After Gorilla Grodd and the Legion of Doom tapped into Omega energy in Justice League Unlimited’s “We Are Yesterday,” time has become fractured. Though the Justice League has managed to successfully return most of their time displaced counterparts back to their rightful places in time, other heroes haven’t been so lucky. These unlucky time-displaced heroes include The Huntress (Helena Wayne), Batman Beyond, Plastic Man, Gold Beetle, Airwave, Amazing-Man, Marilyn Moonlight, and Jonah Hex.
The time fracture has also left these time-displaced heroes vulnerable to a legion of Omega Demons, who are hunting down time travelers from the Vanishing Point – a dimension outside the space-time continuum that serves as the base of operations for the Linear Men. The latter group are essentially the guardians of time, who keep each timeline in Hypertime in check. It is from this premise that Justice League: Dark Tomorrow Special #1 begins its storyline.
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Set between Justice League Unlimited #9 and Superman #28, Dark Tomorrow is a one-and-done story that deals with only one conflict: the ragtag team of displaced heroes made up of Huntress, Batman Beyond, Plastic Man and more travelling to the Vanishing Point to block the Omega Demons from attacking time travelers throughout Prime Earth’s timeline. Though the heroes do succeed in their task of preventing a larger temporal crisis from getting worse, this is far from the end of their journey.
Dark Tomorrow ends on a cliffhanger that clearly sets up the new storylines taking place in Justice League Unlimited and Superman. More importantly, Dark Tomorrow is clearly setting up DC’s upcoming event DC: King Omega or DC K.O. Though Dark Tomorrow does a lot of heavy lifting to set up DC’s next major event, the best thing about the one-shot by Mark Waid, Marc Guggenheim, and Cian Tormey is the cast of characters themselves. Not only does Waid continue to show his greatest strength as a writer by giving every character a significant role in the story, but they each get their moments to shine.
One “new character” that’s introduced very early on in the story is Legend, who refuses to reveal his identity to avoid creating a temporal paradox that could further compromise the fractured timeline. The only clue he gives to his identity is that he is a time traveler. However, this clue alone, plus the introduction of the Waverider timeship (a concept that was introduced in The CW television series Legends of Tomorrow), more seasoned DC readers can easily put two and two together and figure out that he’s a future version of Rip Hunter.
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Not only did Rip pilot the Waverider in the Legends of Tomorrow TV series, but his being a stickler about not further breaking the timeline also aligns with recent events depicted in Flashpoint Beyond and Justice Society of America, both written by Geoff Johns. The fact that Legends of Tomorrow co-creator Marc Guggenheim is credited as a writer on this one-shot further gives credence to the possibility that the mysterious Legend is, in fact, Rip. Of course, Waid and Guggenheim could still use the element of surprise, and reveal Legend to be a different character all together. But for now, there’s no reason to think he isn’t Rip, since he is both a Linear Man and a Time Master.
Other high points of Dark Tomorrow is seeing how the ragtag team of time-displaced heroes work together. For the most part, each hero tends to work within their element: Jonah Hex fires his guns against the Omega Demons, and Batman Beyond works with Gold Beetle to dismantle the Cosmic Tuning Fork at the Vanishing point – an obvious callback to 1985’s Crisis on Infinite Earths. For fans who were disappointed with the way Helena Wayne was depicted in Justice Society of America, they will be pleased to see a return to form. Not only does Helena Wayne get a new Huntress suit that calls back to her pre-Crisis original, but her characterization better aligns with her Bronze Age portrayal.
The only drawback to Dark Tomorrow is that fans will have to read Justice League Unlimited and Superman in order to keep following the storyline involving this ragtag team, leading up to DC K.O. This also means that fans will probably need to read the “We Are Yesterday” crossover event in both Justice League Unlimited and World’s Finest for the context on why time has fractured, and how this is setting up Darkseid’s return in DC K.O. The story also requires familiarity with both 1994’s Zero Hour event and Crisis on Infinite Earths to better understand the significance of the Vanishing Point and Cosmic Tuning Fork.
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Beyond that, however, Dark Tomorrow is an easy story to follow that’s mostly new and casual reader-friendly. It’s definitely a fun comic to pick up at the shop for an enjoyable read. Aside from a solid script from both Waid and Guggenheim, you can’t go wrong with Cian Tormey on artwork, with Romulo Fajardo Jr. on colors. Given the amazing work Tormey has already done in the critically acclaimed Alan Scott: Green Lantern miniseries with Tim Sheridan, and the more recent The Question: All Along The Watchtower with Alex Segura, it’s no surprise why he was chosen for this assignment.
Tormey once again brings his A-game to the table, with well laid out pages and action sequences that guide the eye. Furthermore, Tormey excels at giving each character personality, not just through facial expression and body language, but also in their fighting style. Jonah Hex, for instance, is very much a straight shooter. The Huntress is meticulous in her assessment of situations and reacts appropriately. Gold Beetle and Plastic Man are equally fun to watch on the page, with Tormey making the most of Plastic Man’s zany concept. Fajardo Jr. also helps make the artwork pop with his use of bright colors for most sequences, and muted pastel colors for the 1940s pages to convey a sense of nostalgia.
All in all, Justice League: Dark Tomorrow Special #1 is a solid one-shot that fires on all cylinders, but it does require familiarity with recent DC events to understand its larger significance. Dark Tomorrow is also required reading as part of the setup for DC K.O., that releases in October 2025.
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