Written by: Scott Snyder, Joshua Williamson
Art by: Javi Fernandez, Xermanico
Colors by: Alejandro Sanchez
Letters by: Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou
Cover art by: Javi Fernandez, Alejandro Sanchez (cover A)
Cover price: $4.99
Release date: January14, 2026
First Impressions
The opening pages drop you into the Elite Eight’s dream visions and then yank everyone straight into a tag team round, which is a strong hook for a fight‑driven event issue. The core idea, champions dragging fallen losers back into the game as partners, is clear and cool, so the setup feels like money well spent at first glance. Once Joker strolls in with special treatment and Clark quietly pockets Shazam, though, the script starts playing favorites in ways that pull attention away from the clean “best fighter wins” premise.
Recap
In the last issue, the story opened at the Kent house where Clark, Bruce, Diana, and Lois played a game about what they would be if they could not be superheroes or keep their current jobs, teasing Clark’s habit of always hunting for “the most good possible” even in casual moments. The Heart of Apokolips then threw 32 champions straight from the first round into a microscopic white hole realm built over eleven billion years, forcing them to hunt sixteen god‑tier artifacts like power rings, swords, and mystery items, with anyone holding an artifact surviving and everyone else erased. The issue jumped between chaotic fights as heroes and villains betrayed each other for these items, while Lex ambushed Superman with exotic Kryptonite from the Phantom Zone and lectured him about doing too little for a broken world. In the end, Superman realized the mystery prize was the Omega Sanction, ripped the Kryptonite out, “ended Superman” to claim that power, wiped out the elder gods, and advanced with fifteen other champions as the tournament marched toward Darkseid’s looming interference.
Plot Analysis
The issue starts with Clark trapped in a vision where children scream with joy in a peaceful, thriving world that he slowly realizes is Earth shaped completely by his power, a universe where he wins the tournament and keeps the crown as a living Superman engine. That dream is ripped away by the Heart of Apokolips, and then other finalists arrive from their own visions, including techno utopias, worlds of truth, and Joker’s black laughing void, before the Heart announces the third round and explains that Darkseid sometimes used allies so now each of the Elite Eight must choose a partner from among the fallen champions. One fighter, Joker, has generated more Omega energy than the others, so he is granted a special perk, the right to choose a partner from any realm of reality, while everyone else must pick from the pile of dead and erased combatants before the Heart chooses for them. After a brief credits page, the comic lines up the pairings: Guy Gardner with Hal Jordan, Superman with Shazam, Lex Luthor with Supergirl, Aquaman with Hawkman, Wonder Woman with Big Barda, Cyborg with Connor Hawke, Zatanna with John Constantine, and Joker with a mystery partner that is held back for a reveal.
The battles kick off in four arenas at once. In Arena One, Superman and Shazam trade friendly banter with Guy and Hal, with Clark insisting he always picks his friends while Billy thanks him for the second chance, and the two Lanterns get ready to test whether Superman and the World’s Mightiest Mortal can back up their confidence. In Arena Two, Aquaman and Hawkman square off against Lex and Supergirl, with Arthur and Carter joking about sea and air while Lex prepares a darker strategy for his cousin partner, and Superman’s fight runs in parallel so you see both matchups evolving side by side. Arena Three houses Wonder Woman and Big Barda against Cyborg and Connor Hawke, where Cyborg reveals he picked Connor not for raw power but for his human‑impulse martial arts style; he uses nanotech to scan and copy Connor’s skills, creating “twin Titans” who can fight like each other with machine‑boosted speed and strength. Arena Four follows Zatanna and Constantine facing Joker and a disguised ally who smells wrong to John’s magical senses; Joker teases everyone by pretending to have picked the Batman Who Laughs before revealing that his real “Emperor Joker” partner is Mr. Mxyzptlk, who drops the illusion and announces himself with a reality‑warping entrance.
The middle of the issue cuts between these fights as power gimmicks stack up. In Arena Three, Wonder Woman and Barda pull off a risky play where Barda punches Diana’s Aegis gauntlets so the impact amplifies into a shockwave strong enough to rock the hellish arena, while Diana uses Barda’s knowledge of Apokolips to demand intel on the Heart of Apokolips in the middle of combat. Constantine and Zatanna struggle in Arena Four when Mxyzptlk attacks with bizarre constructs that act like visual neurotoxins, turning John’s own mind against him until Joker cashes in a favor and forces Mxy to drop the Batman Who Laughs disguise and show his true form, which nearly breaks Constantine’s control. Cyborg explains his strategy to Connor as he copies Connor’s movements and enhancements, making himself as deadly as the archer with the added punch of Vic’s tech, and the two work as a mirrored pair of brawlers. Through all of this, Joker keeps poking at Mxyzptlk about loving tricks and wanting to see everyone’s shocked faces, turning the tag team bout into a game of five dimensional chess that no one else signed up for, while the Heart happily calls the chaos “fun.”
The climax of the round focuses back on Superman’s arena and Lex’s match. Hal uses a Black Mercy that he once trapped in his ring to yank Clark off the board by clamping it on him, sending Superman into an even deeper vision where he has fixed not just the present but the past, meeting Jor‑El and Lara in a future where everything is healed, which stokes his anger and desire for that perfect reality. As Clark fights his way out of the fantasy with Lois’s words about “being Superman” echoing in his head, Lex activates his “Designer K,” a custom Kryptonite cocktail of red, silver, and a touch of black, to twist Supergirl’s mind into a violent, delusional rage that pits her against Aquaman and Hawkman without her real consent. Back in Arena One, Superman apologizes to Billy for dragging him into this, then quietly admits the real reason he chose Shazam is because Billy can share his powers, and he has Billy say “Shazam” to channel that godly magic into Clark, stacking Solomon’s wisdom, Hercules’s strength, Atlas’s stamina, Zeus’s power, Achilles’s courage, and Mercury’s speed on top of Kryptonian might. Supercharged and crackling with power, Superman plows through Guy and Hal in seconds, even as he wonders if the Heart’s influence is getting into his head the way it did with Captain Atom in a tie‑in, and the thrill of winning hits harder than it should.
The end of the issue shows the fallout of those plays. Kara, still under the Designer K mix, brutalizes Aquaman and Hawkman while Lex stands at a safe remove and narrates how he tuned each Kryptonite color to break her mind just right, fully leaning into the puppet master role. In a flashback interlude at the Kent house, Lois pushes Clark to stop hiding and “go be Superman,” telling him Bruce’s harshness is its own weird form of love while Clark prefers seeing others win, which frames his current choices in the arena and contrasts with how much he is starting to enjoy the edge this round gives him. Clark tears free of the Black Mercy’s grip by rejecting the fake perfect life with his parents, and that fury spills into the present as he uses Billy’s boosted power to wipe out his opponents, then looks across the battlefield and locks eyes with Lex, who has also won and, for once, seems to look at Superman with something like admiration. The Heart of Apokolips announces that round three is over and only four champions remain, naming Superman, Wonder Woman, Joker, and Lex Luthor as the survivors before instantly yanking them to a new location and revealing the twist: Earth itself has been reshaped into Darkseid’s domain, so round four will play out on a ruined world where the final fighters are no longer its defenders but its possible rulers.
Writing
The pacing in this issue is fast but mostly clear, with the script juggling four arenas at once while keeping a simple bracket in the reader’s head, which helps sell the “all fights to the death” energy. Dialogue tends to land on the nose, but that is part of the charm; characters talk like heightened versions of themselves, so Clark and Billy feel warm and hopeful, Lex sounds smug and clinical, and Joker and Mxyzptlk treat reality like a prop on a stage. Structurally, the issue uses a clean pattern: vision hook, rules drop, team selection, four parallel fights, power escalations, then a tight wrap that names the winners and flips the board by moving the action to Darkseid’s version of Earth. The main problem is that the script quietly cheats its own setup, because Fight Month already showed Joker losing to Red Hood yet this issue acts like Joker still “generated the most Omega energy” and deserves a multiverse cheat code, and Superman’s pick of Shazam reads more like an author wanting a big combo move than a natural fallout of how silly Billy’s loss looked back in issue one.
Art
Visually, this issue is a treat; Javi Fernández packs the pages with motion, impact lines, and expressive faces that sell every punch and magic blast, even when the panels are crowded. The compositions favor strong diagonals and big silhouette shapes in the fights, so you always know who is hitting whom, where the energy beams are going, and what the key object is in each scene, whether it is the Black Mercy, the Aegis gauntlets, or the swirling Designer K. Alejandro Sánchez’s colors do a lot of heavy lifting, separating arenas by tone so you can feel the difference between Lantern construct glow, Apokoliptian fire, ocean blues, and the sickly greens and reds of Kryptonite and corrupted magic. The art leans into wow moments like Shazam’s lightning pouring into Superman, Mxyzptlk’s Emperor Joker gag, and Wonder Woman’s amplified punch, which makes the issue feel like it is paying off the “all fight” promise even when the script logic wobbles.
Character Development
Character work is very focused on Superman, Lex, and Joker, with everyone else serving as colorful support pieces. Clark’s motivation is split between wanting to give Billy a second chance and quietly using Billy’s power sharing like a weapon upgrade, which fits the theme from earlier issues that he is starting to do harsher math about “the most good” in a rigged game, even if that math now includes some uncomfortable shortcuts. Lex is entirely on brand, treating Supergirl as raw material for his Designer K experiment and playing long game in the arena, which keeps his hatred of Superman sharp and consistent, though it also makes the match feel stacked unfairly. Joker’s survival and promotion to “highest Omega energy generator” ignores the Red Hood fight’s outcome, but inside this issue he is written as pure chaos, chasing the biggest trick possible by pulling in Mxyzptlk and turning the tag team rules into a stage for five dimensional pranks. Side characters like Billy, Barda, Connor, and John get just enough dialogue to feel like themselves, yet the story never really pauses to let Supergirl or the Lanterns process how hard they get used, so relatability tilts heavily toward Clark wrestling with his choices while everyone else feels like pawns.
Originality & Concept Execution
The tag team twist feels like a fresh way to remix a tournament arc, especially with the rule that partners must be chosen from fallen fighters, which should make every earlier loss matter more. Giving Joker the one special slot to pull a partner from “all realms of reality” is a fun high concept on paper, and the Mxyzptlk reveal fits that idea, but it also undercuts the bracket by turning one fighter into the writer’s pet project instead of just another desperate contestant. The issue does a strong job of visualizing power stacking, like Designer K and the Shazam power share, so you can literally see how strategy and cruelty change the battlefield, and the final twist of moving round four to a Darkseid‑ruined Earth feels like a proper escalation. The catch is that the comic’s own tie‑ins already showed Joker losing to Red Hood in their round, so he popping back up here as the top energy earner makes the concept execution feel sloppy; the story breaks its own math to keep its favorite clown on the board, which hurts the “fair but brutal game” vibe the event keeps advertising.
Positives
The best value in this issue is the art and staging of the fights, because every arena gives at least one “oh wow” sequence that feels worthy of a double take. Superman channeling Shazam’s full power set to smash through two Green Lanterns is a clean, high impact visual that sells both characters as heavy hitters and makes the tag mechanic feel like more than a gimmick. Wonder Woman and Big Barda using the Aegis gauntlets to amplify a punch into a shockwave looks as wild as it sounds, and Joker’s Emperor Joker reveal with Mxyzptlk is a bright, chaotic centerpiece that pays off the mystery partner tease with style. For readers who want to see Elite Eight style bracket fights with clear choreography, strong colors, and some clever power tricks, the issue absolutely delivers enough spectacle to feel like you got a full chunk of entertainment for the cover price.
Negatives
On the downside, the story logic takes some real hits that can pull an attentive reader right out of the fun. Joker being alive and winning enough Omega energy to earn a special multiverse partner slot directly contradicts his loss to Red Hood in the tie‑in, so if you are following the whole event, it feels like the tournament rules only matter until the book wants Joker back in the mix. Superman’s choice of Shazam as a partner also feels less like a smart character decision and more like the script wanting the “Super‑Shazam” combo moment to happen, which is extra annoying when Billy’s earlier elimination was played for almost slapstick. Lex using Designer K to hijack Supergirl into a rage puppet might fit his cruelty, but it turns that fight into a one‑sided setup, and the issue never gives Kara any real agency or recovery, which lowers the emotional payoff of the match. All of that combines into a mixed package: the action is fun and the art is strong, but the tournament’s internal consistency takes noticeable damage that makes the whole round feel less like a fair bracket and more like a rigged exhibition.
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): [2.5/4]
Art Quality (Execution & Synergy): [3.5/4]
Value (Originality & Entertainment): [0.5/2]
Final Verdict
DC K.O. #3 earns a soft recommendation if you are here for sharp looking, creative tag team mayhem and do not mind the bracket rules wobbling whenever Joker or Superman needs a boost. The art, layouts, and wild power plays absolutely carry their weight, so action‑hungry readers will get good page‑to‑panel value even if the script cheats on the score sheet. But if you care about the tournament making sense across the event, Joker’s magical survival upgrade and Superman’s convenient Shazam pick quietly tell you that drama matters more than the promised “anyone can win” structure.
6.5/10
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