YMMV / The Nail

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Considering who he is, Lex Luthor likely already had anti-metahuman views on his own, but did he come up with the whole idea of modern metahumans being alien invaders by himself, or was he manipulated into this perspective by the true villain because the real mastermind enjoyed the irony of ensuring a genuine alien invasion by setting up the heroes as being responsible for a fake one?
• Complete Monster: Darkseid still retains his monstrous nature in this alternate universe as the despot ruler of Apokolips. Driven by paranoia due to the incident involving the Boom Tube that resulted in his Parademons getting eliminated and reduced 17% of Apokolips's mass during his attempted Earth invasion, Darkseid declares an all-out war against New Genesis because he finds them to be cowards who use dirty tactics. In addition, he also tortures the agents of New Genesis, Big Barda, and Mr. Miracle, because they trespassed during the Boom Tube incident. After Big Barda calls out Darkseid and his minions on how weak they are, Darkseid then activates the Omega Doom weapon capable of destroying the universe, then brutally murders all (but one) of his loyal followers, whom he saw as nothing but traitors, in order to power up his new suit.
• Fanfic Fuel: Further adventures of the superheroes of this reality. Along with how classic storylines from New Earth will unfold here. Not to mention that this Earth appears to exist in a multiverse of its own very similar to Pre-Crisis.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: One could argue that the DC Extended Universe is something of a Spiritual Adaptation of this series, as that universe didn't exactly have Superman around for long time, and many heroes, Batman especially, largely operate in the shadows, thus being regarded with fear and suspicion by the general populace.
• Moment of Awesome:
  • Batman, empowered by Green Lantern, manages to fight Jimmy Olsen to a near standstill. It doesn't work, and leaves them both exhausted and in no condition to continue the struggle. But it brings the battle to the Amish commune where Superman lives, which then promptly ends the struggle.
  • Lois and Jonathan Kent taunt and incapacitate Eclipso easily, while Superman was ready to agree to his demands in exchange for letting them go.
  • Green Arrow's Heroic Sacrifice at the end of Another Nail.
  • After Hawkgirl rescues a couple of children from a fire burning down their building, a couple of police officers try to arrest Hawkgirl because she is an alien. The children’s father stands up to them, saying she saved his children, only for the officer to respond that she is an alien, so the children’s father and everyone else says that the police might as well arrest them too. Everyone's response to the police's ungrateful reaction to Hawkgirl saving those children shows that not everyone believes all that bullshit about aliens being invaders and actually know when to show gratitude to the heroes who saved their lives, their families and their friends many times over, even in a world without Superman.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Joker takes a running leap over this when he murders Dick/Robin and Babs/Batgirl with homicidal glee. Few can hardly fault Bats for killing him after that.
  • Jimmy Olsen crosses it when he casually murders Kal-El's Amish foster parents.
• Narm:
  • Batman having an Heroic BSoD that borders on DEH crossing after the deaths of Dick and Babs and his murder of The Joker is NOT funny. The absolutely ridiculous expression on his face when Alfred and Selina try to make him react is, though.
  • Selina dressing up as Robin to try and get Batman to come to terms with himself could also count.
• Nightmare Fuel: Joker, with his new power gloves, then uses them to rip the flesh off Robin and Batgirl just to make a "I want my pound of flesh" joke while forcing Batman to watch. While we thankfully don't actually see Robin and Batgirl getting torn apart, we hear their screams and it's not pleasant.

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