The Watchtower's Prisoners, Superman's Resolve!

The Justice League Watchtower, command center.

It was Earth's strongest bastion, a temple suspended among the stars.

But now, it had become the most magnificent prison, with no way out.

On the main screen, a military satellite broadcast the one-sided slaughter in the Kansas wilderness live.

Humanity's finest armored division was torn apart before the gray monster as easily as a child's toys.

A B-2 bomber worth billions was swatted into a fireball when the monster leaped up at it, as if swatting a mosquito.

As they watched the hellish scene on the screen, every hero present felt a helplessness and humiliation unlike anything they had known.

"Are we just going to sit here and watch?"

The Flash, Barry Allen, slammed a fist into the console. The alloy surface did not budge; instead, the impact left his knuckles aching.

"I tried, Barry." Cyborg, Victor Stone, sounded cold and weary. "Link rewrote every underlying permission on the Watchtower. The teleportation system, the Javelin fighters, the communications network... He's locked all of it down. Now we're just prisoners he's keeping here to show the world his trophies."

"Prisoners..." Wonder Woman, Diana, murmured. She watched the footage along the bottom of the screen: countless people kneeling in prayer, calling Link's name. Sorrow filled her blue eyes.

"He took away our responsibility. Now he's making people place their hopes in him... He's stealing everything from this world, even its faith."

Only Batman, Bruce Wayne, said nothing.

He stood motionless in the shadows, like a statue. But behind his mask, his eyes raced across every frame and every piece of data on the screen, analyzing them faster than a supercomputer.

He searched for a weakness in the monster, for any chance to break the deadlock, even one with odds of only one in ten thousand.