With This Ring Episode 19 / Recap

Chapter 19: Displaced

Takes place November 1-5

Short version

Klarion splits the world in two, putting adults and children in separate planes of existence; the Team and the Justice League assemble to defeat him and restore it, but in the process, Giovanni Zatara becomes a host-slave to Doctor Fate.

Longer version

Paul is helping Danette Reilly adapt to life now that she knows she is a robot. After spending some time together in Gotham, Danette goes to help deal with a fire while Paul goes to apprehend a criminal stealing a painting. Paul stops the thief and finds out it's Holly Robinson, a friend of Catwoman. After a pleasant conversation and dinner, Paul offers to be her parole officer of sorts, giving her money in exchange for a security report on the building she burgled and a promise to become a legitimate citizen.

Suddenly, adults in the restaurant they're in vanish, except for Paul himself. The ring reports that the only remaining adults in the world are on Themyscira, and roads outside are covered in crashed cars with no drivers in them. Paul gets in contact with the Team and starts collecting other under-18s he knows, such as Cornwall Boy, John Constantine's niece (whom he rescues from a swarm of Praexis Demons, assimilating one of them in the process), and Captain Marvel (currently depowered), as well as a number of Atlantean mages.

Captain Marvel experimentally transforms, and is able to confirm that the adults have been shifted to a second copy of the world; he can move between the worlds freely by transforming. Coordinating with the Justice League through him, the Team and the Atlanteans use magic to trace the source of the split, and find a number of wizards, including Klarion, in a ritual space on Roanoke Island. The League attacks the site in the adult world while the Team attacks in the child world.

After a hard fight, Doctor Fate - currently possessing Zatanna - is able to use the crystal powering the ritual to fuse the worlds back together. Klarion flees, while most of his minions are captured. Unfortunately, Fate refuses to release Zatanna afterward, so her father offers himself in exchange, which Fate accepts. Paul is incensed by this, but powerless to intervene after Klarion magically interfered with the ring, so he instead speaks to John Constantine and starts making plans.

In the Renegade timeline, Klarion did not tamper with the ring, leading the aftermath to turn out very differently. When Mr Zatara is about to don the Helmet of Fate, the Renegade angrily snatches it away with a construct and assimilates the Helmet. He then commands Nabu to be completely obedient to Mr Zatara and hands it back; Mr Zatara puts it on and gains access to Fate's power and knowledge without being possessed. The Renegade then angrily castigates the League and takes the prisoners to China to be tried and executed.

Equivalent canon episode: "Misplaced". "Displaced" may be a more even-handed reference, acknowledging that it wasn't as simple as the Team being in the wrong place; the whole world was split.

Achilles' Heel: Bedlam has some, which was exploited by Klarion in order to control the djinn.
Brick Joke: Back when the flight belts were introduced, Artemis' always made her float upside down. Paul asked if she was simply wearing it upside down, but this simply angered her. This episode reveals that she actually was wearing it upside down, because Paul forgot that girls' belts usually buckle the other way around.
Counting Bullets: Paul fires six shots from his backup revolver, which Klarion blocks, then pretends to have run out of ammunition. As soon as Klarion drops his guard, he finds out that Paul's gun was designed to hold eight bullets.
Curbstomp Battle: Once again, Klarion has no problem taking on the Team on his own.
Death of a Child: With the over-18s suddenly disappearing, people die in droves, especially young children. To give a picture of it:
Orange Lantern: Tell Batman to imagine a world where in every hospital, every clinic, every doctor's surgery... Doctors: gone. Surgeons: gone. Anesthetists: gone. Critical care nurses: gone. Any child who was undergoing surgery when the separation occurred is most likely already dead. Most children who were in critical care wards will be dying without the constant attention they need. Small babies who were being bathed when their parents disappeared stand a good chance of drowning. And good as autopilots are I don't know how long we've got until planes start falling out of the sky with no pilots. Major roads are covered in crashed cars, the injured and the dead and there aren't enough of us to help. I will be astonished if we keep the death toll to a mere five figures -most of whom will be children- and I will shout the praises of any deity who feels like chipping in, we cannot afford- We can't afford to pay any unessential attention to secondary objectives. Please pass that on.
De-power: Klarion corrupts the orange ring with a magic dust that lets him take control of it, so Orange Lantern has to take it off and fight him with a pistol. This didn't happen in the Renegade timeline, because Klarion wasn't quite as insanely angry at him over Teekl, and didn't spend the time and effort to track down the dust.
Epic Fail: Holly is hired to steal a piece of art. Not knowing how much it actually costs, she says was promised nine hundred dollars. Paul responds that the painting is insured for three million.
Inferred Holocaust: Utterly averted. In Gotham, OL finds a bridge on fire and many children injured or dead due to the adults driving their cars disappearing. OL states that the situation will get worse because there are many children without caregivers and many that might die of exposure. By the end of the incident, the official count is somewhere around eight hundred thousand children.
Locked Out of the Loop: Inverted. Grayven never told anyone about the Identity Theft ability, so the League doesn't know the specifics of what he did to Nabu.
Offhand Backhand: Batman does a variation by punching an area that everyone is pointedly not looking at, resulting in giving John Constantine a black eye.
Sex for Services: Almost happened during OL's first meeting with Holly Robinson after having caught her for stealing a painting. OL offers Holly a way out of her predicament without getting arrested, in which Holly thinks this is what OL implies. Fortunately, OL quickly tells her to stop taking off her clothes. Even more fortunate that OL clarifies with Holly that this hasn't happened to her before.
Shame If Something Happened: When Holly Robinson insults him, OL jokes that it would a shame if he dropped her while he's holding her two stories in the air where there are no witnesses.
Take Me Instead: Mr Zatara offers himself as a host for Nabu instead of Zatanna.
There Are No Global Consequences: Averted. The events of Displaced have massive consequences for the story, as the world learns that magic is real and is a legitimate threat. The event is treated as global tragedy and genocide on a massive scale with all the world powers scrambling to do something about it. In the Paragon timeline, there is call to action to try to prevent magical threats and Atlantis is increasingly recognized by the international community, being the the only country known to have magic. In the Renegade timeline, the conspirators are executed by the Chinese government.
The Unmasqued World: Despite the fact that places like Atlantis and heroes like Doctor Fate were around, very few people believed in magic. Then Klarion became responsible for hundreds of thousands of death and they couldn't ignore it.
What If?: Mr Zoat answers here what could have happened if Nabu had been active before Klarion struck. Not being much of a team player, he probably would have died.
Word of God: Paul was expecting black light usage to result in black constructs.
- Paul has little info on White Lanterns.
- Dark Druid isn't using a power ring to manipulate the black light.
- If Paul was able to get a longer look at Dark Druid, he would have seen the black light in his soul.
- Other worlds with magic exist, examples being a demon from Kryptonian Hell that escaped to Earth and Queen Artemis.