Recaps

The Batman Who Laughs revealed that the data center controlled the life-support chips of 1.37 million Night City residents and threatened to kill them if Chen Mo destroyed the motherboard. He challenged Chen Mo to choose between stopping his advance and letting the hostages die, leaving Chen Mo silent before the screen.

• The data center's turrets fired at Chen Mo and the Joker Gang, but Chen Mo blocked every beam with his tendrils.
• The Batman Who Laughs revealed that the turrets were not meant to kill Chen Mo and displayed a map of Night City with 1.37 million linked life-support chips.
• The Batman Who Laughs explained that destroying the motherboard would disable the chips, drive residents' cyberware out of control, and release biological agents.
• Joker and V reacted with alarm, while Joker realized he could not destroy the control network without endangering the city.
• The Batman Who Laughs asked whether Chen Mo would stop for the hostages or continue over their corpses, and Chen Mo remained silent.

Chen Mo neutralized the identity chips threatening 1.37 million people in Night City, but The Batman Who Laughs escaped after provoking him. Chen Mo decided to copy the data center’s contents before tearing it down, while The Batman Who Laughs reunited with the Dark Knights and called their near-death encounter thrilling.

• Chen Mo used telekinetic force to disconnect all 1.37 million identity chips from the data center’s control network without harming their owners.
• The Batman Who Laughs said he had wanted to see Chen Mo’s reaction to the threatened deaths, and Chen Mo admitted he had mostly thought the situation was a hassle.
• Chen Mo sent Blacklight after The Batman Who Laughs through the communication signal, but the signal vanished before Chen Mo could reach him.
• Chen Mo told V they would copy the data center’s data before tearing it down.
• The Batman Who Laughs met with Red Death and Dawnbreaker, dismissed their concerns about the lost routes, and said they had all almost died.

Chen Mo copied the District Nine data center into the Blacklight Network and tore the facility apart before leaving with the Joker Gang. Nite Owl and Lex Luthor each blamed the other for the destruction and ordered their forces into a war footing.

• Chen Mo transferred the data center's servers and data into the Blacklight Network, then consumed the facility's metal and wiring as the building collapsed.
• Harley Quinn dragged Joker toward the exit, and Chen Mo escaped with the Joker Gang before the passage was buried in rubble.
• Night City's surveillance network recovered but showed no record of the data center, while Nite Owl identified Chen Mo in footage from the ruins.
• Lex Luthor blamed Nite Owl for the data center's destruction, while Nite Owl recognized the Blacklight's involvement and watched the footage.
• Luthor deployed heavy armored forces, and Nite Owl unlocked low-orbit weapons.

After the Joker Gang destroyed the District Nine data center, Joker waited for Night City’s residents to react, but they carried on with their daily lives. He realized the resistance needed to address people’s immediate needs first, and the chapter left the gang preparing to start by feeding them.

• The Joker Gang celebrated destroying the District Nine data center without suffering any casualties.
• Joker checked city forums and news for public reactions, but residents focused on everyday concerns and ignored the attack.
• Harley Quinn told Joker that ordinary people might care more about having food than about who ruled the city.
• V said people struggling to eat would not care who was in charge, and Chen Mo agreed while asking for more meat at future victory feasts.
• Joker closed the forum and said the gang would start by making sure everyone had enough to eat.

Joker abandoned his surveillance-node investigation and planned a raid on the Maelstrom Gang’s All Foods Processing Plant to secure food for Night City’s outer districts. Chen Mo agreed to stay and watch, promising to intervene if Joker’s crew could not handle the gang.

• Joker erased the surveillance nodes from his map and chose the All Foods Processing Plant as his next target, hoping to seize the Maelstrom Gang’s food stores.
• V flirted with Chen Mo and asked why someone so powerful stayed with Joker’s crew, and Chen Mo decided to remain for two more days.
• Joker warned Chen Mo that the Maelstrom Gang and its leader Morok were heavily armed and dangerous, and Chen Mo said he would step in if the crew failed.
• Joker’s crew prepared for the operation, and Chen Mo noticed the message beside the target: “First, make sure they have enough to eat.”

Joker led V and the Joker Gang in an assault on the All Foods Processing Plant while Chen Mo watched to test their resolve. After they breached the plant and secured the first floor, a massive armored figure attacked and stopped its war hammer inches from Joker’s head.

• Joker coordinated a diversion at the east gate and a power cut at the drainage outlet while three trucks rammed through the plant’s western gate.
• Chen Mo stayed behind cover eating sunflower seeds as V and the Joker Gang faced the plant’s defenses without his help.
• Joker led a team through a weakened section of wall, and the attackers used smoke, jamming, and focused fire on exposed joints to defeat the Maelstrom Gang members.
• The Joker Gang cleared the first-floor entrance and advanced into the hall, where a huge figure smashed through the ceiling.
• The figure swung its hydraulic war hammer at Joker, but the hammer stopped inches from his head.

The Joker Gang defeated Morok and opened the warehouse at Night City's largest whole foods processing plant, expecting to find synthetic meat. Instead, Joker and V discovered hundreds of culture tanks holding dismembered humans with only their brains and spinal cords intact.

• Chen Mo stopped Morok's warhammer with a sunflower seed shell, but Morok struck Joker and launched him into a pillar.
• The Joker Gang opened fire on Morok, and V blinded him by shooting through gaps in his armor.
• V shoved a live high-explosive grenade into Morok's mouth, killing him and disabling his thermobaric launcher.
• Joker entered the decoder and opened the warehouse doors after urging the gang to follow their plan.
• Joker and V saw that the warehouse held hundreds of tanks containing dismembered humans instead of synthetic meat.
• Chen Mo cracked another sunflower seed as the gang stared at the tanks.

Joker and the Joker Gang discovered that Maelstrom Gang was making synthetic nutrient paste from people and mutant cockroaches, shattering Joker’s belief that small acts of resistance could reform Night City. He stopped V from charging into the factory and resolved to destroy the system that allowed such atrocities.

• Chen Mo and the Joker Gang watched the factory’s production line turn living people and mutant cockroaches into nutrient paste while preserving the victims’ brains separately.
• The Joker Gang recognized the paste as the food they had been eating, and many members collapsed in horror and nausea.
• V cursed the Maelstrom Gang, armed herself, and charged toward the factory hall to kill them.
• Joker reflected that ordinary people were treated as raw materials and concluded that minor raids and protests could not stop the system.
• Joker grabbed V’s arm to stop her and, after steadying himself, resolved that the world had to change.

Joker asked Chen Mo to rescue the captives and destroy the Maelstrom Gang and the corporations behind it, and Chen Mo agreed. Before Chen Mo could act, Luthor's forces surrounded the factory and a heavy military mech broke into the warehouse.

• Joker stopped V from rushing after the Maelstrom Gang and admitted their group could not defeat the system alone.
• Joker removed his mask and begged Chen Mo to save the people in the warehouse and destroy the Maelstrom Gang and its corporate backers.
• Chen Mo agreed to help and told V to watch from the sidelines while he tore down the factory and went after Luthor and Nite Owl.
• Luthor's forces surrounded the factory with armored vehicles and aircraft, and Joker realized the factory had been bait.
• Chen Mo checked that the captives in the cultivation tanks could survive, then said he would deal with the forces outside.
• A military mech blasted through the warehouse wall and announced that the uprising was over.

Chen Mo destroyed Luthor’s attacking force in seconds, prompting Nite Owl to prepare an escape contingency while Lex Luthor mistook the attack for Nite Owl’s trump card. As Luthor reached for the command button to launch an all-out assault, his supposedly nuclear-proof door shattered.

• A mech pilot threatened the Joker Gang, but Chen Mo tore the mech apart with Blacklight tendrils before it could fire.
• Chen Mo’s tendrils destroyed the armored units, vehicles, and gunships surrounding the All Foods Processing Plant in one second.
• Nite Owl watched the force’s destruction on surveillance footage and decided to prepare a contingency plan to escape if his trump card failed.
• Lex Luthor concluded that Nite Owl had revealed his trump card and reached for the button to launch his super force against Night City.
• Luthor’s custom alloy door shattered just as he was about to press the command button.

Chen Mo confronted Luthor in his tower and effortlessly overcame its defenses. Luthor released Doomsday, the monster said to have killed Superman, and ordered it to kill Chen Mo.

• Chen Mo entered Luthor's office and mocked him for the failed security around the tower.
• Luthor trapped Chen Mo in a gravity field and attacked him with high-frequency sound waves, but Chen Mo endured both and shattered the shield.
• Luthor revealed a metal pod containing a genetically engineered creature that could adapt to its opponents and had killed Superman.
• Luthor ordered the unstable test subject released, and Doomsday burst out of the pod.
• Luthor commanded Doomsday to kill Chen Mo.

Chen Mo fought Doomsday through Luthor’s collapsing facility, discovering that the creature rapidly adapted to his attacks and regenerated from severe injuries. After severing and absorbing Doomsday’s arm, Chen Mo began analyzing its cells as the monster healed and grew even more heavily armored.

• At Luthor’s command, Doomsday charged Chen Mo, and the two exchanged blows that wrecked the control room.
• Doomsday adapted to Chen Mo’s strength and dragged him through the building as their fight tore apart floor after floor.
• Luthor fled through an emergency elevator, but the fighting sent it crashing into the underground base, where Chen Mo pulled him out.
• Luthor escaped through another passage while Chen Mo and Doomsday smashed into the base’s core area.
• Doomsday pinned Chen Mo beneath rubble and grew thicker bone armor, but Chen Mo formed a blade, severed its left arm, and absorbed it with tendrils.
• Doomsday regenerated its arm stump and thickened its armor while the Blacklight Virus analyzed the absorbed limb.

Chen Mo fought Doomsday in the underground base, feeding on its severed limb as the creature rapidly adapted and grew stronger. The battle escalated when Doomsday blocked Chen Mo’s strike with newly evolved eyelid armor and prepared a blast of thermal energy.

• Chen Mo consumed Doomsday’s severed limb, gaining life energy and new gene fragments as Doomsday regenerated a stronger arm.
• Chen Mo and Doomsday clashed in a contest of strength, and Doomsday adapted, overpowered Chen Mo, and hurled him through several walls.
• Chen Mo climbed from the rubble eager to continue fighting, while Doomsday launched a barrage of explosive bone spikes.
• Chen Mo advanced behind Blacklight shields and formed a giant blade to strike Doomsday’s eye.
• Doomsday evolved dense armor over its eyelid to stop the blade, then formed a ball of thermal energy in its throat.

Chen Mo fought Doomsday in the underground base, adapting to its thermal beam before overpowering and devouring it. After absorbing Doomsday completely, he healed and felt Blacklight’s evolution advance.

• Doomsday unleashed a thermal beam, but Chen Mo stood in it while Blacklight analyzed and adapted to the heat.
• Chen Mo advanced through the beam and cut Doomsday apart with a Blacklight greatblade, but Doomsday regenerated and punched through his abdomen.
• Chen Mo restrained Doomsday with tendrils, then devoured its cells and regenerated tissue while countering its attacks and evolution.
• Chen Mo broke Doomsday’s neck and pulled its body into Blacklight, consuming it completely without leaving a corpse.
• Chen Mo’s wounds healed as Doomsday’s energy strengthened his body and advanced Blacklight’s evolution, and he declared the meal satisfying.

After devouring Doomsday, Chen Mo killed Lex Luthor and consumed Nite Owl while searching for clues about The Batman Who Laughs, but found nothing. He returned to Joker and V, leaving Joker to handle Night City's remaining troubles.

• Chen Mo tracked Lex Luthor as he fled Night City and appeared aboard his stealth fighter.
• Chen Mo killed Luthor with a single slap, then left the terrified pilot behind.
• Thomas Wayne, known as Nite Owl, surrendered to Chen Mo in the Nite Owl Tower safe room.
• Chen Mo consumed Nite Owl and searched his memories for information about The Batman Who Laughs and the mysterious crystal, but found no useful clues.
• Chen Mo returned to Joker and V at the All Foods Processing Plant and told them Luthor and Nite Owl were dead.
• Chen Mo told Joker he had paved the way and left him to deal with Night City's remaining problems.

Chen Mo gave Joker’s Gang a Nite Owl clone with top-level access and ordered them to seize control of Night City. V suspected Chen Mo was preparing to leave, and he teased her about not wanting him to go.

• Chen Mo created a Nite Owl clone and gave it to Joker’s Gang as a tool for taking over Night City.
• The gang celebrated their sudden rise to power until Joker shot the bottle and ordered them to get to work.
• Joker sent the gang to take over the network and defense systems and eliminate the remaining holdouts.
• V told Joker that Chen Mo had tied up the loose ends as if he were about to leave, and Joker stayed silent.
• Chen Mo appeared behind V, looked her over, and asked whether she could not bear to see him go.

V boldly declared that she wanted to sleep with Chen Mo, and he decided to take her with him to the Marvel Universe. After sending V through a spatial passage, Chen Mo left Joker in control of Night City and vanished.

• V confronted Chen Mo and openly declared that she wanted to sleep with him, while the Joker Gang watched in stunned silence.
• Chen Mo admitted that V was the first person from this world he considered taking with him and opened a passage to the Marvel Universe.
• Chen Mo used Blacklight to send V through the passage despite her furious protest.
• Chen Mo told Joker to take control of Night City, and Joker pledged that the Joker Gang would follow his command.
• Chen Mo vanished from the warehouse as the Joker Gang watched reverently.

V arrived in an unfamiliar, luxurious room and confronted Tony Stark, who mistook her for someone Chen Mo had brought there. V demanded to know where she was and where Chen Mo had gone, while Tony tried to charm her and offered her coffee.

• V fell onto a soft carpet, drew her handgun, and cautiously surveyed the high-tech penthouse around her.
• Tony Stark entered with two cups of coffee, believing Chen Mo had returned, and began talking about the custom armor he had made for him.
• Tony noticed V aiming her gun at him and joked about Chen Mo sending someone across dimensions.
• V demanded to know who Tony was, where she was, and where Chen Mo was.
• Tony introduced himself, while JARVIS warned that V was agitated, and Tony offered her a caramel macchiato.

V met Tony Stark after Chen Mo brought her to his luxurious room, and she and Tony bonded over their complaints about Chen Mo. Their conversation ended when Chen Mo appeared and took Tony’s coffee.

• V held Tony at gunpoint until he introduced himself as Chen Mo’s friend, then lowered her weapon.
• Tony eagerly asked V what Chen Mo had done in her world, and V complained that Chen Mo had rejected her advances and brought her to Tony’s place.
• Tony told V that Chen Mo had eaten women before, frightening her with stories of his cruelty.
• V and Tony formed a united front against Chen Mo and mocked him together.
• Chen Mo reached out of a spatial rift, took Tony’s coffee, and asked if they were holding a denunciation meeting behind his back.

Chen Mo brought V to Stark Tower and introduced her to Tony and the Avengers, whom he mocked as super wage slaves. V saw how advanced and peaceful the place was compared with Night City, then met the team and introduced herself as a mercenary.

• Chen Mo returned to Tony and V, teased Tony about badmouthing him, and introduced V as a hotheaded newcomer.
• Chen Mo led V through Stark Tower, where she admired its advanced technology and clean, sunlit surroundings while pretending not to be impressed.
• Chen Mo brought V into the Avengers' war room and introduced her to Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanoff, and Bruce Banner with mocking descriptions.
• Tony joined them and complained about Chen Mo's coffee cup, which Steve caught and put in the recycling unit.
• V accepted the introductions and told the Avengers she was a mercenary who looked forward to working with them.

V began settling in with the Avengers while Tony revealed a custom-built suit of armor for Chen Mo, who fused it with the Blacklight Virus and left to pursue the Batman Who Laughs. V challenged Chen Mo to return after she made a name for herself in this world.

• Steve welcomed V as a friend, and Natasha offered her a beer while Banner greeted her warmly.
• Chen Mo prepared to leave the Avengers headquarters to hunt the Batman Who Laughs in another universe.
• Tony revealed a dark-gold suit of armor he had built for Chen Mo using special alloys, Eternals technology, and Asgardian runes.
• Chen Mo fused the Blacklight Virus with the armor, tested its movement, and thanked Tony before heading for a spatial passage.
• V told Chen Mo not to leave her waiting and promised to pin him to the bed once she made a name for herself.
• Chen Mo teased V, then entered the spatial passage.

Chen Mo found the white-light universe where The Batman Who Laughs had fled, but its barrier repelled him. After stripping his Blacklight Clone of most of its powers, he sent it through the barrier and into the world below, where it crashed into a city street.

• Chen Mo spotted a white universe tainted by the same rotten aura as The Batman Who Laughs and tried to enter it, but an invisible force pushed him back.
• Chen Mo created a Blacklight Clone and repeatedly weakened it, removing its dimensional powers and resistances until the barrier let it through.
• The clone fell through the atmosphere and slammed into a city street, carving a crater and scattering debris.
• The clone climbed out of the crater and brushed himself off as the stunned people nearby stared at him.

Chen Mo landed in a city and tried to locate The Batman Who Laughs, only to discover that his stripped-down clone lacked psychic powers. As he improvised a biological sonar, Flash arrived in a burst of scarlet lightning and stopped time.

• Chen Mo emerged from the crater and joked with a frightened bystander about the damage, telling him to seek reimbursement from Tony Stark.
• Chen Mo tried to scan the planet with psychic power but realized his clone had none of its high-level abilities.
• Chen Mo forced his Doomsday genes to evolve enormous biological sonar ears, startling the onlookers.
• Chen Mo changed his ears back, but Flash appeared in scarlet lightning and froze the intersection.

Chen Mo met Barry, the speedster who had rushed to investigate the destruction caused by Chen Mo’s fall, and resisted Barry’s attempt to bring him to the police station. The chapter ended with Chen Mo catching Barry’s arm as he tried to cuff him at super speed.

• Barry raced to the damaged intersection and found Chen Mo standing unharmed among the wreckage.
• Barry questioned Chen Mo about the crater and damaged cars, but Chen Mo claimed the road was at fault and denied causing the damage.
• Barry told Chen Mo to come to the Central City Police Department, and Chen Mo refused.
• Barry tried to restrain Chen Mo with specialized handcuffs, but Chen Mo tracked his movements and grabbed his arm.

Barry tried to subdue Chen Mo, but Chen Mo adapted to the Speed Force and overpowered him. The chapter ended with Chen Mo holding Barry by the neck and mocking him.

• Barry escaped Chen Mo’s grip by vibrating through his hand, then attacked Chen Mo’s shoulder and broke bones in his own hand.
• Chen Mo hardened his shoulder and countered Barry’s strike with matching vibrations, leaving Barry injured.
• Barry raced around Chen Mo, but Chen Mo’s vision and reflexes adapted until he could track Barry’s real body.
• Chen Mo began generating red lightning like the Speed Force and grabbed Barry by the neck, interrupting his phasing.
• Chen Mo lifted Barry and mocked his speed and stamina.