Batman's Last Plan!

The Watchtower fell deathly silent.

Superman, the man who had once seemed invincible, knelt on the floor, his body charred black and trembling faintly from agony and the corrosive force of divine power.

His eyes, once bright as sapphires, held nothing but pain and emptiness.

Diana, Barry, Hal Jordan, and Victor stood frozen in the distance like four weathered statues.

Their weapons had either fallen to the floor or hung uselessly at their sides.

The same emotion was written across every face: despair.

This was not a battle.

It was a one-sided judgment of mortals by a god.

And Link was that merciless god, thunder in hand.

He stood calmly and let the golden lightning dancing at his fingertips fade.

He did not even glance at Superman kneeling before him, as though he were a fly Link had swatted without a thought.

His gaze passed through the gaping holes toward the faintly lit command center deep within the Watchtower.

He knew the last host of this "party" was still there.

Inside the command center.

Batman sat motionless before the main console. Across the enormous screen, separate feeds replayed everything that had just happened.

Superman had fallen to a single punch.

The Justice League members' combined assault had looked like children at play.

The Thunderbolt of Zeus had descended, and a god had fallen to his knees.

Each image drove into Batman's mind like a red-hot steel needle, piercing a brain already crammed with plans and contingencies.

For the first time, the hands resting on the console trembled, almost imperceptibly.

We lost.

Utterly and completely.

He had imagined countless ways a confrontation with Link might unfold and devised over a hundred tailored battle plans, from Plan A all the way to Plan Zeta.

But not one of them could deal with