The story
Who will land the final blow on the Darkest Knight?
- Batman. Kind of obvious and a retread of last time, however it could be seen as Batman symbolically overcoming his darkest fear.
- Superman. Admittedly it's a bit cliche with "Batman vs Superman", but Superman is meant to be DC's symbol of hope and there's a certain amount of karma considering what he did to his Superman
- Wally West, given how they're setting him up to be important as if to make up for Dan Didio's treatment of him and being Demoted to Extra in Doomsday Clock. Also, the Darkest Knight is the Batman Who Laughs in a Dr Manhattan-like body.
- Wonder Woman. The Batman Who Laughs does say she's always his last remaining opponent.
- Confirmed.
Superboy-Prime will have a Redemption Equals Death.
As a book-end to his original sacrifice in the first Crisis, where he survived in a pocket universe and eventually went nuts, Prime will sacrifice his life to ensure the Trinity can pull off the Anti-Crisis and save reality...a reversal of his original desire to use a crisis to destroy and recreate the universe for his selfish desires. While he won't put the final blow on the Batman Who Laughs or instigate it, he will make sure whoever does accomplishes it(bonus points if he's aiding Wally West and the Flashes. His last words will be something along "this better stick!", which is both a nod to hoping DC doesn't just fall back onto its flaws but also saying to the writers "can we have my Heel–Face Turn stick this time?"- Semi-confirmed. He does sacrifice himself to go on the offensive against the Darkest Knight, but instead of making sure that the job is finished, all he manages to do is severely weaken the twisted Batman and destroy his Last 52 multiverse, earning a new lease at life in Earth-Prime in the process.
The Aftermath
Many unpopular decisions over the past events will be undone.
- Jon Kent will be de-aged
- Roy and Lian will return
- All the events of Heroes in Crisis will be erased, and all the deaths will be restored.
All books will start over but for the last time for a while.
- Most likely, we'll see something like OYL or the like where we get a fresh start with several new status quos that are both new reader-friendly, but also to the sensibilities of older readers.
A lot of pre-Flashpoint status quos will return.
- There's a strong possibility Wally West will return to being the main Flash, due to his popularity among the creators currently running things, as well as the amount of fan demand. There's also just the fact that Wally's Flash tenure sold better than Barry's has recently so from a pure capitalist stand-point, it makes sense.
- In the Bat-books, Barbara Gordon's spinal chip has been damaged and she's returning to the Oracle identity to coordinate the war efforts against Joker, while Damian is on the outs, Tim is wearing his old Robin costume, and both Steph and Cass have switched their outfits for something that looks more like their Batgirl looks. There's a good chance with Tynion being the 'top guy' of the Bat books going forward, this stuff will stick, and we might just have a return of Oracle!Babs, Batgirls!Steph and Cass, Tim!Robin, etc.
- The exceptions, of course, are going to be things that were actually popular from Rebirth, like Jessica Cruz and Simon Baz, or dad!Superman.
The Empty Hand another rogue Hand/Perpetua's species
Kind of self-explanatory, what with being a cosmic entity symbolized and named after a Hand. Unlike Perpetua he's smart enough to keep in the distance and slowly worm his way through the Gentry than make his demands known. Since Earth 0 is the center of the multiverse the Empty Hand doesn't like his chances as it would give attention to both his unfallen kind and other cosmic entities that might pose a threat, so he focuses on the other universes first. The Dark Knights
Many of them are based on Batman's lesser-known fears.
Since the Dark Multiverse is a reactive plane of existence where each incarnation of Batman from it is a manifestation of one of his darkest fears, the more...out there Dark Knights must have a deeper-seated reason to exist than the more obvious examples.- B-Rex, based on Batman's fear that the Batcave will collapse with him in it and/or the regret that he is seen by some civilians as a monster.
- Batmage, a representation of Batman's fear of being corrupted by black magic.
- Batmobeast, based on Batman's fear he will be consumed/dependent on his technology.
- Batrocitus, who represents Batman's fear that anger and hatred is what truly motivates him, and that he might become like Atrocitus.
- Beyonder, a personification of Terry McGinnis's fear that being Batman will not allow him to atone for his past as a delinquent.
- Bathomet, based on Batman's fear that running Wayne Enterprises will take its toll on his war of crime or inadvertently cause a great catastrophe.
- Collector, based of Batman's fear that his Control Freak tendencies and knowledge make him not so different from Brainiac.
- Dr. Arkham, based on Batman's fear of becoming overly obsessed with the scientific aspects of his crusade.
- Darkfather, based on Batman's fear of Darkseid and his regret that he may become just as much of a threat as the New God by killing him.
- Bat-Baby, personifying Batman's fear that his reincarnation will make him more vulnerable to being killed by his villains.
- Mindhunter, based on Batman's fear of how dangerous he would be with Martian Manhunter's powers.
- Kull, representing Batman's fear that his children may become evil (or at least overtly violent like Jason Todd).
- The Pearl, based on Batman's fear of losing his mother and his regret that he was unable to save her.
- Quietus, based on Batman's fear of losing Duke Thomas and his fear that using a Lazarus Pit to resurrect his loved ones will go awry.
- The Batman Who Frags, a representation of Batman's fear of how unstable Lobo is and how difficult his powers would be for him to control.
Origins of the Dark Knights
- Batrocitus: The death of Batman's parents lead him to become more vengeance-motivated than wanting to improve the world, eventually leading to him recruiting and usurping Atrocitus
- Collector: Brainiac attempting to pull a Grand Theft Me on Batman, like he did with Milton Fine.
- Darkfather: An alternate Final Crisis where Darkseid used him as his host body rather than Dan Turpin, which led to Bruce Hijacking Cthulhu.
- Mindhunter: Batman deciding to use Luthor's plan of being a human-martian hybrid before Perpetua shows up.
