Episode 97: Duplication
This episode is a direct continuation of the previous one. It takes place outside the normal flow of time, but returns to the original timeline on 2 April 2012.
Short version
Krona is defeated, and his captured Pauls and Jades are returned to their home universes; Time Trapper then reconfigures the temporal mechanics of the multiverse to let alternate timelines exist in parallel instead of replacing each other, and returns to the Mandated timeline.
Longer version
Krona tries to sabotage the Time Trapper's efforts with an impostor, consisting of a Manhunter robot controlling the brain of a version of the Red Queen. However, the impostor is caught and destroyed with the help of the local Justice League and Gold Lantern Corps, and Black Lantern Paul makes another black ring to revive her with a proper body. She helps in building a device to block Krona's work, triggering a showdown with his giant Manhunter robots wielding the rings stolen from alternate Pauls.
Meanwhile, Clayface of Earth 12, who was mistakenly acquired instead of the local Paul, is attached to Krona's reality-breaking device, along with hundreds of alternate Pauls including the captured Paragon. However, Clayface is unaffected by Krona's paralytic technology due to his unusual physiology. He escapes, makes contact with the imprisoned Time Trapper, recovers an orange ring, and frees the Paragon. The Paragon then frees his alternate versions and they attack Krona together, banishing him to the Fallout universe, where the local Paul destroys his mind with a telepathic weapon.
Time Trapper sends the different Pauls home (after some exchange of notes), and the Paragon then helps him to adjust the temporal properties of the universe, allowing the Mandated timeline to exist alongside the original and returning them both to their respective homes.
The Renegade follows through on his earlier offer to provide Luna with telepathic tutoring in current law and economics, and introduces her to his family.
The title likely refers to the multiple Pauls, and to Red Queen's power of universe creation and absorption, as well as the additional body spawned by Clayface.
- All Your Colors Combined: The Paragon and Lord Protector Paul harmonize the emotions of all the Pauls, and are able to draw on Lanterns of all seven colors for a burst of white light that is effective against Krona.
- The Berserker: Red rings are designed to make their wearers kill Green Lanterns. Red Paul tries to restrain himself, but when he sees evidence that they're vulnerable to other colours as usual, and is then offended by their brusqueness and presumption, he succumbs and attacks them in a frenzy. Not only does his punctuation turn red, we also see an emotion spike in his internal monologue, identified by a preceding exclamation mark. He has the upper hand, too, despite being outnumbered, until Indigo Paul calms him down.Red!Paul: (internally) !TAKE THE DATA FROM THEIR BURNING CORPSES!
- Brought Down to Normal: Krona's injury (from the Renegade, with the Sword of the Fallen) in the previous episode appears to have removed his usual Maltusian abilities, although he is still an abnormally capable Lantern.
- Callback: Several of the alternate Pauls from long past chapters show up, such as Sybarite (who embeds a ring in his chest), Lord Protector Paul (who has yellow enlightenment, putting him around the same power level as the Paragon), Common Sense Paul (who grabs Clayface and goes to investigate Krona's facility when it's clear that they can't easily damage Krona directly), and Anti-Green Lantern Paul (who gets hold of a replacement ring and destroys the anti-green one).
- Didn't See That Coming: The failure to "acquire" Peter Wynne is of only minor concern to Krona, who can easily replace him. But the fact that a Clayface was acquired — someone able to resist Krona's paralytic technology, escape from the tuning fork, and mimic the appearance of a Manhunter robot? That was unexpected.
- Doppelgänger:
- Red Queen's power creates alternate versions of herself and later merges with them to gain their experience and skills. However, Krona has captured many of her copies and used them to empower his Manhunter robots. The brain of one of those copies is used by a Manhunter robot to impersonate the original.
- Clayface splits off a small piece of himself to go looking for a way out while the rest keeps impersonating Peter Wynne in their pod. Initially the spawn is a small blob with limited intelligence, just pre-programmed instructions, but it then demonstrates the ability to absorb more material and develop into a full copy. Fortunately, it is horrified by the fact that the process resulted in a sapient being, and doesn't intend to repeat it.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: After everything that has happened to him, Time Trapper Paul finally gets what he wants and goes home.
- Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: Red power rings were designed to kill Green Lanterns, and are excellent at destroying other constructs (eg red light blood vomit dissolves them); Red Lantern Paul is able to take on a whole group of Green Lantern variants at once and deliver a beatdown. However, Indigo Lantern Paul is able to calm Red Lantern Paul down from his blood rage. It's unclear whether Green Lanterns would have the advantage over indigo, but since they can operate even while calm, it's likely.
- From a Single Cell: Black Lantern Paul, when cut off from his exit portal, tears off his own ring finger and throws it through the portal. Some time later, after his main body is destroyed, he wakes up on the other side, having been rebuilt by the ring.
- Heel Realization: Overgirl finally accepts that the National Socialist government was unnecessary, and that all the suffering that they inflicted on everyone had no point. She gets this when she visits the Jewish alternate version of herself.
- I Did What I Had to Do: Black Lantern Paul harvests the heart from a copy of Red Queen trapped inside a Manhunter robot, giving him sufficient emotion to continue the fighting retreat.
- Innocent Bigot: Having had her moment of insight and realisation, Overgirl is eager to talk with Rocket about "the achievements of the negro people."
- Meet the In-Laws: The Renegade brings Mortalla, "his" (Grayven's) mother, to meet Luna, as well as bringing his many adopted children. Luna is quite sanguine about the prospect, and has no problem with being evaluated for her objective fitness as a potential partner.
- My Skull Runneth Over: After her flash learning session, Luna just stands on her balcony muttering about politics and economics, unresponsive to speech, for several hours.
- Neural Implanting: The Renegade arranges for the G-Gnomes to copy legal and economic knowledge from some Equestrian experts into Luna's brain, getting her up to speed quickly on what she needs to help run the country. Normally they would use Telepathy, but Starswirl's Mirror converts them into changelings, so they use equivalent magic.
- No-Sell: Krona tries to paralyse the captured Pauls using a device that confuses their thoughts. It does nothing to Clayface.
- Sealed Good in a Can: Time Trapper gives Clayface the mission of freeing the Paragon and providing him with an orange ring, stating that the Paragon was the most powerful of the imprisoned Pauls. When he succeeds, the Paragon is able to subvert the attacking Manhunter robots, summon all the rings right out of the Orange Manhunter Titan fighting the Gold Lantern Corps (greatly weakening it), free all the other Pauls, and put Krona on the back foot.
- Stating the Simple Solution: Black Lantern Paul gets a "Department of Common Sense" interrupt where he advises the Gold Lantern Corps commander to simply give him a secure channel to contact Red and Indigo Paul and warn them about the Red Queen infiltrator.
- Super-Intelligence: Although he's temporarily depowered from when the Renegade hit him with the Sword of the Fallen, Krona still has the Maltusian ability to multitask, to the point where he's able to fend off dozens of attacks at once from the liberated Pauls.
- Temporal Mutability: The Time Trapper's plan is to change the rules, so that altering the timeline will cause a branch instead of an overwrite, thus allowing him to recreate his own timeline and return home.
- Your Head A-Splode: Krona's death in the power of the Dream Twister is quite messy.
