"It was time. Time to set his final plan in motion."
The mad, twisted Batwomen said this, while the Robin Hounds in the room spat green foam from their mouths and cackled noisily in agreement.
They scrambled over one another toward an iron door, forming a human ladder and pressing the electric button beside it.
That button looked like Comedian's smiling badge: a bright yellow background with black bean-like eyes.
Except, unlike the badge in Otherworld Deathstroke's hand, the face on this badge had downturned lips. It was crying.
With a rumble, The Doorway opened, revealing a purely blue figure within. There were target-like concentric circles on his forehead.
Blue light seeped involuntarily from his body, a natural overflow of energy. But he was not the Doctor Manhattan people knew. He was Manhattan Bat.
Besides the fifty-two numbered worlds, the Dark Multiverse contained countless unformed worlds.
Some of these so-called worlds were merely floating continents. Some were slightly better, tiny environments in the universe containing only one Earth or one Solar System.
Over the long years, the World Forger had forged them in his spare time for practice and amusement.
This completely blue fellow had originally been a Batman from an unformed world in the Dark Multiverse. He had not started out like this.
Like the stories of other Batmen, his parents had been murdered in an alley. He had knelt beside their corpses and wept, while bats flew past beneath the streetlights.
The difference was that most Bruces saw small bats, which merely triggered their fear. But the "bat" this Bruce saw was enormous—and it was laughing wildly!
The Batman Who Laughs took this Bruce away, damaged his brain, then raised him like a pig or dog.
All this happened before the beginning of the story. Back then, The