WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for Batman/Fortnite: Zero Point #6, by Donald Mustard, Christos Gage, Reilly Brown, Nelson DeCastro, John Kalisz and AndWorld Design, on sale now.
Batman's perilous quest through the world of Fortnite comes to a close in the final issue of Batman/Fortnite: Zero Point. However, despite the Dark Knight escaping the battle royale world, he was unable to uncover the identities of those behind the ominous plot. The final pages reveal all and it appears that one of the deadliest dynamic duos in the DC Multiverse was among the parties responsible for the chaos.
At the beginning of the series, Batman fell into a mysterious dimensional rift that had opened over the skies of Gotham. After landing in Fortnite's infinite time loop of battle after battle, the World's Greatest Detective was able to uncover a way out of the game world and open up another rift to take him and other Fortnite prisoners back to their original universes. Throughout all of this, however, mysterious forces were acting against the Caped Crusader and, while it seemed victory was his, the villains got exactly what they wanted. Upon revealing that those behind Batman's abduction are in Metropolis, this villainous epilogue sees an old pairing unexpectedly working together again.
Lex Luthor and the Batman Who Laughs are back to being on the same side again and, oddly enough, on good terms. This is a little surprising considering their history. Their first face-to-face meeting in Justice League #8 by James Tynion IV, Mikel Janin, Jeromy Cox and Tom Napolitano showed a lot of mistrust between the two. Lex would only talk to him if he was in chains, something that this Dark Batman proved he could escape from with ease. Despite their distrust for one another, they struck a deal. Each would allow the other to carry out their own villainous plots, even if these plans would eventually come to a head in the future.
With their agreement, the Batman Who Laughs gave Lex the information that put the Superman nemesis on the path to the Multiverse's evil creator Perpetua who eventually changed everything for the DCU. Teaming up with Perpetua resulted in Lex's transformation into the half-Martian Apex Lex Luthor and the Doom War, which saw the Justice League defeated.
As for the Batman Who Laughs, he was free to infect the heroes of the DCU with his own Dark Multiverse energy. He then created his own twisted Justice League in a world without heroes thanks to Lex and Perpetua. However, Perpetua set this strained duo against each other in Year of the Villain: Hell Arisen by Tynion and Steve Epting. Although Luthor won their fight, his rival had the last laugh when he took Luthor's place at Perpetua's side and created the nightmare world of Dark Nights: Death Metal.
Since Dark Nights: Death Metal resulted in The Batman Who Laugh's transformation into the Darkest Knight and his subsequent demise at the hands of Wonder Woman, it can be assumed that this partnership takes place before any of that. A number of other details throughout the series, like Jim Gordon still being Commissioner, seem to confirm this. Even if this does take place before Laughs and Lex's falling out, it's still unsettling to see them working so harmoniously here.
When they distrusted one another, their uneasy and admittedly rather distant alliance led to some of the most destructive and devastating events in the DCU. Now that they're getting along and working together again, there's no telling what they're capable of.