Warning! Spoilers for DCeased: Dead Planet #4 byTom Taylor, Trevor Hairsine, Gigi Baldassini, Rain Beredo
DCeaesed: Dead Planet revealed that against all odds, there is a cure for the virus that turned the majority of humanity into hordes of zombies, and the key to that cure is Cyborg. But in order to unlock it, Cyborg first needed a major power upgrade – one that essentially turned him into a god.
After responding to Cyborg’s distress signal, the new Justice League reunited with the surviving heroes on Earth, where they collectively learned that there may be a way to cure the anti-living. In “speaking with” the anti-life equation, Cyborg was told that the cure, or “life equation,” lies within him, but neither he nor anyone else knows how to access it. Fortunately, there is a source of virtually infinite knowledge out there in the cosmos: the Mobius Chair, a device used by the New God Metron to travel through and observe all of space and time, and in issue #4, the heroes decide that that’s their best bet at learning more about the cure. The only problem is Metron doesn’t like to share his chair, and the troubles of humans are of little interest to him. Luckily, the heroes have something that is.
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Madame Xanadu’s crystal ball, which can provide glimpses into the future, is enough to tempt even Metron, who meets with the heroes near the remnants of Apokolips. After trying and failing to take the chair by force, the heroes and Metron agree to a temporary switch – Metron can use the ball while Cyborg sits in the chair long enough to figure out the cure. Unfortunately, the Mobius Chair isn’t the kind of chair you can just put your feet up and relax in. As soon as he sits down, Cyborg is nearly overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information contained within. “I know…too much,” he says, “About the gods, about the war against existence to come.” But within the flood of knowledge that comes pouring into Cyborg’s mind is the kernel of truth they were looking for. “I need to recode my blood,” Cyborg says moments later, “The life equation is there.”
After figuring out how to access the cure, Cyborg returns the chair to Metron and gives up his godlike powers, which was probably for the best considering he was on the chair for all of a few seconds and nearly overloaded his brain. Still, humans have been able to use the chair for prolonged lengths of time before. Batman sat in the Mobius Chair during the Justice League: Darkseid War saga, where he used it to learn the truth about the Joker and fight crime on Earth – that is, until the chair began messing with his mind. Bruce essentially became addicted to the power and needed Hal Jordan’s help to give it up, so maybe it was a good thing that Cyborg only had a small taste of what the Mobius Chair has to offer.
Brief as it may have been, Cyborg basically became a god in DCeased: Dead Planet #4. It will be interesting to see if the Mobius Chair has any permanent effects on Victor going forward – he may have learned how to create the cure, but he also learned a lot more that he wishes he hadn’t, and those truths won’t be easily forgotten.
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