subsequently found to have "bonded" with Orion, causing the latter to become cruel and manipulative. They were later separated. While missing, his second-in-command, Justeen, plots to overthrow DeSaad's position and become closer to her beloved Darkseid. In the Superman/Batman story "Torment", DeSaad is tasked by Darkseid to retrieve Highfather's staff from the Source Wall and use it to restore Darkseid's waning powers. Working with the Batman villain the Scarecrow he brainwashes Superman. However, when the time came to recharge Darkseid's powers, using the staff as a conduit to the Omega Realm, DeSaad betrays Darkseid and tried to take the power for himself. The Omega Effect, however, possessed a horror within it that even DeSaad could not stand and Darkseid simply siphoned the energy off of him. At the end of Countdown to Final Crisis #25, DeSaad, who had captured and tortured Professor Martin Stein, is able to take over the mantle and the power of Firestorm for himself. He is defeated and separated from the Firestorm Matrix by the Atomic Knights, but flees before he can be captured. After disrupting a battle between Darkseid and Mary Marvel, DeSaad gives Darkseid a compound that was unsuccessfully used to access the Anti-Life Equation. DeSaad is then released from Darkseid's service, but he has transported the Pied Piper to Apokolips as Brother Eye arrives. DeSaad claims the Piper can channel the Anti-Life Equation and control the planet. Before the Piper can do so, Brother Eye finishes assimilating Apokolips. After recovering, DeSaad confesses to masterminding the Trickster and the Piper's ordeal. They are then attacked by an OMAC and the Piper is captured. DeSaad continues to pursue the Piper and convinces him to finally play, but the Piper's first act is to try to kill DeSaad. Also during Countdown in Detective Comics #837, it is revealed that he is supplying the Amazon Women's Shelters with special drugs from Apokolips. In Salvation Run, DeSaad oversees the training of the New Gods of Apokolips on a planet where Amanda Waller's Suicide Squad had dumped the exiled villains. When he discovers them on this planet, he arranges for the Parademons to eliminate the least powerful villains so that he can train the stronger ones for an unknown goal. Ultimately, the villains escape back to Earth. Following Death of the New Gods, many of the fallen Apokoliptan gods had taken on human forms. DeSaad, posing as "Doctor Bud