Written by: Scott Snyder, Joshua Williamson
Art by: Javi Fernandez, Xermanico
Colors by: Alejandro Sanchez
Letters by: Hassan Otsmaen-Elhaou
Cover art by: Javi Fernandez, Alejandro Sanchez
Cover price: $5.99
Release date: November 26, 2025
First Impressions
The opening game-night flashback has the exact “friends busting chops over pizza after closing” energy, which makes the switch to god-tier murder Olympics land harder than a bad pull-list week. The premise of a 32‑fighter gear hunt across a graveyard of dead gods is clear and instantly readable, and the book wastes zero time throwing you into round two. At the same time, the barrage of locations and cameos in the first few pages hints that you are about to pay in attention span as much as in dollars.
Recap
In DC K.O. #1, the Justice League and their allies gathered for what starts as a cozy game night at the Kent home, with Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and Lois trading friendly jabs before the evening is hijacked by a newly godlike Darkseid who can rewrite reality itself. The Quantum Quorum reveals that Darkseid’s Heart of Apokolips is reshaping Earth, and the only shot at survival is a weeklong scramble that ends in a tournament where heroes and villains compete to become King Omega, the one champion who might stand against him. Over seven days, the League locks down villains, coordinates world governments, and prepares emotionally and tactically, as Clark is forced into harsh choices and farewell moments while the world tries to cling to hope. When the tournament begins, the field floods with heroes plus wild-card entrants like Joker and Lex Luthor, who claw into the contest as everyone races through a lethal gauntlet, tempted by visions of absolute power while fighting Omegademons, betrayals, and impossible odds. The first issue closes on a gut punch: Darkseid has been secretly running the Quantum Quorum and the whole tournament setup, turning what looked like a desperate last chance into his own rigged cosmic shell game and leaving the League reeling as worse horrors loom.
The issue opens with a flashback “THEN” at the Kent house, where Clark, Bruce, Diana, and Lois play a conversation game about what each of them would be if they could not be superheroes or keep their current jobs, all while joking about past gladiator pits and embarrassing battle gear. Diana calls out Bruce for flexing in a loincloth, Bruce grumbles about hating the game, and Clark insists he could never be something like president, leaning instead toward roles that show people humility and beauty, while Bruce and Lois insist he always looks for the path that does the most good. The scene quietly frames Clark as a strategist who calculates “the most good possible” even in casual moments, setting up the later question of whether his old math still works in a rigged universe.
The story then jumps to “NOW,” where the Heart of Apokolips narrates the second challenge, revealing a realm carved inside a microscopic white hole that took eleven billion years to build but appears in a blink to the fighters, with 32 champions thrown straight from the first gauntlet into the next with no rest. The Heart explains that Darkseid became King Omega by taking power from elder gods, and now each champion must do the same by hunting a limited set of sixteen powerful artifacts hidden among the corpses and ruins of slain gods: things like power rings, the God Killer Sword, the Atom’s belt, the Mother Box, the Psycho-Pirate’s mask, the Lasso of Truth, and a mysterious “?” item, among others. The rules are viciously simple: no code of conduct, only winning matters, and when all items are claimed, anyone holding an artifact advances while everyone else dies. Once the challenge starts, the field scatters as some heroes like Hawkman and Cyborg sense their targets, while Lex Luthor uses an overbuilt suit full of scanners to map the entire realm in a second and rocket toward the power rings, with Superman tracking him and promising himself that Luthor specifically will not be the one to win.
From there, the issue jump-cuts between multiple battle sites as heroes and villains fight over artifacts and betray each other. Wonder Woman clashes with Etrigan over the Atom’s belt until the Joker ambushes them, mocking alliances before murdering Etrigan off-panel with a gag about “parental advisory” and leaving Diana reeling. Elsewhere, Plastic Man and Rex Mason wrestle over the God Killer Sword until Plastic Man reveals he coated himself in a superplastic that supposedly resists anything, only for Metamorpho to flip that chemistry back on him by boiling the same material and melting him long enough to snatch the sword, grinning about how much Poison Ivy will appreciate it. The comic also cuts to a more intimate confrontation where Lex has isolated Superman; Luthor thanks Clark for putting him in the Phantom Zone, explains how it gave him time to build a vast collection of exotic Kryptonite variants, and then skewers Clark with green shards before delivering his big epiphany that he hates Superman not for doing too much but for doing too little for a world begging to be fixed.
The last stretch tightens the cross-cutting as more items are claimed and Starro, now with access to power, turns a mass of controlled heroes against the field, using hosts like Aquaman, Wonder Woman, and others to grab artifacts and block any remaining searches. Zatanna pushes through Starro’s resistance with clever spellwork to help teammates, Red Beetle throws down with Joker for the Scarab, and side fights around the Mother Box, the Soul Taker sword, and the Thunder Pen stack up, often ending in someone bleeding on the ground while another character barely snatches an item in time. Guy Gardner’s ring constructs slam into Luthor, who still manages to steal a single Black Lantern ring and comments on its limited usefulness without corpses, a line that telegraphs his next move. As Superman staggers under the Kryptonite lodged in his body, he senses the game ending and remembers the core rule to “follow the example of Darkseid,” realizes that the mystery item is the Omega Sanction, and makes a brutal choice: he rips the Kryptonite from his body, symbolically “ending Superman,” claims the Omega Sanction, annihilates the elder gods like Darkseid once did, and briefly revels in the rush of power before the Heart of Apokolips announces that all items are now claimed and the round is over.
In the closing pages, the surviving sixteen champions are named as advancing while the losers are simply erased, their deaths treated as game output instead of tragedies. Clark, now charged with the Omega Sanction, is ready to finish Luthor, Joker, and the rest, but the announcement cuts him off and Luthor taunts him about being “saved by the bell,” promising to see him in the next round. The narration zooms out to show the fire pits blazing as the tournament nears its center, hinting that a new King Omega may soon emerge if Darkseid can be held at bay. On the Watchtower, that hope collapses as Time Trapper and Booster Gold discuss holding the time barrier, only for Time Trapper’s ally to reveal he has no interest in a new King Omega because Darkseid already exists as the true ruler, and Darkseid prepares to step personally into the arena, making it clear the tournament is only one layer of the larger game.
Plot Analysis
The issue opens with a flashback “THEN” at the Kent house, where Clark, Bruce, Diana, and Lois play a conversation game about what each of them would be if they could not be superheroes or keep their current jobs, all while joking about past gladiator pits and embarrassing battle gear. Diana calls out Bruce for flexing in a loincloth, Bruce grumbles about hating the game, and Clark insists he could never be something like president, leaning instead toward roles that show people humility and beauty, while Bruce and Lois insist he always looks for the path that does the most good. The scene quietly frames Clark as a strategist who calculates “the most good possible” even in casual moments, setting up the later question of whether his old math still works in a rigged universe.
The story then jumps to “NOW,” where the Heart of Apokolips narrates the second challenge, revealing a realm carved inside a microscopic white hole that took eleven billion years to build but appears in a blink to the fighters, with 32 champions thrown straight from the first gauntlet into the next with no rest. The Heart explains that Darkseid became King Omega by taking power from elder gods, and now each champion must do the same by hunting a limited set of sixteen powerful artifacts hidden among the corpses and ruins of slain gods: things like power rings, the God Killer Sword, the Atom’s belt, the Mother Box, the Psycho-Pirate’s mask, the Lasso of Truth, and a mysterious “?” item, among others. The rules are viciously simple: no code of conduct, only winning matters, and when all items are claimed, anyone holding an artifact advances while everyone else dies. Once the challenge starts, the field scatters as some heroes like Hawkman and Cyborg sense their targets, while Lex Luthor uses an overbuilt suit full of scanners to map the entire realm in a second and rocket toward the power rings, with Superman tracking him and promising himself that Luthor specifically will not be the one to win.
From there, the issue jump-cuts between multiple battle sites as heroes and villains fight over artifacts and betray each other. Wonder Woman clashes with Etrigan over the Atom’s belt until the Joker ambushes them, mocking alliances before murdering Etrigan off-panel with a gag about “parental advisory” and leaving Diana reeling. Elsewhere, Plastic Man and Rex Mason wrestle over the God Killer Sword until Plastic Man reveals he coated himself in a superplastic that supposedly resists anything, only for Metamorpho to flip that chemistry back on him by boiling the same material and melting him long enough to snatch the sword, grinning about how much Poison Ivy will appreciate it. The comic also cuts to a more intimate confrontation where Lex has isolated Superman; Luthor thanks Clark for putting him in the Phantom Zone, explains how it gave him time to build a vast collection of exotic Kryptonite variants, and then skewers Clark with green shards before delivering his big epiphany that he hates Superman not for doing too much but for doing too little for a world begging to be fixed.
The last stretch tightens the cross-cutting as more items are claimed and Starro, now with access to power, turns a mass of controlled heroes against the field, using hosts like Aquaman, Wonder Woman, and others to grab artifacts and block any remaining searches. Zatanna pushes through Starro’s resistance with clever spellwork to help teammates, Red Beetle throws down with Joker for the Scarab, and side fights around the Mother Box, the Soul Taker sword, and the Thunder Pen stack up, often ending in someone bleeding on the ground while another character barely snatches an item in time. Guy Gardner’s ring constructs slam into Luthor, who still manages to steal a single Black Lantern ring and comments on its limited usefulness without corpses, a line that telegraphs his next move. As Superman staggers under the Kryptonite lodged in his body, he senses the game ending and remembers the core rule to “follow the example of Darkseid,” realizes that the mystery item is the Omega Sanction, and makes a brutal choice: he rips the Kryptonite from his body, symbolically “ending Superman,” claims the Omega Sanction, annihilates the elder gods like Darkseid once did, and briefly revels in the rush of power before the Heart of Apokolips announces that all items are now claimed and the round is over.
In the closing pages, the surviving sixteen champions are named as advancing while the losers are simply erased, their deaths treated as game output instead of tragedies. Clark, now charged with the Omega Sanction, is ready to finish Luthor, Joker, and the rest, but the announcement cuts him off and Luthor taunts him about being “saved by the bell,” promising to see him in the next round. The narration zooms out to show the fire pits blazing as the tournament nears its center, hinting that a new King Omega may soon emerge if Darkseid can be held at bay. On the Watchtower, that hope collapses as Time Trapper and Booster Gold discuss holding the time barrier, only for Time Trapper’s ally to reveal he has no interest in a new King Omega because Darkseid already exists as the true ruler, and Darkseid prepares to step personally into the arena, making it clear the tournament is only one layer of the larger game.
Writing
The pacing is aggressive but mostly controlled, using quick location hops to keep the energy high while coming back to Superman versus Lex often enough that their clash feels like the spine of the issue rather than just another bracket match. Dialogue is sharp and character-specific, from Clark’s self-effacing refusal to see himself as a politician to Lex’s smug, therapy-flavored monologue about discovering Superman’s “cowardice” in the Phantom Zone, and even the corny villain rhymes and chemistry gags serve a purpose by selling each fighter’s voice and tactics in a crowded cast. Structurally, the script leans hard on cross-cutting: the opening domestic scene sets up the ethics problem, the second-challenge rules lock in the stakes, and then the book alternates between artifact fights, Starro chaos, and the Lex interrogation before looping back to Clark’s flashback conversation with Bruce and Lois to justify his final “new math” decision to take the Omega Sanction, so the big twist reads as a grim, logical payoff instead of a random power-up.
Art
Panel-to-panel clarity stays solid even when the page is stuffed with characters and debris, because the layouts usually organize action around the key item at stake or the biggest figure in the scene, which keeps your eye from getting lost in the noise. The compositions lean into wide, cinematic shots when the Heart or the elder gods are on display, then shift to tight, painful close-ups during the Kryptonite stabbing and Clark’s transformation, so you feel the scale of the tournament and the intimacy of the personal betrayal. Color choices sell the mood swings: the warm, everyday tones of the Kent living room make the later neon hellscape of the god graveyard feel harsher, the toxic greens of Kryptonite and ring energy scream danger, and the Omega Sanction sequences bathe Clark in ominous glow that makes his temporary thrill at destruction look as wrong as it should.
Character Development
Clark’s arc is the issue’s main investment hook, moving from “I’d rather be a park guide than a politician” to someone who chooses to end the idea of Superman for a shot at saving everyone, which is extreme but rooted in his earlier conversations about doing the most good, even when it hurts. Lex’s motivation is clearly articulated and consistent with his history: he genuinely sees himself as the one willing to use power decisively while calling Superman out for hiding behind limits, and his time in the Phantom Zone becomes a twisted self-help retreat that pushes him to try to “save the world” on his own terms. Many side characters are thin by necessity, but even quick beats like Wonder Woman’s frustration with Etrigan’s rhymes, Metamorpho thinking about Ivy as he pockets the sword, or Starro bragging about starfish biology add enough personality to keep the chaos from feeling like faceless cannon fodder.
Originality & Concept Execution:
The core premise of a gear-based god graveyard scavenger hunt is not brand-new as an idea, but tying it directly to Darkseid’s method of killing elder gods and forcing the heroes to copy that example gives this version a nastier, more thematic bite than a standard “battle royale.” The execution leans into that moral angle by making the rules explicit, then putting Superman in a situation where the only winning move is to act more like Darkseid, which pays off the first issue’s setup about the tournament being a rigged test rather than just spectacle. The book does not reinvent cosmic tournaments, but it does push the concept closer to a character study of Superman’s limits and Lex’s philosophy, which is a fresher use of the trope than just asking who can punch hardest.
The strongest value here is the way the script threads Superman and Lex through all the noise, turning a busy second-round bracket into a focused clash of worldviews where every Kryptonite shard and every flashback line feeds into Clark’s final choice to claim the Omega Sanction. The art backs that up with clean staging of complex brawls, expressive faces during the most important emotional beats, and color work that clearly separates flashback comfort, tournament tension, and Omega-level horror, so you can track plot and mood without rereading panels. On top of that, the issue gives a lot of event-scale content for a single chapter, including a full second-challenge rule set, multiple artifacts with clear visual identities, and a decisive turning point for the main hero, which means a reader who likes big crossover energy actually gets a solid chunk of story progression for the cover price.
Positives
The strongest value here is the way the script threads Superman and Lex through all the noise, turning a busy second-round bracket into a focused clash of worldviews where every Kryptonite shard and every flashback line feeds into Clark’s final choice to claim the Omega Sanction. The art backs that up with clean staging of complex brawls, expressive faces during the most important emotional beats, and color work that clearly separates flashback comfort, tournament tension, and Omega-level horror, so you can track plot and mood without rereading panels. On top of that, the issue gives a lot of event-scale content for a single chapter, including a full second-challenge rule set, multiple artifacts with clear visual identities, and a decisive turning point for the main hero, which means a reader who likes big crossover energy actually gets a solid chunk of story progression for the cover price.
The same density that makes the issue feel “worth it” on paper can become a liability if you are not already plugged into the broader event, since the rapid-fire jumps between artifacts, hosts, and side fights risk turning into noise where secondary characters feel like color-coded tokens instead of people. Lex’s monologue, while thematically strong, runs long enough that it starts to sound like a villain TED Talk, and some readers may feel the moral point could have landed with fewer words and less repeated “you do too little” hammering. Finally, Superman embracing the Omega Sanction is a bold beat, but the issue gives him so little time to process that leap before cutting to the “round over” announcement that anyone looking for deeper emotional fallout in the same chapter might feel shortchanged and pushed into buying the next issue to see whether the book really interrogates what he just became.
Negatives
The same density that makes the issue feel “worth it” on paper can become a liability if you are not already plugged into the broader event, since the rapid-fire jumps between artifacts, hosts, and side fights risk turning into noise where secondary characters feel like color-coded tokens instead of people. Lex’s monologue, while thematically strong, runs long enough that it starts to sound like a villain TED Talk, and some readers may feel the moral point could have landed with fewer words and less repeated “you do too little” hammering. Finally, Superman embracing the Omega Sanction is a bold beat, but the issue gives him so little time to process that leap before cutting to the “round over” announcement that anyone looking for deeper emotional fallout in the same chapter might feel shortchanged and pushed into buying the next issue to see whether the book really interrogates what he just became.
About The Reviewer: Gabriel Hernandez is the Publisher & EIC of ComicalOpinions.com, a comics review site dedicated to indie, small, and mid-sized publishers.
Follow @ComicalOpinions on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and TwitterThe Scorecard
Writing Quality (Clarity & Pacing): [3.25/4]
Art Quality (Execution & Synergy): [3.25/4]
Value (Originality & Entertainment): [1.5/2]
Final Verdict
DC K.O. #2 delivers a loud, lethal, and surprisingly sharp middle round that actually moves Superman and Lex forward instead of just burning pages on cool poses. Readers who enjoy event chaos with a real ethical knife twist, this is a solid pick for a limited budget slot. If you prefer your big crossovers slower, cleaner, and less jammed with cameos, the cluttered battlefield and brisk emotional fallout might make this feel more like a flashy extra than an essential buy, but anyone already interested in seeing how far Clark will bend before he breaks will probably consider this issue money well spent.
8/10
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