Hell Arisen #4 Discussion/Spoilers

[sifighter]

Alright this story has come to an end and Death Metal is about to begin, so let’s talk about how we get there even though we are already aware of certain things aren’t we so honestly I’m not bothering with spoiler marks.

So oddly enough, Luthor actually wins...in the beginning anyway. He brings his army of villains, his mech suit, and even deduces that Batman who laughs is deteriorating and needs his visor to stay in this dimension. In fact he has a cure and gets it into Batman who laughs and cures all the infected including the Secret Six. Luthor wins.

But then Perpetua happens. Batman who laughs reveals what happens at the end of Justice League which he learned from the capture of Phantom Stranger in issue 1. What ends up happening is that Perpetua depowers Lex, making him no longer Apex, and sides with The Batman who laughs and is preparing to stop what the Justice League has planned. Lex is left alive with Mercy on earth.

So basically what you need to know from this mini is that Lex Luthor is human once more and Perpetua has allied herself with the Batman who laughs. Honestly this was not a terrible mini-series but it’s pretty evident that this was just supposed to be filler to get us from Justice League to Death Metal. If I had to grade it based on that it did it’s job, but it’s by no means it’s own standalone series from all the stories it’s building up from and what it’s going to.

[Steven Caldwell]

I thought it was a decent read, but I did also feel like it was just a plot device to go from point A to point B. oh well.

[Nite-Wing]

Lex can't be dumb enough to keep getting outsmarted by the Batman who laughs
At this point its embarrassing he has the man at his mercy and ends the issue in tears

[sifighter]

Lex can't be dumb enough to keep getting outsmarted by the Batman who laughs
At this point its embarrassing he has the man at his mercy and ends the issue in tears

See thats the odd thing about this issue is that he doesn't really. Lex actually does a great job at fighting him off and curing his army of the infected. At the end of the day he beats Batman who laughs, but its perpetua who beats Lex by siding with Batman who laughs.

[Artemisfanboy]

Ok, I got this series because I'm a Donna Troy fan and Wonder Woman was cross referencing Donna's appearances here.

In WW #751 Diana tried to find Donna with the Magic sphere, but failed and we get a cut away to Donna fighting Lex with Hell Arisen #2 getting footnoted.

Here we're told this takes place after Snyder's League finale, where the league were sent somewhere and disappeared? Then the ending leads into Death Metal?

Meanwhile Donna, cured of her infection, is going to show up in Wonder Woman #757 in may.

So either Snyder's League finale and Death Metal happen in between when Diana will get back from helping Maxima and when the Four Horsewomen begin their attack(which means DM shouldn't lead into a reboot), or we have another example of DC's current inconsistent timeline problems.

[Noodle]

I feel like these issues should have just been in Justice League. The way that Snyder's run ended on a cliffhanger and the next issue just started some new story, while these issues dealt with the fallout of all the stuff going on in Justice League, that it would be better served in that book instead of it's own mini while the League comic just goes into some unrelated story.

But someone at DC saw there was not actual League in it and felt it wouldn't fit and would work better as some random stop-gap mini, I guess.

Series was better than I expected it to be, though.

[vasir12]

Ok, I got this series because I'm a Donna Troy fan and Wonder Woman was cross referencing Donna's appearances here.

In WW #751 Diana tried to find Donna with the Magic sphere, but failed and we get a cut away to Donna fighting Lex with Hell Arisen #2 getting footnoted.

Here we're told this takes place after Snyder's League finale, where the league were sent somewhere and disappeared? Then the ending leads into Death Metal?

Meanwhile Donna, cured of her infection, is going to show up in Wonder Woman #757 in may.

So either Snyder's League finale and Death Metal happen in between when Diana will get back from helping Maxima and when the Four Horsewomen begin their attack(which means DM shouldn't lead into a reboot), or we have another example of DC's current inconsistent timeline problems.

Time is broken and multiple things are happening in the DCU at the same time that don't make sense. It's a series of inconsistencies that they've made into plot, as clunky as it is. They say it'll be fixed by Generation 0

[docmidnite]

Time is broken and multiple things are happening in the DCU at the same time that don't make sense. It's a series of inconsistencies that they've made into plot, as clunky as it is. They say it'll be fixed by Generation 0

Actually, it's Hypertime that is broken (Hypertime is made up of all of the many different possible timelines that could happen or are happening at the same time)

[K. Jones]

Granted it was in a one-shot tie-in, but I'm curious what the point of Luthor having a multiversal backup Luthor body to obviously un-Martian himself with was if they were just going to magic wand the whole thing. Not that I expected you know ... Planning ... from a big crossover tie-in clusterfluck. But in the case of Luthor specifically I thought for sure there'd be a more solid game plan of highs and lows and falls and secret backups with narrative payoffs.

[Robotman]

It was an ok series. It was nice to see Blue Beetle in a story even if he was just a villainous lackey. I enjoyed it overall but it reaffirms my hatred for TBWL. DC really should have shelved him for a long while before this storyline and Death Metal.

So Perpetua chose TBWL because he had some cosmic knowledge about the Justice League he got from Phantom Stranger. So instead of a super powered Lex who is totally loyal to her and who has already embarrassed the League, she chooses an insane anomaly because he claims to have some secret info on how she’ll win. Really TBWL just said something that caused Lex to get pissed and lash out. Lex’s ego is his worst enemy yet again.

[JLH]

I enjoy Tynion's work and have also overall enjoyed this series in spite of being sick to death of the Batman Who Laughs and Perpetua but I'm done with the never-ending Year(s) of the Villain/Infected/Metal event. Been reading DC for over 45 years and this will be the first event I didn't follow through to completion. At this point I'm up for any story that doesn't have to do with the end of the multiverse.

[cranger]

As others have said, a decent read but ultimately the value relies on wanting to read Death Metal (which I will) or having questions from Snyder's JL. With regards to the latter, I read Metal and No Justice, but only a couple issues of the ongoing, still I had no problem jumping on here and perhaps it helped not being tired of such a long story.