Monkey Prince#9(2022)

King Fire Bull and his minions storm LexCorp and encounter Marcus' parents, who have taken jobs there. Laura tries to fight King Fire Bull off with a blaster but he easily disarms her. She begs for her life, telling him her son needs her, but he snaps her neck, saying that he got over losing his parents and Marcus will too. The demons break into a cloning lab holding multiple clones of Bizarro, which King Fire Bull devours to gain the strength he needs to fight Superman. Meanwhile, in the skies above Metropolis, Shifu Pigsy teaches Marcus how to create clones of himself from his hairs. His first attempt is misshapen and disturbing, and Marcus immediately changes it back, but Pigsy tells him he will need to learn the technique sooner rather than later. Marcus asks Pigsy to drop him off at Big Belly Burger to meet some friends from school, much to Pigsy's surprise as Marcus has only been in town for two days. He tells Marcus that he is becoming more socially adept as he accepts his role as the Monkey Prince, which Marcus privately concedes may be true. As soon as Marcus goes inside, Pigsy is attacked by the sorcerer Tannarak. Pigsy fends him off and he appears to flee, so Pigsy chases after him. This is revealed to be a trap, as Tannarak leads him to Jinx, who buries him in Earth to nullify his magic. At Big Belly Burger, Winston comes to pick Marcus up. He has Laura, who is alive but grievously injured and comatose, in the car and tells Marcus that she was badly hurt at work. He drives them out of the city, and when Marcus asks why they aren't going to a hospital, Winston tells him that conventional medicine can't save Laura. They arrive at an isolated house in the woods where they meet an old man. The old man reveals that he is Laura's father and Marcus' grandfather Gerard Shugel, who hasn't seen Marcus since he was a baby. Gerard wants to save Laura's life by transferring her mind into a new body but Winston insists he heal Laura's spinal injury instead, which Gerard begrudgingly agrees to. They take her inside to Gerard's laboratory. The next morning, Supergirl examines the scene at LexCorp. She finds Laura's gun and x-rays it when she realises that it was not manufactured by LexCorp. She sees fingerprints on the internal workings and realises the gun was assembled by hand, but not by a human. She deduces that it was built by the Ultra-Humanite. Back at Gerard's lab, Laura is being held in a stasis tube while Gerard synthesises new vertebrae for her. Marcus gets a call from Kaya and goes outside to answer. Kaya is checking up on him since he hasn't called in a few days and tells him that she misses him, she asks if he is planning to come back to Gotham at some point and implies she may be interested in him. Marcus sees Supergirl flying overhead and realises she may be looking for his family. He ends the call with Kaya, transforms and flies up to confront Supergirl, but is immediately smitten when he sees her up close. He attempts to flirt with her, but only ends up offending her and she attacks him. Inside, Gerard and Winston see them fight and Gerard switches his brain into another body to face them. Gerard comes out to face them in the body of an albino gorilla, revealing that he is the Ultra-Humanite.