The Multiverse is a place of infinite possibility. Millions upon millions of choices, each one compounding onto one another to form a world entirely unique from those around it. Sometimes, that world can be beautifully serene, full of hope and possibility. But sometimes…
Sometimes that world is ugly, bitter. Dark. And sometimes that darkness all stems from one choice.
One singular moment in time can define the fate of an entire plane of existence.
And that choice can be something as minute as choosing whether or not to step onto a plane.
In our world, Conner Kent was prepared to give his life to save the people of Mars. Of course, that's not how things turned out, but that doesn't matter here. It never will.
Crippled by his sacrifice, M'gann M'orzz had a mental breakdown. The love of her life, the fiancé she was supposed to make hers in just a few short days was gone. Seemingly reduced to atoms.
When M'gann was offered a flight back on the Javelin alongside her grieving stepbrother and would-be brother-in-law, she refused. She chose instead to take the Bioship back home with her family, because she wasn't ready to go back to living in her house without Conner Kent by her side. And as a result of this choice, her sister, M'ree M'orzz, was able to lift her spirits and keep her sanity intact. A bond between sisters rose from the ashes, and a grieving widow found it in herself to love again.
That's how it happened on our world, and that's what we have come to expect. But now, readers, I want you to take that expectation and cast it out of your minds. Because in the grand cosmic calculus of the multiverse, expectations are almost never met, and the only guarantee is that nothing is ever truly guaranteed.
For in this world, M'gann couldn't bear to stay on the planet that had taken her fiancé's life. Not even for a second. So she chose to join Garfield Logan and Clark Kent on the trip back home, determined to leave behind that godforsaken rock for the rest of her life.
As a result of this, M'gann was left alone to her grieving, for as hard as the Superman of Earth tried to heal her, he too had lost a brother. And as for Gar…well, he wasn't exactly in the right mindset to help either.
When M'gann touched down on Earth, her family did her best to comfort her, but it was already too late. Those grueling, cold hours spent on the Javelin, staring off into the vastness of space by herself had taken their toll on M'gann's mind. And no matter what Artemis or Dinah tried to do, the poor Martian's heart was already lost. She chose to stay locked up in her home, sleeping alone in the bed she once shared with the half-Kryptonian. Her friends tried to reach out to her, but she cast them out, dedicating herself to a self-imposed exile and never stepping foot outside of her room, hoping that the silence of her solitude would bring serenity. But all it brought her was loneliness.
And in her loneliness came madness.
Weeks of reminiscing went by, then months, and eventually, one day when she was looking through old photo albums and came across a picture of her and Conner, M'gann M'orzz finally snapped. She broke down into a desperate mess of emotions, and in her fragile state, she lost control over her powers. Her cold, heartless rage emitted a pulse of neurokinetic energy unlike any other, a wave of telepathic pain that radiated through the entirety of Happy Harbor, rendering hundreds, thousands of people braindead without the slightest shred of guilt or horror at what her own suffering had led her to.
The once-innocent M'gann was now an emotionless killer, transformed by her indomitable grief in a way nobody could have ever thought possible for the sweetest of heroes. Hell-bent on one thing and one thing only: the death of happiness for everyone around her. Because if she couldn't be happy, then why did anyone else deserve to be?
M'gann's perverted mission of equal suffering led her on a mind-killing spree, slowly spreading from Happy Harbor to Metropolis. When he got word of her newfound psychopathy, the Man of Steel himself came to her. He could have stopped her, a single blast from his heat vision would have been all it took. But instead he chose to try and reason with her, because the greatest superhero known to man was not about to let his brother's love fall victim to madness if he could help it. But his compassion accomplished nothing but the guarantee of his own demise.
M'gann killed him, unleashing another telepathic 'bomb' in the center of the city to eliminate Lois, Jimmy, and countless others all throughout the city.
When her friends found out what she had done, they tried to reason with her. Artemis, Zatanna, Kaldur…they came to her, hoping to talk her down. But even their attempts were in vein. For what did they know of suffering? Artemis had bounced back from Wally West's death, she was dating Jason Bard. Kaldur? He was happy with an Atlantean man. And Zatanna? Sure, she had suffered losses, but she freed her father from his captivity, and she had Dick to support her in her darkest times.
Her friends all had happiness. They had love. They knew nothing.
So she chose to teach them. She forcefully administered a shockwave of grief directly into their brains, delivered through their presumably safe mind link to overwhelm them with the pain she had stored inside of her. And once she decided they had felt enough, she ended them.
She did the same to Raquel, to Dinah, to everyone on the team and League who thought they were her friends. Her uncle tried to stop her, but even he failed. Then she traveled to the Premiere Building and made short work of the Outsiders, including her own brother.
He didn't so much as try to fight back.
The Martian witch's reach began to grow, slowly enveloping the entire Western hemisphere. It wasn't long until only a small resistance force had gathered in Markovia, among which were Brion Markov, Shayera Hol, John Stewart, Victor Stone, and Dick Grayson.
Dick was the last of M'gann's old family to have survived, and he only did it because he was on a tour with the Haly's Circus when M'gann chose to attack Gotham. The guilt from not being there to help his family weighed down on him heavily. And as time went on, that guilt led to rage.
It was almost poetic. The same thing that caused M'gann to become a cold-blooded mass murderer led Dick to abandon his ideals and cast out whatever semblance of family he felt towards the Martian.
And in his lonely grief, he did the only thing he could think to do. He built a weapon.
The old Grayson would have sought to subdue her and nothing more, abiding by the code his father instilled in him from age 9. But M'gann had eliminated a good half of the human population, including all of his old friends and family.
So you could say his code failed to compile.
With Vic's help, Dick began creating a battlesuit, designed to do one thing and one thing alone. He used Vic's neural net to create a helmet that blocked out telepathic signals, and with the technology and resources of Markovia he retrofitted the exoskeleton with all types of weapons. Wrist-mounted flamethrowers, a jetpack capable of firing off incendiary missiles, ropes that could counteract the ability to phase…the perfect weapon to kill a Martian.
Pretty soon, the armor was complete. Not willing to risk anyone else's life, Dick chose to take the mission alone.
The battle was long and fierce, and M'gann put up an impressive fight. But Dick was not going to lose. He had already lost too much, all because of her. She took his whole world from him.
He was determined to pay her back.
He returned to their base the next day with her head, signaling the end of the great purge. And slowly, thankfully, the chaos began to dull down. People began to return to a sense of calm and normalcy, and Dick was hailed a hero for stopping the out-of-control psychopath.
For all the good it did.
News of the Martian child's death spread fast, eventually making its way to Mars itself. And the Martians did not take kindly to this act, especially not when M'gann had saved their own prince's life and uncovered a deep rooted mystery mere months ago. They declared war on what was left of the humans, seeking revenge for their fallen daughter's execution. And so the people of Earth were driven back to conflict, this time with an entire army of alien invaders.
The resistance fortified its ranks and equipped itself with the same weaponry that Grayson himself had used to kill M'gann, and pretty soon Dick was was dubbed a war hero in the conflict with Mars. Taking the name 'The Hunter', his reputation spread far and wide, quickly racking up kills left and right as if it were a videogame. He even began to modify his armor, painting it a rich white and stylizing his helmet to resemble a Martian skull. The very sight of his mask struck terror into the hearts of the alien invaders.
He became the humans' most respected warrior, leading countless battles to slaughter countless Martians.
But alas, it was a losing battle. M'gann's rampage had done too much to quell the human population, and as hard as they fought, the people of Earth were simply outnumbered. Dick knew they would lose, despite his best efforts, and the realization only further pushed him into the dark.
He'd made up his mind. The humans may lose, but God help him, they were going to take as many Martians down to hell with them as they could.
But all that changed when he was offered a new mission.
During the final days of the war, Dick was approached by a mysterious stranger, a visitor from another world. This man, the Renegade, brought with him a premonitive warning. There was a war brewing on another world, and he needed the Hunter's help to stop it.
Dick was skeptical at first, but then the man revealed his identity. And that was all it took to have earned his trust.
He offered Dick the chance to save countless lives, and that was a chance the once-Boy Wonder was all too willing to take. He vowed to himself that he would not let the chaos that corrupted his own world ever corrupt another. He would never let another Martian witch run rampant like his M'gann had, and he would never let another universe have to go through what he went through.
He would save this other world, no matter the cost.
So the Hunter joined Renegade's team of Dark Wonders, determined to stop the war between Earth and Mars before it could ever get the chance to even start.
