Jim Starlin said in an interview that "I sort of think of this project as putting an ending to Jack's New Gods saga.

[2] The series begins with Darkseid recalling how he first became aware of a growing crisis with the death of Willie Walker.

Orion, Himon, and others discover the full extent of the death toll when on screens shows the New Gods who have been killed and others who are still missing.

The Forever People are shown to be missing and two of them are prime suspects as Serifan and Beautiful Dreamer are both seen leaving two of the murders.

While each one recounts their death, Big Bear mentions that the killer was "the last person we'd expect to see".

In the past, Metron speaks to the glowing ball of light, which reveals itself as the Source and the cause of the death of the New Gods.

The light side recovered and brought about the Death of the Old Gods, and then attempted to recreate existence, but could only manage to make the flawed Fourth World due to its imperfection.

It attempted to reunite with its darker part, but was delayed by the events of Crisis on Infinite Earths, which unified alternative realities and created an impenetrable Source Wall.

The Source then orchestrated the events of Infinite Crisis and 52 to bring back the Multiverse, and freeing its dark half, which had taken the form of the Anti-Life Entity.

The Source agrees to Metron's request that he be allowed to witness the end of the Fourth World.

As part of the lead-in to the limited series, a number of New Gods were killed in tie-in issues: Lightray, Granny Goodness, Bernadeth, Knockout, Grayven, Bekka, and Bloody Mary.