flor. We know she will soon be Wonder Girl in her own series, but Yara doesn’t know and it’s not clear if the Amazons do too.

But we also know exactly where Wonder Woman is – because unlike any superhero she’s looking for, we can read press releases from DC Comics. After her heroism in saving the universe from doom in Dark Nights: Death MetalDiana was given the opportunity to ascend into the Divine Sphere, the space outside of spacetime in which all the gods of the DC Universe live, to become a god herself and to help observe the new infinite multiverse.

At the end of Infinite limitshe refuses. After being shown the wonders of what would happen next in the multiverse and that her loved ones would continue to be safe without her, she decided to explore the multiverse on her own. We’ll see them next on the pages of Wonder womanand we’re not sure where or when it will be, but we know that She will meet Thor. Mythological Thor.

Forget the heroes in the crisis: Roy Harper is alive again and Wally West is the lightning bolt

Image: Joshua Williamson, Alex Maleev / DC Comics

If there was one thing with Tom King and Mitch Gerads Heroes in Crisis That upset comic book fans that former Green Arrow pal Roy Harper / Arsenal was killed and that it was his former teammate Wally West / the Flash who then tried to cover up his accidental mass murder.

Well, one of the effects of Dark Nights: Death Metal is that some characters are currently alive that weren’t before. Roy is one of them and in Infinite limit # 0 he’s just as confused as everyone else. For his part, Wally has been on quite a journey since then Dark Nights: Death Metal – seriously, he had all the powers of Doctor Manhattan for a while – and he’s getting a celebratory upgrade.

How many things in Infinite limitThis is both a new and an old idea. Wally will be the lightning bolt again in the absence of his mentor Barry Allen, just as he was years ago after Barry died Crisis on infinite earths. This time, Barry is still there, only stepping back from Earth to join Justice Incarnate, a group of heroes from the Multiverse led by President Supermanwhile protecting and cataloging the new and expanding infinite earths around them.

Green Lantern came out of the closet looking for the Justice Society

Image: James Tynion IV, Stephen Byrne / DC Comics

Alan Scott, the green lantern of the Golden Age of Comics (or Earth 2 Green Lantern, or the Justice Society’s Green Lantern) has been an often queer character in non-canon DC comics since 2012 Earth 2, a book that imagined a DC universe in which Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman, among others, had created an almost utopian world and then died by Darkseid.

But even in this earth 2 Alan Scott was young, the green lantern of the earth and gay. But Alan Scott has never been out of the closet in the main DC universe Infinite limitwhich shows the moment when he comes out to his twin children, the superheroes Jade and Obsidian. Obsidian seems to have given his father some helpful advice from his own experience when he came out gay to those around him.

DC Comics has announced that we’ll see Alan Scott in one next Infinite limit June miniseries searching for missing members of his middle-aged superhero team, the Justice Society of America. The series will also pick up on Barry Allen and Justice Incarnate as well as everything that’s wrong with Darkseid and even Roy Harper’s weird new life. But whatever happens in June, you can expect it to continue to affect the strange new multiverse – the omniverse – that the heroes of DC are.