DCeased: Hope at World’s End just gave Lex Luthor his own Suicide Squad as he tries to save Poison Ivy’s garden from the Blighted Ones’ invasion.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for DCeased: Hope at World’s End #14 by Tom Taylor, Marco Failla, Rex Lokus, and Saida Temonfonte, on sale now.
With the Anti-Life army bearing down on Poison Ivy’s garden sanctuary in DCeased: Hope at World’s End, Lex Luthor has come up with an idea to save the day. He foresaw death and destruction, and he’s taken the initiative to plot a solution, without permission from battle-weary heroes like Superman.
And even though his plan will probably cost the lives of two heroes, Luthor sees it as a small sacrifice for the greater good. In DCeased: Hope at World’s End #14, the megalomaniac enacts his plan and gets his own Suicide Squad in order to bring salvation to the resistance.
Lex’s plan revolves around a small team, but Lex is confident in their abilities to repel the Blighted Ones’ inevitable invasion. He used Wallace West’s Speed Force to come up with this scheme, and it involves Pied Piper and the teleporter, Wink, who DCeased scribe Tom Taylor introduced in his Suicide Squad run earlier this year. Here, Wink takes on an even more doomed mission that most certainly doesn’t have the approval of any of the heroes around.
When Nightshade opens a portal for the horde to enter the garden’s walls, Wink suddenly says goodbye to Aerie, and Piper bids farewell to his boyfriend David as well. It happens just as Green Arrow’s about to fire at the creatures, with Lex shooting his bow away, making it clear that he has his own plan for victory. Damian Wayne’s Batman’ is irate as he’s suffered so much loss recently, but Lex insists they need to trust him, which is indeed hard to do.
Wink teleports Piper into Nightshade’s dark realm and inside this zone, he plays his flute to draw the horde away. The infected Nightshade goes back, and as Lex watches, the one-tenth of the legion that crossed over follows them right back in. It’s not that big a portion, but ever Blighted-One they can divert could be a crucial part of their plan to save the haven. As the heroes communicate with Lex inside, the arrogant Lex reiterates they can’t die until he says so.
It seems once the legion’s in, one of them’s rigged to blow the army up. This most certainly seems like a suicide mission, even more so than the Suicide Squad’s standard operations. While Lex isn’t holding anyone hostage with explosives like Amanda Waller, he still manipulated the young heroes into thinking that this was the only option, which it may or may not have been. But with heavy-hitters like Superman, Wonder Woman, Superboy and Wonder Girl indisposed fighting Black Adam, it seems like this sacrifice is the only resort left for the increasingly desperate heroes.