History Recap / WithThisRingEpisode88

* {{Foil}}: Grayven 50 sees the Renegade, his [[BecomingTheMask quasi-counterpart]] as one to himself, with the Renegade encouraging the comparison, and there is some truth to it. Grayven 50 favors direct conquest, hard and brutal conquering and assimilation of assets into his armies afterwards, and his godly abilities are on a higher level, affecting his entire empire and battering the Renegade in their God-speech fight. The Renegade, meanwhile, prefers to play the long game when possible, subtly undermining his enemies before striking fast and reaping greater rewards by converting people to his cause and uplifting them and enhancing their abilities so they can offer him greater help in the future. ''His'' god-speech is still developing, but he's learning ways to use it that New Gods don't consider, and he has more than one source of power to draw on, including the piece of the Anti-Life Equation in his soul.

* Foil: Grayven 50 sees the Renegade, his [[BecomingTheMask quasi-counterpart]] as one to himself, with the Renegade encouraging the comparison, and there is some truth to it. Grayven 50 favors direct conquest, hard and brutal conquering and assimilation of assets into his armies afterwards, and his godly abilities are on a higher level, affecting his entire empire and battering the Renegade in their God-speech fight. The Renegade, meanwhile, prefers to play the long game when possible, subtly undermining his enemies before striking fast and reaping greater rewards by converting people to his cause and uplifting them and enhancing their abilities so they can offer him greater help in the future. ''His'' god-speech is still developing, but he's learning ways to use it that New Gods don't consider, and he has more than one source of power to draw on, including the piece of the Anti-Life Equation in his soul.

While demonstrating his divine powers for Sunset Shimmer to analyse, the Renegade senses universe-50's Scott Free on board a thanagarian ship, leaving him concerned for Scott's safety. He travels to universe 50, making peaceful contact with the Justice Lords and semi-peaceful contact with Stormwatch, who let him know that Scott was helping the thanagarians to evacuate from Grayven-50's invasion.

The Renegade attempts a rescue, but is overpowered and captured by Grayven-50 and Doctor Impossible. Grayven-50 reveals that he plans to conquer Earth and experiment on its population to learn how to turn humans into New Gods, so that he can get more officers for his fleet. To demonstrate his power and break the Renegade's spirit, he destroys the Watchtower; the Renegade, believing his allies (including Sunset Shimmer) to have died in the blast, retaliates by activating the Anti-Life Equation fragment embedded in his soul, overloading the spiritual imprisonment system and causing Grayven-50 to flee.

With Scott, Barda and Lantern Rayner released, the Renegade then assaults Grayven-50 on the bridge. Though seriously wounded, he is eventually able to kill Grayven-50 with the Sword of the Fallen, along with Granny Goodness.

In the aftermath, Sunset is revealed to be alive, having gone to visit Themyscira (since there were no New Gods on the Watchtower for her to study), but the status of Batman 50 is unknown. The episode ends with the Renegade attempting to resurrect the wife of Kanto, New God of Assassins, in exchange for Kanto's non-interference in the duel with Grayven 50.

* HeelRealization: Since the Renegade's last visit, Diana-50 has faced her mistakes - by tying herself up in the Lasso of Truth, which compelled her to be honest with herself.

* NeverFoundTheBody: Grayven-50's hyperblaster left essentially no remains from the Watchtower, leaving it an open question who was actually on board at the time.

** Batman-50 is missing, but Nightwing hasn't given up on him.

* SummonBiggerFish: When Grayven-50 is reinforced by a second New God, Doctor Impossible, the Renegade resorts to contacting the Ophidian for help - and unlike the Paragon timeline, she's not particularly friendly. However, she does seem to be ''more'' upset by Grayven-50, who "''sounds like the gnat!''", and attacks him first.
* VillainRespect: Grayven-50 chats with the Renegade about his plans, and marvels at how he's never before met anyone so much on his wavelength. He still plans to break the Renegade's soul and kill all his friends, but no hard feelings!
* WordsCanBreakMyBones: The Renegade challenges Grayven-50's domain, and they compete by making God-speech statements about their nature and achievements, which ripple through the surrounding arcane networks. For example, the Renegade attacks with "Challenge The Hegemon", matching Grayven-50's existing layers of "Lead From The Van" and "Moved By My Design" woven throughout his empire, upon which Grayven-50 takes notice and retaliates with "ALL SHALL KNEEL", which the Renegade subverts with "All Shall Bow In Time".
** After Grayven-50 destroys the Watchtower, where the Renegade left several allies, the Renegade furiously retaliates by stating "Life=Pain", unleashing the piece of the Anti-Life Equation that is embedded in his soul. Grayven-50 flees in apparent suffering as if being physically attacked.

--> '''Diana''': "It is no easy thing to confront all of your assumptions about the way things are and have your self-deceits torn away."

--> '''Richard''': "He had a minute between the boom tube opening and the Watchtower being destroyed. There are dozens of contingencies he could have activated in that time."

** After Grayven-50 destroys the Watchtower, where the Renegade left several allies, the Renegade furiously retaliates by stating "Life=Pain", unleashing the piece of the Anti-Life Equation that is embedded in his soul.

With Scott, Barda and Lantern Rayner released, the Renegade then assaults Grayven-50 on the bridge. Though seriously wounded, he is eventually able to kill Grayven-50 with the Sword of the Fallen, along with Granny Goodness. Sunset is revealed to be alive, having gone to visit Themyscira (since there were no New Gods on the Watchtower for her to study).

While demonstrating his divine powers for Sunset Shimmer to analyse, the Renegade senses universe-50's Scott Free on board a thanagarian ship, leaving him concerned for Scott's safety. He travels to universe 50, making peaceful contact with the Justice Lords and semi-peaceful contact with Stormwatch, who let him know that Scott was helping the thanagarians to evacuate from Grayven-50's invasion. The Renegade attempts a rescue, but is overpowered and captured by Grayven-50 and Doctor Impossible.

* CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming: Since Grayven healed Hawkgirl from lead poisoning, she and John Stewart have had a baby, whom they named Rex Grayven Stewart.
--> '''Grayven''': "I can be available to babysit at very short notice."

While demonstrating his divine powers for Sunset Shimmer to analyse, the Renegade senses universe-50's Scott Free on board a thanagarian ship, leaving him concerned for Scott's safety. He travels to universe 50, making peaceful contact with the Justice Lords and semi-peaceful contact with Stormwatch, who let him know that Scott was helping the thanagarians to evacuate from Grayven-50's invasion.

As of 2019-09-22, the Renegade had engaged Grayven-50 in a metaphysical wrestle in order to distract him while the team attempted to locate Scott.

* WordsCanBreakMyBones: The Renegade challenges Grayven-50's domain, and they compete by making God-speech statements about their nature and achievements, which ripple through the surrounding arcane networks. For example, the Renegade attacks with "Challenge The Hegemon", matching Grayven-50's existing layers of "Lead From The Van" and "Moved By My Design" woven throughout his empire, upon which Grayven-50 takes notice and retaliates with "ALL SHALL KNEEL", which the Renegade subverts with "All Shall Bow In Time".

* SummonBiggerFish: When Grayven-50 apparently gets reinforced by a second New God, the Renegade resorts to contacting the Ophidian for help - and unlike the Paragon timeline, she's not particularly friendly. However, she does seem to be ''more'' upset by Grayven-50, who "''sounds like the gnat!''", and attacks him first.

As of 2019-09-22, the Renegade had engaged Grayven-50 in a metaphysical wrestle in order to distract him while the team attempted to locate Scott.