Three-and-a-half months
to collect and assemble materials,
and it takes him less than ten minutes to install them?
Yeah, sorry it took so long,
but incorporating these rebuilt components
from your dead Time-Sphere was a real time suck.
-Is it ready? -"Is it ready?"
It's almost ready.
I could finish it now. Easy peasy.
-But? -But I won't.
Not until you finally tell me everything.
-But the timeline-- -Oh, please.
I'm not even from this timeline.
I'm a wild card, yo. A free radical.
That's why you came to me.
So spill, or we're done.
All right, we're here.
We remain out of sync with the time stream,
so we're undetectable.
But I'll have to risk syncing.
Isn't it time you explained our mission, Lor-Zod?
I've told you what you need to do.
What, not why.
Darkseid ordered you to obey me.
And we will.
But only a fool goes into a mission blind.
And the Ma'alefa'ak is no fool.
So spill, or were done.
[theme music playing]
[ethereal music playing]
New Genesis.
Breathtaking.
Yeah, I guess the scenery will be nice to look at
while we totally waste our time at the summit.
You do not harbor high hopes for this conference?
Surely between the New Gods,
the Justice League and the Green Lantern Corps--
Da-da-da-da. Tomar-Re,
there's an old proverb by Bolovax Vik.
"You want nothing done, form a committee."
[beeping]
Emergency distress call. Hit it.
[intense music playing]
There!
[Tomar-Re] It appears to be a member of the Blue Lantern Corps.
His life support aura rapidly fades.
-I suggest-- -[Kilowog] Way ahead of you.
Branwilla's Ghost!
This ain't no Blue Lantern.
-[chuckles] This is Razer! -Kilowog?
[grunts]
It is as I feared. [exclaims]
I am dead
and in The Place of Eternal Torment.
Great to see ya, kid.
Ah, hey, nice duds.
You're coming up in the world.
Leave it to a hothead like you to planet-hop
without a fully charged power ring, huh?
-[laughs] -It is fully charged,
but a blue ring requires hope to function,
and I am all out of hope.
New Genesis officially welcomes
the Justice League to the summit.
Thank you, Orion.
Greetings, Rocket.
Vykin. [chuckles]
Good to see a friendly face.
Were you short on friendly faces here?
[sighs] I admit
I was dreading negotiations with the Dog of War over there.
-Then you must not understand him. -No?
He's Darkseid's son, right?
Orion is the son of Highmother and Highfather.
You need to take a closer look, my friend.
Greetings, Lantern.
Do you attend this summit alone?
Oh, Green Lantern Kilowog will be along shortly.
He had personal business to attend to.
[Kilowog] Four years.
Four years!
You don't call, you don't send subspace mail.
And suddenly you're here wearing blue pajamas.
Spill it, Red. Uh, Blue.
You have not changed a bit, my friend.
Unfortunately, neither have I.
Shortly after we parted,
a blue lantern ring powered by hope
found me in deepest space.
I took it is as a sign to finally abandon my anger
and gladly did so.
I could not in good conscience release my red ring
to plague some other wrath-filled wretch.
So I carried it with me.
A grim reminder of my past.
A chance meeting with the New God, Metron,
provided a solution.
He would hold the red ring in his interdimensional vault
while I continued my quest.
But said quest has proven fruitless.
There were many promising clues,
but each led to another dead end.
Hey, come on, kid, don't give up hope.
Don't you see?
I've already lost all hope.
Only my rage remains to power my quest.
So I've come to New Genesis to get my red ring back.
[Forager] Supertown is indeed beautiful.
Wouldn't Forager agree?
Forager?
[sighs] Forager apologizes to Forager,
but Forager must admit
Forager is surprised Forager gave up Forager's seat
at the conference.
Forager would not have made such a choice.
Forager trusts Rocket and Flash to handle the summit.
And Forager would prefer to spend Forager's time
getting to know Forager.
[both chirping]
Okay, hit me with it.
[sighs] The Phantom Zone.
Krypton's extra-dimensional prison.
But the Kryptonians never intended
to imprison criminals for eternity.
[scoffs] That would have been too cruel.
Unfortunately, Krypton was destroyed
when its sun exploded.
[explosion]
So, no Kryptonians survived
to release the Phantom Zone prisoners
when their sentences ended.
So when the last Phantom Zone projector
was discovered on New Genesis,
the United Planets paroled every single inmate
as each one had been trapped in the zone
for over a thousand years.
When my parents were unjustly imprisoned
in the Phantom Zone, not even my mother knew
that she was already pregnant.
As no one ages or dies there,
she had the honor of unknowingly carrying
the scion of General Dru-Zod for a millennium.
Eight months after their parole in the 31st century,
I arrived.
The frightened bureaucrats of the United Planets
had settled all of us
on the Kryptonian colony world, Daxam,
a planet orbiting a red sun,
thus preventing us from gaining the powers
that were our birthright.
But they didn't count on my father's ingenuity.
By the time I turned 15,
he'd smuggled his loyal followers
along with like-minded Daxamites
to a nearby planet under a yellow sun.
Now that we have our rightful powers,
my father made a valiant attempt
to lead a rebellion against the United Planets
for the good of the Galaxy.
General Zod was a menace,
determined to assert his dominance
over everyone and everything.
Fortunately, the newly formed
Legion of Super Heroes defeated Zod
with very Phantom Zone projector
that had released him from prison.
The damn Legion put my parents
and their army of patriots back into the Zone,
depriving the galaxy of true leadership.
But because Lor-Zod was still a teenager,
they didn't consider him culpable,
and to our sorrow,
he wasn't sent to the Zone.
I was raised to despise the Family El.
Chief Scientist Jor-El
had exposed my father's attempt to save Krypton
from its own weakness.
Meaning Zod had attempted a coup.
Call it what you will.
What is certain is that Jor-El conspired with his brother,
Chief Examiner Zor-El,
to sentence my parents to the Zone.
I didn't think I could hate anyone
as much as I hated the Els.
But now, there was the Legion.
Lor-Zod was relentless
in his attempts to acquire the projector.
Finally,
the Legion had no choice but to destroy it.
The Legion had permanently consigned
my mother and father to the hell of the Phantom Zone.
And this Legion,
who do you think inspired its very existence?
Superboy, Kon-El,
a member of that accursed El family.
That made him twice my enemy.
So planning ahead,
I stole the last known sample of kryptonite
and this Time-Sphere.
[Saturn girl] So Chameleon Boy, Phantom Girl, and I
were pursuing Lor when he escaped to the past.
Chroniton radiation from his stolen sphere
washed over us.
Making the three of you immune
to the changes Lor made to the timestream.
Been there, irradiated by that.
We tried to contact Legion HQ.
But there was no Legion HQ.
A quick data search of the new timeline
revealed that Lor had killed Superboy in the past,
and without Conner Kent's inspiration,
the Legion had never formed.
[sighs] With no Legion to stop him,
General Zod now ruled the Galaxy.
There was only one thing to do.
Take the last Time-Sphere
and stop Lor-Zod from stopping our future.
Metron.
Ah, Razer.
I predicted I would see you again.
The red power ring I gave you for safekeeping.
I require its return.
Nothing could be simpler.
The red ring will be yours again
in exchange for your blue ring.
The evidence of Darkseid's agents
infiltrating and exploiting the Earth is undeniable.
What do Highfather's New Gods intend to do about it?
Nothing.
-Excuse me? -We will not,
cannot help battle Apokoliptan forces.
But that's why we need you. That's why we're here.
The truce between New Genesis and Apokolips
came at a heavy cost.
New Genesis will not be the first to break that truce.
You're afraid of a fight?
You should all be afraid of that fight.
What is needed is a neutral mediator.
The Green Lantern Corps
is uniquely qualified for such a role.
If even they have the stomach to defy Apokolips.
They released Darkseid's Furies and Mantis
only six months after the Anti-Life event
-at the Orphanage. -They were poozers.
The big bad, Granny Goodness, got away.
[scoffs] Thanks to you Earthlings.
Earthlings, including the three Green Lanterns on the scene?
Why are there so many Green Lanterns from Earth?
It's, uh, hard to find qualified GLs.
You know, somehow the screwy conditions on Earth
produce a lot of potential candidates.
But each green rings A.I. chooses its own Lantern
based on a subject's love of justice
and ability to overcome fear with willpower.
Meanwhile, Earth's bleeding meta-humans.
The League is trying to stop the hemorrhaging,
but we need the Corps and the New Gods to do more
to shut down off-world trafficking.
Your petition has been noted.
-That's it? -You have our sympathy,
but we have an entire galaxy to police.
Finding your lost strays is not our sole priority.
-But-- -[cell phone vibrating]
[grunts] Excuse me.
Using sketchy historical records,
I pinpointed the one time in the past
prior to the event, ten years from this era
that inspired the Legion,
when I knew exactly where the Superboy would be.
From our quick review of the Galaxy's revised history,
we knew just where Lor would strike.
We time-traveled to the United Nations last year
when Superboy famously revealed his existence to the world
and managed to prevent Lor's assassination of Kon-El.
And you thought that would be enough to revert the timeline.
Been there, didn't revert that.
[sighs] Lor had escaped,
and still had ten years worth of opportunities.
And with history now revised again,
we had no idea when, where, or how Lor would strike.
All we could do was shadow Superboy,
using our powers to hide in plain sight,
waiting for Lor-Zod's next move.
When we learned of Superboy
and Miss Martian's trip to Mars,
we followed them there.
[Chameleon Boy] We did our best to keep an eye on Kon-El at all times.
[Saturn Girl] That was our plan, anyway.
But Lor was on Mars, too, with a plan of his own.
By keeping this Sphere out of sync
with the timestream as I am now,
I made it impossible for the Legionnaires to track me.
I used my heat vision
to destroy the Earthlings' Zeta-Tube
and the M'arzz-Earth communications satellite,
cutting Superboy off from the League
and any support they might offer.
Then I cut off support from my pursuers
by forcing Saturn Girl into an unguarded moment
that revealed her psychic signature to Miss Martian.
The Legion's foolish determination
to minimize interference with the timestream
compelled them to maintain their distance from my prey.
Your heart was in the right place
setting that gene bomb, Ma'alefa'ak.
[Lor-Zod] All that was missing
was a lead box of Kryptonite,
and Kon-El was as good as dead.
We lost visual contact with Superboy,
[sighs] so we split up to find him.
Then,
it happened.
[explosion]
Superboy and Phantom Girl died.
[Ma'alefa'ak] So you killed my sister's fiance.
You have a problem with that?
No.
I simply wanted to thank you.
-What's wrong? -[Noble] Nothing.
But I just got out of the school conference and--
Noble, I am in the middle
of an intergalactic summit.
I don't have time for this.
You don't have time for our son?
[sighs]
S-sorry.
Of course, I do.
-Tell me. -It's basically good news.
The school wants to set
Amistad up with a one-on-one aide,
you know, a shadow, to work with him in the classroom.
And the district provides one free of charge.
And Amistad gets stigmatized?
[sighs] You're worried about the wrong things, Raq.
Appearances don't matter.
We need to help our son.
I'll consider it.
That's it?
Look, that is all that I can give you right now.
I'm trying to bring peace to an entire galaxy,
and I'm failing.
[Razer sighs]
Maybe this is a mistake.
[Metron] Is something wrong?
When this ring first chose me,
I was a different man.
Now--
You came to me, Razer.
Have you changed your mind?
When I first donned
my Red Lantern ring on Volkreg,
it felt like injecting acid
directly in my bloodstream.
Apologies in advance for my screams of agony.
Noted.
[slight gasp]
[Razer] Perhaps it's lost its charge.
[Metron] Fascinating.
Do you know it took less than four years
for you to completely lose hope?
That's one-point-three years
fewer than my initial estimate.
I appreciate your faith in me.
You misunderstand,
this was never about faith.
It was about calculation.
Explain.
Four years ago,
I captured this Blue Ring's potent energy signal
and tracked it to you.
When we met,
I saw an opportunity to study not one Ring,
but two.
Thus, I convinced you to make an exchange.
I did not require convincing.
You agreed to keep the Red Ring
so it would not afflict anyone else.
I manipulated you into reaching that conclusion, yes.
Since then, I've been occupied with two endeavors.
One, studying the Red Ring, its properties and potential
and two, providing you, surreptitiously, with clues
to aid you in your quest.
False clues that could only lead
to dead ends and the death of hope.
You wasted years of my life on fool's errands?
And with hope lost, you predictably return to me
to make this trade.
Now I may study the Blue Ring at my leisure
as I once studied the Red.
Why tell me this now?
To anger you, obviously.
I've studied the Red Ring quite thoroughly.
Now, I must see it in action.
You want to make me angry?
You won't like me when I'm angry.
[screaming]
Yes, show me your full potential.
[screaming]
Time with Forager is very pleasant to Forager.
Forager has a way of saying exactly...
[both] What Forager was thinking.
-[distant explosion] -[gasps]
[Razer screams]
I am quite pleased with these readings.
Every attack generates more force
than the previous.
Yes, exactly.
[Noble] Raquel, I've known you since you were Amistad's age.
You don't fail, you deal.
Uh, thanks, but I gotta go.
Compelling data.
Unexpected.
[Forager] Look out!
-[Rocket] What's going on here? -Forager!
[gasps] Forager!
Forager?
Forager! [exclaims]
Forager!
Forager.
I've been a fool.
Return the Blue Ring, New God.
[screams]
[Metron] This was never about faith.
Show me your full potential.
What is this?
I will have those rings!
[Metron grunts]
[Vykin] What happened?
I-I'm honestly not sure.
All I know is Razer was gonna talk
to some poozer named Metron.
-[sighs] Metron. -Say no more.
It's okay. He's one of the good guys.
Kinda.
Forager is injured.
[Forager clicking]
[breathing deeply]
Forager.
[both clicking]
Forager thanks Red and Blue Lantern
for helping Forager.
She would not have required help,
if not for me.
Please accept my apologies
and my thanks for reminding me how to hope again.
Foragers are not sure
how Foragers reminded Red and Blue Lantern.
But Foragers are happy to be of service.
It seems I have more to atone for.
That is not how it was before.
But it will serve.
Thank you, Razer.
I was prepared to give up the Blue Ring,
convinced it would find someone more
suitable than I.
I dunno, Red.
Looks like you're still the Blue Ring's top choice.
I believe so.
It seems I am equal parts
hope and rage.
Anger is a part of who I am,
but it is no longer all that I am.
At least, I'm hopeful it doesn't have to be.
Rage, Hope, gnortz,
you've got a ton of willpower too.
We should get you a Green Ring.
Before you know it, you'll have Rainbow Power.
-[grunts] -[laughs]
So, uh, what's next, kid?
The continuation of my Quest.
Say hello to Hal for me.
I will find you, Aya.
I will.
With Kon-El dead,
I had guaranteed my parents release
in the next millennium.
But why wait,
when I knew the last Phantom Zone Projector
was on New Genesis.
Not only had we failed to save Superboy,
[sighs] but we lost Tinya as well.
To make matters worse, Lor-Zod found
and destroyed our Time-Sphere,
stranding us here in the past.
[sighs] Been there. Stranded that.
Fortunately, Miss Martian's retired Bio-Ship
was no longer part of the historical record.
So I opened my mind to her, and she agreed to help.
[Chameleon Boy] We spent the next month traveling aboard her to Earth.
For months, I searched New Genesis for the Projector,
eventually learning it was stored
in Metron's inter-dimensional vault.
But even with this Time-Sphere,
I'd never succeed in retrieving it without aid.
Back on Earth, we turn to the one person
capable of replacing Superboy in our timeline.
Oh. Uh, me?
No, Superman!
[Saturn Girl] We told him as little as possible,
but at least there was a chance he might take Superboy's place
and become the Legion's inspiration.
[Chameleon Boy] Then we came to you,
the only true space-time expert in this era, on this planet.
Which brings us to now,
and our desperate need for your help.
[Lor-Zod] I traveled to Apokolips
and, using my assassination
of Superboy as a calling card, appealed to Darkseid himself.
We made a tentative deal, a winner-take-all arrangement,
which he said was similar to a pact he'd made before
with some savage or other.
Unfortunately, Darkseid's truce with New Genesis
prohibited any overt intervention on his part.
But he did provide resources,
the two of you and this device, the Kaizer-Thrall.
Together we will find
the coordinates to Metron's vault,
steal the Projector and release my parents
and the rest from the Phantom Zone.
Then, the galaxy will be ours.
Well?
Step inside.
Ta- da!
As promised, one Bio-Ship
now with its very own... Cosmic Treadmill!
[Forager] Ah.
[both Foragers sing]
♪ Today is Flash's birthday ♪
♪ So ring the birthday bell ♪
♪ Time to tap antennae ♪
♪ Upon the birthday shell ♪
♪ Today is Flash's birthday ♪
♪ Bugs know just what to do ♪
♪ Forage birthday grubstakes ♪
♪ And Foragers will too ♪
♪ Today is Flash's birthday ♪
♪ Great time to be alive ♪
♪ And to celebrate Jay ♪
♪ With every bug ♪
♪ In hive ♪
[blows]
[cheering]
♪ With every bug in hive ♪
[cheering]
[Rocket] Crash!
[Orion] That is not how it was before.