[SPOILER] Returns in Dark Days: The Forge # 1

There’s a special someone that returns this week in the pages of DC Comics’ Dark Days: The Forge # 1 and it ties in neatly into the mystery behind the cover for the other Dark Days special, Dark Days: The Casting # 1

Also in The Forge # 1 we follow Green Lantern Hal Jordan as he is sent by Ganthet to investigate a terrible secret that they don’t want out. He finds himself in Wayne Manor where he immediately gets a surprise attack from Duke Thomas.

Duke versus Green Lantern – Dark Days: The Forge # 1

The two of them gets zapped into a secret area of the Batcave where Batman stores his secrets, secrets he doesn’t want other members of the Batman family to find out.

In the subsequent pages we find out that Batman had been pulling a thread that stems back as early as Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo’s “Endgame” story arc during the last volume of Batman.

He’s also hired several heroes to work with him doing his black ops which he calls The Outsiders…

The Outsiders from Dark Days: The Forge # 1

But the bigger mystery is who’s talking to Hal and Duke. And why does he know a lot of information about the Dark Knight plus his secret agenda. As the pair ventures deeper in Batman’s secret Batcave, they continue the conversation with this mysterious person who Duke thinks is actually Dick Grayson at the onset.

And while Batman was beneath Superman’s Fortress of Solitude getting ready to look at the “tuning fork” he had hidden there (harkening a new Crisis), Green Lantern and Duke finally reaches the end of the Batcave and sees that there is somebody captive inside this segment of the Batcave.

Holy crap! The Joker’s been inside the Batcave as a captive of Batman! Could he have been in this area of the cave ever since Bruce Wayne returned as Batman during the whole “Bloom” storyline? And what is he carving in the wall of his cell?