| Metropolis - November 2
Joseph's office was filled with the sound of sobbing.
"Please… I was drunk out of my mind. Please don't do this to me. Have mercy," cried a man in his fifties, kneeling on the floor.
Joseph sat calmly behind his desk, dressed in a pristine white shirt and black dress pants. A gold Rolex rested on his right wrist, while a gold fitness band circled the left.
"What makes you think it was me, Stagg?" Joseph asked evenly.
Simon Stagg looked up at him in desperation.
"You said it," he snapped. "You said you'd deal with me later. Then my shell companies got exposed, and now my corporation is undergoing a hostile takeover by companies I know belong to you. Why are you doing this to me? We could've done great things together, and you're ruining me over some foreign meat!?"
Joseph laughed.
"Fine," he said casually. "You caught me. I did initiate the hostile takeover of Stagg Industries."
His expression hardened.
"But it seems you haven't learned your lesson."
Joseph leaned forward slightly.
"That's fine. It doesn't matter if you learn it. Others who are smarter than you will."
His voice rose slightly.
"The lesson is that I am not someone to be trifled with."
Joseph leaned back in his chair and waved a hand dismissively.
"You can take him."
The office doors opened as several men in suits entered.
They quickly cuffed Stagg's hands and hauled him to his feet.
"Simon Stagg," one of them said, "we are agents of the D.E.O. You are under arrest for metahuman trafficking, racketeering, conspiracy to commit sabotage, and operating an unregistered paramilitary force."
Stagg's eyes widened.
"You brought the fucking D.E.O.?" he shouted. "Joseph Luthor, you son of a—"
The rest of his rant dissolved into obscenities as the agents dragged him out of the room.
Good riddance.
Joseph stretched slightly in his chair.
LuthorCorp was advancing rapidly in multiple industries under his leadership.
With the mayor of Chicago firmly in his pocket, construction had already begun in the Netherworld for his plans there.
His LuthorBots and LuthorDroids were steadily rolling off production lines, ready to be unveiled to the world.
He had also purchased a large plot of land in a remote location where a new town for the Genomorphs would soon be built.
His gaming platforms and social media apps were growing more popular by the day.
BellCoin was seeing a sharp increase in users and was gradually cementing itself as a legitimate currency. Soon he would meet with the president to discuss expanding its use on a national scale instead of limiting it to LuthorCorp products and affiliated services.
Naturally, Joseph would help secure the president another term in office in return.
Between the media networks he influenced and the key figures he controlled, it would only take a handful of phone calls for Joseph to decide who the next president would be.
Joseph raised his arms over his head and stretched again—even though he technically never needed to.
Being perfect could get a little boring.
At the moment, the only things capable of interrupting his plans were supernatural crises or supervillains.
Suddenly, Nova pinged him.
Joseph smirked.
Speak of the devil.
A Boom Tube opened in the middle of his office.
Joseph stepped through it and vanished.
**
| Gotham - November 2
In a desolate patch of land outside the city, the earth shifted.
A hand burst through the dirt.
Moments later, a figure clawed his way out of the ground.
His green hair was caked with mud, and his already yellow teeth looked even filthier as he spat a mouthful of dirt onto the ground.
Then he laughed.
The man hauled himself fully out of the grave.
The Joker had returned.
Months earlier—through a convoluted scheme involving Batman and that insufferable stick-in-the-mud Ra's al Ghul—he had managed to acquire a sample of the Lazarus Pit's mysterious green liquid. He'd had the Dollmaker surgically implant it along his spine.
The result?
Accelerated regeneration.
Joker loved it so much he had even considered asking Dollmaker to remove his face as a gift for Batman—an anniversary present for their upcoming ten-year celebration since the start of their beautifully twisted relationship.
Oh, the possibilities.
He hadn't expected the green goo to be strong enough to resurrect him after death, but he hadn't been overly worried either.
He was the motherfucking Joker.
The Clown Prince of Crime.
Death had a funny habit of letting him slip through its fingers.
Until Batman personally killed him, Joker intended to keep coming back.
Still…
He did have some unfinished business.
That third-wheel bastard—Bullseye—had put him out of commission with a bullet to the head.
Unacceptable.
Joker would track down everything about Bullseye. Friends, family, lovers—if he had any. He'd tear apart every piece of the man's life.
Oooh.
Yes.
He'd definitely need a crowbar.
And a warehouse.
"Time for Act Two," Joker giggled to himself. "They won't know what hit 'em. Heheheheee… hooohooohoo… hahahahaha—"
"What's got you giggling?"
Joker spun around instantly.
He hadn't even sensed someone nearby.
Leaning casually against a rock was a man holding the very same revolver that had put a bullet through Joker's skull.
Bullseye.
Speak of the devil.
"Well, if it isn't my biggest fan!" Joker said, chuckling nervously. "How about we team up to torment Bats? I know you shot me in the head and all, but that's water under the bridge!"
He really didn't know how much of the green stuff remained in his spine.
A second headshot might not end as well.
"Hm," Bullseye said thoughtfully, as if genuinely considering the offer.
Joker's eyes brightened with hope.
Being shot and buried alive had been extremely unpleasant.
"Wait!" Joker said eagerly. "Before you answer—did anything interesting happen because of my death?"
His eyes gleamed with childish excitement.
Of course Joker had contingencies.
Several of them.
A bomb capable of vaporizing Metropolis—erasing the last traces of Batman's other best friend.
A hyper-concentrated strain of Joker toxin hidden in his heart that would release upon death.
And Gotham's blood banks—already contaminated with his blood, ready to turn transfusion recipients into copies of him.
All of it designed to activate the moment his heart stopped.
"Oh, those?" Bullseye replied casually. "I read your mind, so I knew about them. Stopped them all."
He shrugged.
"Pretty childish, honestly."
"What!?" Joker screeched.
His perfect plans—ruined just like that?
"Since when are mind readers running around Gotham? That's cheating! Totally unfair!"
"Yeah," Bullseye continued calmly. "I know everything about you. Your mind is so vile I had to let my AI analyze it just to avoid catching your madness. Seriously disturbing stuff."
"Fuck!" Joker slammed his fist into the dirt.
"If you know everything, what's your plan?" he snapped. "Don't tell me you're trying to steal Bats from me. Only I get to torture him!"
"Nothing that boring," Bullseye replied. "I just wanted to confirm something."
"What?"
"That the small amount of dionesium implanted in your spine could resurrect you."
He tilted his head.
"Looks like the test worked."
"Dione-what-now?" Joker asked, confused.
"Nothing a dead man needs to worry about."
Bullseye snapped his fingers.
The world vanished.
One moment Joker stood in a dirt field.
The next, he stood in an endless white expanse.
Bullseye appeared beside a gray humanoid figure composed of constantly shifting voxels.
Joker tried to move.
He couldn't.
The gray figure stepped forward and placed a hand on Joker's head.
Joker felt something horrifying.
He was… fading.
His body began turning transparent.
"Waitwaitwaitwait—!" Joker shouted in panic. "Let me tell you something! Let me tell you something!"
For the first time in a very long time—
The Joker was scared.
"Nah," Bullseye said casually. "Keep it to yourself, Jack. Earth isn't putting up with your jokes anymore. Maybe Hell will appreciate your comedy."
And then—
The Joker ceased to exist.
**
After leaving the Dream State, Joseph opened a quick Boom Tube to the Sun and casually kicked Joker's corpse through it.
Then he let out a long sigh of relief.
No more bullshit from that clown ever again.
Funnily enough, after the first time he'd killed the Joker, several murals of Bullseye had appeared across Gotham. Quite a few even depicted him as some kind of saint.
As for the dionesium he had extracted from Joker's body, Joseph had already instructed Nova to purify every trace of Joker's contaminated blood from it. Once it was completely clean, he intended to keep it for himself.
And if the worst ever happened to someone he cared about, he could always pay a visit to Infinity Island to obtain more.
Any potential mental instability caused by resurrection wasn't a real concern either. His psychic abilities would shut that down the moment someone revived.
Honestly, it had been ridiculously easy to eliminate a villain.
Joseph could understand why the Justice League hadn't killed the Joker—morality, ideals, all the usual heroic nonsense.
But what baffled him was that no one else had done it either.
Not an anti-hero.
Not a vigilante.
Not another villain.
Not even some random civilian pushed past the breaking point.
And that was before Joker had even injected himself with dionesium. There had never been a legitimate reason for an ordinary man to get away with causing that much suffering for so long.
Joseph tilted his head slightly.
"Should I just kill all the dangerous villains at once?" he wondered aloud.
Not people like Kiteman, Giganta, or Captain Cold—people who could genuinely be redeemed or at least redirected into something productive.
He meant the others.
The ones who would happily burn the world down.
People like Brother Blood, Ares, Zoom, and Wotan—fanatics obsessed with domination, destruction, or the extinction of humanity.
And most importantly, they weren't part of the Network.
Which meant they weren't under his control.
Even Gretchen Goode, CEO of Goode World Studios—an old rival in entertainment back when Bell Studios had first started—was secretly a servant of Darkseid.
Every day those people remained alive was a risk to humanity.
Especially the mystic threats.
Those were the worst. At any moment they could reshape reality itself.
Joseph folded his arms thoughtfully.
'What do you think, Nova?'
//Their deaths provide numerous benefits and present minimal risk if carried out by you. Ultimately, however, the decision is yours. There is very little anyone could do to stop you.//
Joseph grinned arrogantly.
'Good answer, Nova.'
He cracked his neck.
'I can do whatever the fuck I want.'