WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Justice League #31 by Scott Snyder, James Tynion IV, Jorge Jimenez, Francis Manapul, Alejandro Sanchez and Tom Napolitano, on sale now.
As the Justice League tries to find a way to overcome Lex Luthor and Perpetua, it's become clear that they'll have to dig deep, perhaps even compromising their ethics and overall moral compass to stop the villains. Hawkgirl/Kendra Saunders has already accepted she'll have to cut Lex's throat to take out the Apex Predator for what he's done to Martian Manhunter and to stop him from reshaping the entire DC Multiverse int eh name of his dark goddess.
However, while their search continues for a definitive answer to Lex's schemes and all the sinister enemies he's recruited, Justice League #31 finally gives the heroes the edge they've been been looking for all this time, although it could come at a hefty price.
Starman has held council with the League, addressing the largest roster they've ever assembled, making it clear a solution has presented itself thanks to the Cosmic Rod he found. It's made with a tiny fragment of the Totality that Lex stole from the League months ago, and it actually resonates in pitch and frequency with two other shards across space and time.
This is why he sends a squad with Batman and Superman to the future where they meet Kamandi and face a world ravaged by Brainiac, as well as Green Lantern and Flash to the past where they encounter the Justice Society of America. Sadly, these missions were hijacked by the Anti-Monitor's mysterious pawn, who believes the League's dual search for these building blocks is futile.
Still, Starman knows with his fragment and the other two, hope can be rekindled, since it will allow the World Forger and the Monitor to use their powers of creation to fashion the remnants of the Totality into a weapon: the Justice Totality. This could be used to kill or imprison Perpetua, as the Totality was released when her old prison, the Source Wall, broke during the No Justice storyline.
With the bits and pieces of the Wall in hand, Starman wants Perpetua's sons, the Monitor and the Anti-Monitor, to create this weapon to solve their debacle, but the Anti-Monitor clearly has his own plans, evidenced by his lackey attacking the League and him hiding out at the Edge of the Universe, not even interested in an alliance. He doesn't want to align with Starman's plan at all, which causes the hero to send another squad that includes Kendra and Shayne (Kendra's son with J'onn J'onnz from the Sixth Dimension) to track Lex and hopefully find a way to convince the Anti-Monitor to enlist with them.
Desperate times call for desperate measures, after all, and while Lex is seemingly poised to meet the Anti-Monitor first using his unique vessel, the Godhead, to either convert or kill him, Starman is still optimistic. He's holding out hope the Forger and Monitor can reach their kin in time and sell him on the initiative to repel their mom as per the first crisis in the DCU they fought against.
As for what the Justice Totality will look like should they succeed in bringing the Anti-Monitor over to the light, well, that remains to be seen. But as it stands, with Starman harnessing Hypertime and seeing possibilities of multiple futures, we have full faith in his vision and this overall space/time-bending solution as a means of protecting the fabric of reality from the ultimate destroyers.
Justice League #32 goes on sale Sep. 18.
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