This issue is the start of Grant Morrison’s run on the series; most of the last DP incarnation has been killed. The survivors are as follows: Rhea is in a coma, Negative Man has found himself powerless and hospitalized (he’s happy about the first part), and Cliff Steele decided to check into a psychiatric hospital due to horrible dreams. Joshua Clay is still useless. It would look like the DP is finally finished, but Chief’s still around, and he has a never say die attitude. He informs Joshua that he has big plans, and the DP will reform whether they like it or not. There’s just no arguing with the Chief.

Poor Larry is having fun in the hospital, hitting on his doctor Elenor Poole and such, until he’s visited by his good old friend the Uroboros. It starts babbling on about how much it missed Larry, and how it’s needs to “perpetuate” and “generate”. That’ll be important later (much later). It never spoke before now, so it has a lot to get off its chest. The Uroboros summons Elenor into the room and melds the three of them into one entity---Rebis.

Chief sends Dr. Magnus to have a little talk with Cliff, who is not a very receptive robot right now. “You’re a good guy doc. You’re sensitive and caring and compassionate. And if I could, I’d spew in your face.” Cliff has no interest in the DP because most of his teammates always end up dead or worse. Cliff is also still whining about the fact that he’s a human in an unfeeling metal body. To demonstrate his point he starts bashing his head against a wall (like ya do). Magnus is sick of Cliff’s whole “No one understands me.” rap and introduces him to someone who has things even worse.

Here’s our intro Crazy Jane, who’s currently in the persona of Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter. Magnus says some company would be good for her, and he runs off. An awkward silence follows between the robot and the crazy girl.

Meanwhile: There’s a car accident and an explosion. Action, see? A man emerges from the flames clutching a book with black pages. He gasps something about Scissormen, and then he dies. The Men in Black at the scene of the accident decide that something weird is happening, so there’s no alternative but to call the Chief. Don’t worry gang; this will all make sense eventually.