WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Detective Comics #1014 by Peter J. Tomasi, Doug Mahnke, Mark Irwin, Christian Alamy, David Baron and Rob Leigh, on sale now.

In the DC Universe, the Lazarus Pits have caused a lot of hell in Batman's life. It's been used time and time again by Ra's al Ghul to heal his wounds and grant him immortality, with other villains such as Riddler and Kobra also using the pool of life too. Heroes like Black Canary and Cassandra Cain have used it as well; Talia al Ghul even revived a broken Jason Todd with it. Catwoman has had some recent experiences with one and Thomas Wayne even found the all-powerful Nain Pit in Tom King's Batman run.

While all of these Lazarus Pits raise the dead at a steep cost, Detective Comics just introduced a chemical that makes resurrections even more dangerous than the Lazarus Pits.

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The latest issue of Detective Comics finds Bruce Wayne at Waynetech working \with Lucius Fox to isolate the blood of the women Mr. Freeze secretly kidnapped and experimented on in his attempts to bring Nora back to life. It turns out he was seeding out his wife's DNA through water pipes into these women, manipulating their genetic makeup along the way. But when Lucius analyzes Freeze's work in their bloodstreams, he finds something so complex that only a super-genius could come up with.

They spot three synthetic factors in the bloodstreams that indicate someone's essentially trying to play God. At first, it seems that Freeze has advanced his scientific work and made a resounding breakthrough, but we can't forget Lex "Apex Predator" Luthor offered him a mysterious substance to complete his work in Year of the Villain.

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Given how Lex and Perpetua are reshaping the DC Universe as well in Justice League, the secret to immortality seems like something right up their alley. But as Lucius notes, this kind of cellular regeneration is beyond anything he's ever seen before, including the Lazarus Pits. This development is most likely why Freeze has an army of ice zombies including humans and animals too.

Outside of the Church of Blood's resurrection tools that've revived Brother Blood, these Lazarus Pits all over the world were thought to be the only dependable means of revival in the DC Universe. The Pits held mysterious substances from within the Earth's crust, which gave them their green colors, and while they've been studied before, no one has ever unlocked their secrets in a manner like this and weaponized it. This means Lex could even bring other villains back to life if this is indeed his handiwork, and it could give Bruce a way to use the compound himself to resurrect a loved one.

This formula is highly dangerous and while we're yet to see it unravel, it could also cause dementia in its subjects. Nora Fries seems set to go off the hinges soon, turning so uncontrollable even Freeze won't be able to handle her.

In that sense,  the person who emerges on the other side won't ever be the same as the one who went in, much like a Lazarus Pit. Only time will tell exactly what this compound is but judging from Lucius' fear of it, it seems set to play a big  in the multitude of Bat-stories to come.

Detective Comics #1015 goes on sale Nov. 13.

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