DC All-In 2024 Breakdown and Theories (Ft. Justice League Unlimited, Darkseid and The Absolute Universe)

This post is divided into 3 parts, feel free to read at your own pace!

I. "Better late than never."

•  Recapping previous events and theories

II. Alpha

• Justice League Unlimited and more on the main DC Universe

III. Omega

• Darkseid and the Absolute Universe

An early Merry Christmas (Advent right now for my fellow Catholics) and Happy New Year!

Link to Post on Reddit

I. "Better late than never."

DC All-In is here! Kickstarting the new initiative was the Special one-shot, followed by the launching of the Absolute line, and new titles such as Justice League Unlimited and the New Gods.

But let's step back a bit and recap some old news.

In the All-In Special, we see a lot of call backs and threads of storytelling brought back. Of course we get a recap to recent events like  Absolute Power and House of Brainaic, as well as Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths. 

Now if you're familiar with me, chances are you saw my old theory posts. I started out with Doomsday Clock, followed through to Death Metal, Infinite Frontier, Justice League Incarnate and finally DCOIE. I made plenty outside of those but when it comes to current events/main continuity, those are the big ones, and Scott Snyder and Joshua Williamson bring back a lot of things from those stories specifically. 

Making a comeback in this issue and the ongoing story of the DC Universe is Darkseid. I previously predicted his return for Infinite Frontier made my "definitive guide" post explaining his multiversal nature here, along with a theory he might be connected to the Great Darkness, which is exactly was revealed in IF and JLI. In JLI and Dark Crisis specifically Joshua Williamson connected all previous lore on the Multiverse and re-examined Darkseid's history, before bringing back the Infinite Multiverse definitively with Mark Waid, who's also been exploring the new anti-reboot timeline in books like World's Finest.

"What do you mean by "anti-reboot"?"

Ah that brings us to the last piece to recap on. I made a lot of Doomsday Clock posts back in the day but I'll sum up the relevant parts. From Rebirth to Doomsday Clock, Geoff Johns had previously confirmed what writers like Grant Morrison and Mark Waid had already hinted at through meta stories and concepts like Hypertime. 

What is that you ask? 

All stories ever made for main DC continuity happened in the same universe.

To help you understand with an analogy, reboots only changed the scripts, but the stage and actors remained the same. This special Prime Universe (Earth 0, Prime Earth, Metaverse, call it whatever you want) renewed itself based on the story of hope and superheroes, Superman especially, its prime champion. Another thing I made a post all the way back on. With Death Metal and Infinite Frontier, a new timeline that restores history instead of take from it was made. A story that mashes all the previous scripts together, from Pre-Crisis to Post-Crisis, to New 52 and Rebirth. 

Hence an "anti-reboot"/"everything happened" timeline.

But that's not all!

Scott Snyder is back! 

He had previously left behind at the end of Death Metal two new centers of the Multiverse: an Alpha World and an Omega World. The latter was a huge part of Williamson's saga. But what about the Alpha World? And what does it mean now that Earth 0 is no longer the sole or true center of the DC Multiverse?

Now we're all set!

II. Alpha

    

The All-In Special One-Shot was divided into two stories...

...both crediting Joshua Williamson and Scott Snyder as co-writers, with the former taking the lead on the Alpha story with art by Daniel Sampere, back together from Dark Crisis. 

As of writing this, I also just read the first issue of Justice League Unlimited by Mark Waid and Dan Mora, the team behind most of the current Batman/Superman: World's Finest run.

That's right, the Justice League is back, and bigger than ever.

20 years and four months after the DCAU premiered the animated series of the same name (or the third season of JL from another perspective), the main DC comics universe finally has an expanded JLU.

We've gotten close multiple times or in temporary cases, but here we finally got full-time organized League uniting the entire superhero community as 1 functional unit, with the other pre-existing teams like the JSA and Titans also working together with sub-spaces in the Watchtower. Besides JLU, DC Universe Online and Young Justice also did this first, but now it's here in the main DCU and arguably at its best. Every (or almost every) superhero on Earth now has a membership card and access to the Watchtower, working together to best keep the world safe and make it better. 

As a lifelong DC fan who has the DCAU to thank for a childhood filled with great DC stories, I couldn't be more hyped when this was announced.

And man I got to say, Mr. Waid and Mr. Mora have outdone themselves as always with this first issue.

You've got plenty of heroes and epic action, but even better, the heart's still there too. Air Wave being the framing device of the nervous newbie who sees the new Watchtower and League like us and eagerly helps on his first mission, helping Star Sapphire and Black Lightning save someone's life through love? And his reaction after? Awesome. So great to see Batman and Blue Beetle teaming up as well, as a Brave and the Bold and YJ fan. Really hope to see Jaime in more stuff now that he's had a movie an his own show coming. The callback to the War Wheels, originally from the GA but also seen in JLTAS, was a great touch too!

But wait! The issue also set up a new threat, a twist and a mole (won't spoil who)!

Credit to u/Phantomknight22 for making the connection to a plot point in Joshua Williamson's Future State Justice League. In that thread I also pointed out how Mark Waid hasn’t been afraid of integrating modern/recent ideas. Most of the Future State futures have already been prevented one way or another, but this specifically hasn’t been addressed or prevented. Though the circumstances seem to be different with the Hall of Justice vs the JLU Watchtower.

Speaking of, back to the All-in Special!

Indeed Joshua Williamson and Scott Snyder have been building off of a lot of things they set up/did from Metal and Infinite Frontier to Dark Crisis, as well previous works by others like Doomsday Clock and Multiversity. The two big ones in this issue mainly:

• The Multiverse map was always made with the fact that the Multiverse was vibrational not geographical in mind, meaning the worlds all take up the same space but are separated by frequency. The Multiversity Guidebook goes into this in depth. 
• The Alpha World universe Darkseid uses to create the Absolute Universe first appeared in at the end of Death Metal, with Infinite Frontier onwards covering its Omega counterpart. 
• As Snyder and Williamson explained, the main DC Universe is built on Superman's energy as in Doomsday Clock.

Lastly, Darkseid's return and "death" (his third or fourth time in the last 15 or so years), his son Orion sets out to watch for either his return or the creation of a new Darkseid.

As of this writing, Ram V and Evan Cagle's new New Gods has not yet released!

But as you may know I'm a huge fan of Jack Kirby's Fourth World mythos, discussing it often in posts and threads with folks like u/NomadicJaguar64t . This'll be the first solo ongoing for the NGs in decades. I'm hyped and eager to see Ram V do them justice fresh off his phenomenal Detective Comics run. Speaking of, rumors are both Batman and Superman and relaunching next year. I've been a huge supporter of Williamson's run and while I miss PKJ, AC's Superstars format has been interesting with Mark Waid currently doing a weekly mini-run right now. Lots of things to look forward to next year for the main DCU.

But in the mean time, Booster Gold finds himself the first line of defense, taking the lead on Darkseid's new plan...

III. Omega

Darkseid is back.....

Again......

Again...and again...

And that's exactly the driving point of the Omega story.

Darkseid's had enough. He's back as lord of Apokolips again but our villain here still wants to change his place in the grand scheme of things, and so he sets out on a quest. 

The story, co-written by Snyder and Williamson and the former leading here with art by Wes Craig, opens with Darkseid doing his best Sauron impression, seemingly forging something in a fire pit like the Lord of the Rings did with his Ring on Mount Doom. Except he's actually cutting his arm off, using his blood like a sacrifice for something. 

His son and generals are worried for him, having just formed a new army and Parademon type called "Paradevils" mixed with different alien species (like Orcs bred with humans to make Uruk-Hai heh). But Darkseid is indifferent and coldly uses Kalibak's blood to power his Miracle Machine, the same type of device once used to rebuild the Multiverse after he and Mandrakk destroyed it in Final Crisis.

Once more like in Justice League Incarnate he then sets out on a rampage across space, time, dimensions and realms!

From Heaven, to Hell, to the Dark Side of the Moon (with plenty of callbacks to his history with many cosmic and mystical characters) before finally confronting the Spectre. He forces him to reveal his true place in the universe, the constant driving force, the evil side of the equation necessary to produce the good vs evil stories the DC Multiverse lives on. Fated to fight, die and come back again and again. 

Darkseid is defiant, and using the Spectre's power in a climactic battle with the JLU, all that he's worked for finally coming to fruition, he ULTIMATELY...

Dies.....again...

Darkseid is dead once more...

Or is he...?

"...whose minds have been blinded by the god of this world, so that they cannot see shining the light..." 

Superman was able to cut him off from the Spectre, but Darkseid wanted this. 

Now he was untethered, free to corrupt and become god to a new reality like he always desired.

The once Alpha world has become the new Omega.

Shaped in his image, in this world despair and tyranny rule supreme and hope is the underdog!

The Absolute Universe!

So far only 3 ongoing titles have launched, and honestly I've only been able to pick up Absolute Batman and Superman, but of course I hear a lot of people say AWW is great if not their favorite. I'll definitely have to trade wait it and the other Absolute titles for now though.

But as for my thoughts...

To be perfectly honest, when we first heard and saw our glimpses of this new Ultimate DC, I wasn't very hyped, and I saw a lot of people weren't either. Another dark and edgy universe? Wild takes that take away from (what seemed like) key aspects of these characters? Seemed more like what we've gotten before but missing the point of the characters at worst and at best fun Elseworlds tales that won't last long instead of the new takes of the modern era.

But man, I couldn't be proven more wrong.

As Scott Snyder outlined, this is a world where hope is the underdog, so hope must burn brighter than ever!

"the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it"

The point is to show our heroes still becoming heroes even without these parts of themselves, whether it's because they gain something else or they overcome their lack of it, retaining the greater core essence of the character while also rebuilding them.

To outline my thoughts on Absolute Batman and Superman respectively:

• Absolute Batman - Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo's New 52 run holds a special place for me, it's the first comic run I ever started picking up floppies for, from an actual comics store. The same LCS I went to then I still do now. But it's because of that, that I was skeptical of Mr. Snyder coming back. He's had plenty of Batman stories, including a new origin and multiple standalone stories after his run. I actually really liked Superman Unchained and he wrote him really well in his JL run so I thought he was taking Big Blue, but he's back to Batman again? Somehow though, he and Nick Dragotta proved my worries baseless. Back from a long break and unrestricted, he not only goes big and bold but gives us a really new and fresh take on Bruce Wayne that's still recognizable. Sure, it is kind of weird that even without money this Bruce can do all the stuff he has so far (no spoilers) but man that just shows how resourceful Batman can be even without wealth lol. Raw determination and dedication. Absolutely love his villains being childhood friends, Alfred still being a special agent, Thomas' new death and Martha being alive. Stoked for what's to come.
• Absolute Superman - Now I mentioned Unchained, but let me preface this by adding that even though I prefer Rebirth and the current era overall, I'm also a huge fan of parts of N52 Superman, specifically Grant Morrison's AC, with the return of the Champion of Oppressed Golden Age Superman, and Geoff Johns' brief Superman runs. So I'm not against absolutely against any younger or "edgier" version of Superman. Thanks to Morrison and Waid I'm also a big fan of Pre-Crisis (Silver and Bronze Age) Superman, who some might say is relatively more attached to his Kryptonian side (I'd say that's a bit of an oversimplification but I digress). See also my last big post in this sub. So, with all that in mind, I guess that's why it's not a surprise that I ended up really liking where Jason Aaron and Rafa Sandoval are going after all. As for the lack of Kents, I think I'll leave it to u/methodic_traveller 's excellent comment over at r/Superman to handle that topic.

No substantial theories on Absolute yet, but u/Tiny_Butterscotch_76 over at r/AbsoluteUniverse had an interesting idea about a secret Illuminati force that'll be in all the books. 

As I stated in that thread, Darkseid always classically used deceptive, indirect strategies to undermine the heroes of Earth and find the Anti-Life Equation. Tactics like cloning Morgan Edge to control WGBS, secretly controlling the Secret Society of Supervillains and having Glorious Godfrey control the media as G. Gordon Godfrey were his original M.O. in his earliest stories before switching to outright invasion with Parademons. The DCAU and YJ portrayed this well, adding Kanto selling weapons to Intergang while manipulating Bruno Mannheim and Granny Goodness being head of a WB-like company as Gretchen Goode.

Having a secret Illuminati group planted in this new universe that worships him and manipulates the world in subtle ways makes sense and seems like a return to form. It also reminds me of how he and a handful of his elite infiltrated Earth in the lead up to Final Crisis in human disguises too. All leading up to a new version of the Great Darkness Saga as Booster saw.

But how is there hope in this "Absolute" universe at all?

The important detail is that Darkseid didn’t truly “create” this world. Not from scratch or from nothing (“Ex Nihilo”). The Absolute universe already existed as the Alpha world since Infinite Frontier, he just poured his essence into it and shaped it before it stabilized. If he was paralleling Sauron earlier, here he’s emulating his predecessor Morgoth, who corrupted his world with his essence (the marring of Arda). 

All he did was introduce the taint of original sin.

This world is corrupted by Darkseid so hope is the underdog, but hope still exists at all because it is an original inherent part of it due to the world's true creator, the Source of hope.

Darkseid is…still a false god. Like the other dark lords and fallen lightbringers before him, like Mandrakk, Mobius and Perpetua. In this dark world, our heroes remain servants of light. Superman specifically, despite having a completely different upbringing in a darker universe, won’t be like his lesser Crime Syndicate, Justice Lord, Injustice, Knightmare, Red Son or Overman counterparts. 

Why? He has inherent goodness no matter the external factors, whose core goodness is constant for any true iteration of him. The same extends to the goodness in Batman and Wonder Woman. 

"Evil is not able to create anything new, it can only distort and destroy what has been invented or made by the forces of good."

No matter how hard evil tries it cannot truly create. Whatever world they make will always have hope inside of it…

...Because Hope is Absolute.

P.S.

If you haven't seen it yet, I did make a couple of posts earlier this year. 

One of them I posted only on my blog (where you may also find this post as well) instead of on Reddit since I felt it wasn't as appropriate, this Spectre post featuring an old paper I wrote for a college Theology class lol. Special thanks to u/Avenging_Spectre who I encountered over at r/Catholicmemes and encouraged me to share it. I know this All-In issue wasn't the best for our boy Jim but at the very least I think he's free from Darkseid now, and he's in World's Finest too. I'm a huge fan of John Ostrander and Tom Mandrake's Spectre run and the character in general, hope I get to feature him in these posts in a better way eventually.

The other post is about my new favorite episode of Superman and Lois, which I also posted over at r/SupermanAndLois and r/Superman. Speaking of, as of writing this, the finale just came out, eager to watch it after finishing this and IRL stuff up today/tomorrow!

Like I said in those posts, I've been busy with medical school and well, life. But with Superman 2025 coming next year and several months to make a post on that, maybe I'll make room for some DCU theories...