Janus Directive
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| Publisher | DC Comics | ||
| Publication date | May – June 1989 | ||
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"The Janus Directive" was an eleven-part comic book crossover first published by DC Comics between May and June of 1989. Among the creators who contributed to the storyline were writers John Ostrander, Kim Yale, Paul Kupperberg, Cary Bates and Greg Weisman and artists John K. Snyder III, Rick Hoberg, Rafael Kayanan, Tom Mandrake and Pat Broderick.
The storyline did not have its own series, but ran through several titles - mainly Checkmate! (vol. 1) and Suicide Squad (vol. 1), though Manhunter (vol. 1), Firestorm (vol. 2), and Captain Atom (vol. 1), all had individual issues which were involved in the crossover. Checkmate! and Suicide Squad were published biweekly for the duration of the event.
The storyline focused on the covert operations super-teams and organizations that existed in the DC Universe at the time.
Suicide Squad leader Amanda Waller began to send her agents on missions in the apparent pursuit of her own private agenda, the so-called Janus Directive, one that brought the Squad into conflict with other metahuman villains and government agencies. So, an all-out mayhem broke loose among these groups, involving various metahumans associated with the United States military and civilian agencies.
Eventually, it came out that Waller had not gone rogue, but had been nearly assassinated by the cult leader Kobra. Kobra had tried to murder Waller and replace her with a subservient doppelgänger in order to then manipulate and mislead the various government agencies to keep them from stopping his own plan: to activate a massive space-based microwave pulse cannon that would fry all electronic systems (not to mention human nervous systems) in the eastern United States, unleashing the Kali Yuga, the age of chaos he thought it was his destiny to commence. Waller had gotten the drop on her double and murdered it instead, but decided to play the role of the double in order to ferret out the true mastermind behind the Janus Directive. Eventually, the truth was revealed, and the groups united and stormed Kobra's space ark, capturing him and destroying his weapon.
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