Lazarus Resin is a concentrated form of a supernatural phenomenon identified as the Lazarus Pit; an otherworldly pit with resurrective & rejuvenating powers.
History
Prime Earth
Task Force Z
The former criminal Harvey Dent directed a U.S. paramilitary group called "Task Force Z" to test the military uses of the Lazarus Resin, which could reanimate corpses with varying levels of sentience. Task Force Z appropriated the bodies of numerous dead supervillains like Arkham Knight, Copperhead, Deadshot, KGBeast, Victor Zsasz, and Sundowner to be zombified and acted as military operatives on behalf of Project Halperin to prevent outside use or distribution of the Lazarus Resin.
Lazarus Planet
Lazarus Eruption
Batman fought The Devil Nezha on Lazarus Island while attempting to rescue his son Damian, who had been brainwashed by the immortal warlord. During the fight, the Helmet of Fate was shattered and the shards fell into a Lazarus Pit on the island. This caused the volcano on the island to erupt and spread Lazarus Resin around the world.[1] This caused global extreme weather events and Lazarus Resin rained down from the sky, mutating anyone it touched. The Lazarus rain gave superpowers to some normal people and in some cases radically changed the powers of people who already had them.[2][3]
Future State
The organization known as the Magistrate, an anti-vigilante paramilitary police state, would combine efforts and resources with the League of Shadows, the world's foremost assassinations organization, Ii a joint bid to solidify powerbases over Gotham. They had already established a sizable powerbase after having cracked down on costumed wonders in their attempts to purify all crime within the city limits.[4] Top researchers of the order would conduct experiments that would grant eternal life to their cybernetically enhanced policing units through the harvesting and condensation of the Lazarus Pits.
A great deal of trial and error would be run on the compound, first and foremost concluding that the resin should never come in contact with living organic tissue. Use on human subjects often proved fatal at every turn.[5] Tim Drake, last known ascendent of the Bat-Family after the regime change, would fight a one man war against the criminal element as well as the oppressive status quo when he came across a sample of the new secret weapon the Magistrate had been brewing. After calling in a few favors from Bat adjacent advocates, Tim stormed the latest shipment of the resin about to be ported in, though he is met with heavy resistance when he makes it onboard the convoy.
During a battle with a Resin enhanced combatant, Red Robin is fatally wounded after partly dismantling its armor chassis. Both Stephanie and Darcy are both shocked and relieved at the rapid revival he makes, but Spoiler grew fearful of what all the effects of Lazarus Resin had on the recently deceased. Tim begins flagging under the duress of his recent resurrection and gains incredible strength at the cost of hallucinations plaguing his ability to function properly. He powers through the terrors plaguing him while mowing down a sizable contingent of Magistrate soldiers until he and his allies come across the bow of the ship. It became apparent that the whole ordeal was a ploy to run viable tests on the Resin in a living host.
Still being haunted by Resin-induced illusions while fighting off the opposition, Tim's allies succeed in snapping him out of his psychological stupor long enough to defeat the captain of the barge and send it crashing into Gotham Harbor. The organic elements in the water rendered the knock off iteration of the revival fluid inert. Tim was believed to have died upon the crash, but there was enough Resin in him to save his life.[5]
Dark Multiverse: Empire of Shadows
Ra's al Ghul would eventually cede his station as the Demon's Head after Bruce became his successor to the mantle. Through his tactical understanding of his world, the League of Shadows expanded its charter to new heights.[6] They would effectively cull any and all insurrection and convert their slain adversaries into living dead vassals using the Lazarus Resin.
Powers
Lazarus Resin operates primarily like that of the pit itself. In its portable form, the resin can grant its restorative powers to the dead, as well as give synthetic beings recurring biological regeneration, for all intents and purposes making them physically immortal.
Unlike the chemical bath which resurrects the dead however, the main goal of creating this derivative was to breed a new species of indestructible yet controllable warriors that are neither fully revitalized nor entirely deceased. Those exposed to this substance are returned at least partly to a semblance of life on minor doses of it.[7] To make the limited stay of defunction indefinite however, one must continually supply the subject with the resin, otherwise they fall back to the grave.
Too limited an intake causes the affected to take on traditional zombie like characteristics, such as increased aggression, cannibalistic tendencies, dilapidated mental process, and an addiction to the substance. Erstwhile if too much is applied to a subject, it will result in their full resurrection, thus diminishing a proper means of controlling their undead legions. It was primarily designed to act as a augmentation process to bionic subjects or cybernetically enhanced individuals.[4]
To date, it is ill understood what will happen to living tissue once upon exposure to said alchemical pill. But when it is imposed upon the recently deceased it caused a Venom like supplementary enhancement to the host which increases physical ability beyond the norm. Normally at the cost of psychological stability within the host.[5] As it is indicated that the resin does not react well to the emotions of the living, the effects of the Lazarus Resin are far from permanent unless properly supplied. If a revived individual does not make use of the compound regularly, even the recently deceased will loose higher biological functioning and return to their true death state again.[8]
Lazarus Resin can also be used as fuel for magic. Through regular consumption of the resin, Nezha was able to retain his immortality, as well as amplify his magic. However, prolonged use of the substance can cause corruption to a person's soul, altering their physiology into a more demonic appearance.[9]
See Also
- Appearances of Lazarus Resin
- Item Gallery: Lazarus Resin
- Images featuring Lazarus Resin
Footnotes
- ↑ Batman vs. Robin #4
- ↑ Monkey Prince #10
- ↑ Lazarus Planet: Assault on Krypton #1
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Future State: Robin Eternal #1
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Future State: Robin Eternal #2
- ↑ Batman/Superman Authority Special #1
- ↑ Task Force Z #1
- ↑ Suicide Squad (Volume 7) #10
- ↑ Batman vs. Robin #3
- ↑ Batgirls #15
- ↑ Robin 2021 Annual (Volume 3) #1