The Joker isn’t clowning around. After the Mark Hamill-voiced Clown Prince of Crime joined the MultiVersus roster earlier this year, DC’s MultiVersus: Collision Detected #3 explains how Batman’s archenemy entered the fray: by having the Joker (resembling his appearance in Batman: The Animated Series) step out of a Looney Tunes-style circle ring. That’s not all, folks: the six-issue DC comic series, which reveals the backstory behind the crossover platform fighting game, name-dropped the multiversal threat that caused worlds to collide: the Nothing.
“Level Three: Save File Corrupted” picks up where last issue left off: with the heroes of the Justice League (resembling their DC Animated Universe counterparts) joining forces with characters from across the Warner-Verse. While Wonder Woman defeats The Wizard of Oz‘s Wicked Witch of the West and her emerald defender, Gorilla Grodd, in Gorilla City, Batman is teleported to the Gallery of Worlds by a Brainiac droid who abducted him from the Batcave in Gotham City.
Meanwhile, in Metropolis, Superman, Hawkgirl, and the John Stewart Green Lantern fight a Rick Sanchez-shaped space ship barfing Brainiac robots. Genet and Steven Universe help Hawkgirl and Green Lantern defeat the army of drones outside the ship, but inside, Superman is attacked by a legion of robots modeled after beloved cartoon characters: Adventure Time‘s Finn and Jake, and the cat and mouse duo Tom & Jerry.
Brainiac informs the heroes that he’s unable to control his actions because he’s been “infected by a multidimensional narcissist”: Rick and Morty‘s alcoholic, dimension-hopping mad scientist. Batman severs Rick’s control of Brainiac and deduces that the alien artificial intelligence detected the same signal as Avia’s Daughter Box: the video game-like console crackling with interdimensional energies.
At the Fortress of Solitude, a rebooted Brainiac is imprisoned next to the Wicked Witch. Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman have quarantined the multiversal trespassers who have crossed into this dimension: Steven Universe and Genet, Scooby-Doo and Shaggy, and Bugs Bunny.
Their recollection of events before The Change are similar: an unknown entity named Devoid is forcing them to fight each other under threat of an entropic force called the Nothing, which is erasing their respective universes from existence. (It’s suspected this is the Nothing from Warner Bros.’ 1984 adaptation of The NeverEnding Story.)
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The trinity is concerned that Devoid will discover the DC Universe if they’re unable to return the trespassers to their universes — and that their homeworlds will fall to the Nothing if this collection of characters aren’t fighters in Devoid’s tournament. Batman plans to send the trespassers back to their universes the way they came: through the Daughter Box. They can then follow them with an army of heroes and save all their universes. But with the Daughter Box damaged by an explosion, it has maybe one more signal output left — meaning the heroes have one chance to send everyone back home at the same time.
Unbeknownst to the heroes, someone is eavesdropping via a bug planted on Scooby’s collar: the Joker, who was posing as Condiment King when he was apprehended by the Mystery Inc. duo in Central City. Joker spies on Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy and learns that Harley has adopted Reindog: the last survivor of the world of Zanifeer, which was first to fall victim to the Nothing during the great dimensional cataclysm, and the final fighter the heroes need to locate.
“Something called the Nothing is going to erase everything unless Batman gets his hands on that thing?” Joker cackles, revealing his plan to end the entire multiverse: “I’m gonna STEAL it!”
MultiVersus: Collision Detected #4 goes on sale October 30.
