The Omega Tournament has been an absolute gauntlet for our favorite heroes, but DC K.O. Boss Battle #1 takes the stakes (and the guest list) to a whole new level. Written by Jeremy Adams with a powerhouse art team, this one-shot serves as a high-octane bridge between the penultimate and final chapters of the massive DC K.O. saga. While it occasionally feels like a stopgap filler designed to keep the momentum going before the grand finale, it makes up for its brevity with pure, unadulterated fan service.
The Desperate Gambit
The story picks up immediately following the events of DC K.O. #3. The situation is dire: Earth’s champions have been whittled down to a final four: Superman, Wonder Woman, Lex Luthor, and the Joker, who are standing against the Absolute Universe’s Trinity, forged in Darkseid’s own Omega energy. These dark reflections are simply too powerful for our exhausted heroes to handle on their own.
Enter the World Forger. In a last-ditch effort to save reality, he reaches beyond the borders of the DC Universe to pull in fighters from beyond. What for? to send current and former combatants into reality fissures to fight these interdimensional icons, generating enough Omega energy to charge the World Forger’s hammer and power up the final four.
A Multiversal Royal Rumble
DC K.O. Boss Battle #1 is the kind of crossover that feels like someone dumped a giant toy box onto the floor and just started playing, and writer Jeremy Adams is clearly having the time of his life with it. Instead of boring us with long backstories, the comic gets straight to the point by throwing everyone into huge boss battles. You get to see Wonder Woman go head-to-head with Red Sonja, which is a total win for anyone who loves sword-and-sorcery. Diana’s strict Amazonian training crashes right into the “Crimson She-Devil” energy Sonja brings, and even though the fight gets cut short because the universe is literally falling apart, it is still a massive highlight.
The real heavy hitter that everyone has been waiting for is Superman taking on Homelander. It is a wild tonal clash because you have the classic Boy Scout values of the Man of Steel facing off against a corporate psychopath from Vought. The writing is surprisingly very tame here, with Homelander just mocking Superman’s outfit right before they both start blasting each other with heat vision. On the weirder side of things, The Joker ends up getting haunted by Annabelle, the possessed doll. It is a creepy sequence, but very short, even if it was pretty funny to see the Clown Prince of Crime get genuinely annoyed that a piece of plastic might actually be scarier or funnier than he is.
Fans of the NetherRealm franchise also get a lot of love through the Mortal Kombat integration. Seeing Sub-Zero and Scorpion show up to fight heroes like Black Lightning and Plastic Man is exactly the kind of fun this book excels at. There is a great moment where Scorpion shouts his famous “Get over here!” while trying to grab a stretching Plastic Man, which just proves that this story isn’t afraid to be a little ridiculous and probably shouldn’t be taken too seriously.
Artistic Collaboration and “Stop-Gap” Issue
With four artists (Cliquet, Di Giandomenico, McKeown, and Collar) sharing the duties, Boss Battle #1 can feel visually fragmented. The lack of a seamless transition between styles is jarring, and the quality fluctuates as the story moves between groups. This isn’t to say the art is bad, but it lacks the visual cohesion and flair that might have elevated the event. On the bright side, Hi-Fi’s coloring provides a necessary thread of continuity for the Omega Energy, and Tom Napolitano’s lettering brings the fight scenes to life with real impact.
Another issue Boss Battle #1 faces is that it feels like a non-mandatory pit stop rather than a standalone impactful moment. The plot is essentially a fight for energy, and while some of the character interactions are fun, most of them felt underwhelming. What’s worse is that no one actually wins a fight, which seems a bit silly considering this is a fighting tournament. Boss Battle #1, in many ways, is a high-budget commercial for the various franchises involved, including a preview for a DC x AEW crossover.
Pay at least $16 for these 10 items
Final Thoughts
DC K.O. Boss Battle #1 is a loud, colorful, and chaotic celebration of the multiverse. While it may be a filler issue in the grand scheme of the DC K.O. saga, it’s the kind of filler that reminds you why you started reading comics in the first place–to see what happens when the impossible meets the unbelievable. Even if that sometimes feels like a high-budget commercial for the various franchises involved.
Read More from KPB Comics:
‘DC K.O.: Boss Battle’ #1 Review of the Multiversal Mayhem
DC K.O. Boss Battle #1 is a loud, colorful, and chaotic celebration of the multiverse. While it may be a filler issue in the grand scheme of the DC K.O. saga, it’s the kind of filler that reminds you why you started reading comics in the first place–to see what happens when the impossible meets the unbelievable. Even if that sometimes feels like a high-budget commercial for the various franchises involved.
