"What the hell is this? Who hacked LexCorp's ad?!" Dave clapped his hands over his ringing ears, his face twisting beneath his mask at the piercing electrical screech.
Bruce did not answer. The blue eyes hidden beneath his cowl remained fixed on the screen.
It was not just the giant LED screens in Times Square. Every television and phone in Gotham City, even the battered screens of roadside ATMs, filled with gray-white static at the same moment.
Then a face covered in battle scars, its eyes utterly devoid of human emotion, appeared like a ghost before billions of people around the globe.
He did not speak, but an overwhelmingly forceful brainwave frequency that transcended language pierced the atmosphere and thundered deep inside every human mind!
"You are not alone."
Dave stumbled back in fright. "What the hell? That voice is coming from inside my head?!"
General Zod's holographic image looked down upon the blue planet from on high, his tone as cold as though he were sentencing a swarm of ants to death. "I am General Zod. I have crossed an ocean of stars. Your world is harboring one of our people."
"To the one hiding among you, I have only this to say: surrender to me within twenty-four hours. Otherwise, this planet will suffer Krypton's wrath. You will see what true destruction means."
The image flickered, then abruptly vanished. Electronic devices around the world returned to normal.
But the entire world fell into a deathly silence.
That silence lasted less than ten seconds.
Then Gotham City erupted like an enormous powder keg with a torch tossed inside!
"The end is here! Aliens are going to destroy Earth!"
"Who gives a damn about rules anymore? Loot everything! Every extra day alive counts!"
Despair and panic instantly shattered the city's already