While Deathstroke went to negotiate with Chef Fan and Brainiac 21 secretly expanded his mind-control forces.
Earth-0, beneath the Hall of Justice in Washington D.C., headquarters of Justice League Dark.
Amid the sound of an underground river flowing into a waterfall, a dragon skeleton suspended in midair by Nth Metal cables glimmered in the dim light. Glowing insects, confined within glass tubes, provided illumination for this place steeped in mysticism.
"Ahem, sound check, sound check. This is Dr. Kirk Langstrom's experimental record."
Man-Bat, dressed in a lab coat, paced back and forth through the lounge beneath the dragon skeleton, hauling books and equipment around with an air of slight fluster.
As he worked, he spoke into the recorder hanging around his neck.
As a biologist who had once moonlighted as a forensic examiner, keeping experimental records was an important habit for him.
During the previous battle against The Upside-Down Man, he had lost his mind once again. That had forced him to study magic afterward, hoping to find a better way to control his beastly nature.
The Man-Bat Serum had turned him into a monster, but he wanted to be human.
He had not committed any major wrongs himself, but his greatest sin was the spread of the serum.
He had once lived in Gotham, and becoming Man-Bat had only caused Batwoman a little trouble. She had barely cared and had even accepted him into the Justice League.
But the serum he created had wreaked severe havoc on Gotham. Its ingredients were cheap and it was easy to make; it could even be mass-produced in the sewers. It had become widespread on the black market and, along with Fear Toxin and laughing gas, was known as one of Gotham's three great specialties.
Once, a madman had injected over a thousand