All 18 Round 1 fights in the DC KO tournament have been revealed by DC Comics, as well as more details on the specifics of the event series revealed by Scott Snyder:
Round 1
Superman Vs Giganta
Captain Atom Vs Power Girl
Guy Gardner Vs Firestorm
Jay Garrick Vs Cheetah
Aquaman Vs King Shark
Conner Hawke Vs Hawkman
Lex Luthor Vs Black Lightning
The Demon Vs Supergirl
Wonder Woman Vs Starro/Jarro
Lobo Vs Plastic Man
Swamp Thing Vs Vixen
Cyborg Vs Batwoman
Batman Vs Star Sapphire
Red Hood Vs Damian Wayne
Zatanna Vs Big Barda
Harley Quinn Vs Metamorpho
In his Substack newsletter, Scott Snyder previously revealed the meaning behind the K.O in DC KO:
"DC K.O., it stands for King Omega, although that's not announced yet. Darkseid has become a King Omega in the DC universe right now, or the King Omega, which is the entire totality of Omega energy over in the Absolute Universe. And he's coming over to attack. And so what the heroes have to do is figure out a way to beat him. And so this is going to be our five-issue big DC All In Saga event for this year."
Snyder talked about King Omega in the DC SDCC Ashcan, but there's more to come.
"It's essentially about these heroes realizing that there's no way to stop Darkseid. He's coming and he's become something far more insidious than he's ever been before. He's still Darkseid, he's still all about control and absorbing everything so that it is of him, so that he is the only ruler, the only mind that can dictate everything to all reality. But he almost exists outside of space and time, he's become so incredibly powerful. I was talking to Deniz Camp and part of the fun of the series at this point is that Darkseid is omnipresent. So it's almost like all the kinds of fears that you have that make you want to cede control to somebody else, that make you want to give up and feel like, "I'm going to stop trying." That's Darkseid in every atom and every cell."
As well as how this all ties into the Absolute Universe.
"Anyway, so the heroes realize that the only way to stop Darkseid is to become as powerful as him. And Omega energy in the DC mythology is essentially the energy of conquest. It's the energy of destruction, of ending things, of controlling things. Omega obviously is alphabetically the end. So it's the idea of the final absorption into things. And so what they have to do is gather as much Omega energy as possible and drive it into one person so that that one person can become a celestial being as powerful as Darkseid. And at the core of the earth, a heart of apocalypse is already forming. This is the device that Darkseid uses in the Absolute Universe, which you learn in issue one, to gather all of the Omega energy unto himself and become the only god, the only celestial being. And so they decide that if they can go get this thing or get close to it and use it to funnel all Omega energy into one of them, then they can become as powerful as Darkseid and take him down and restore things to the way they're supposed to be. Because Darkseid's already taken over all of the future."
Snyder revealed the K.O. event has a new staging ground, created by the Darkseid home planet of Apokalips.
"So the event, as they get towards the heart of Apokolips, it tries to defend itself and creates a tournament, five levels, to see who is worthy of it. And so the only way to become worthy is to defeat other champions, to take down all of the other heroes, anyone else that's in this competition, and to do it in a way that shows no compassion, no mercy. Because if you start to help each other, if you start to try and be soft, then it won't create enough Omega energy and you won't be worthy. So it is a knockdown, drag out, fun battle royale to see who will be the standing champion at the end of the DC universe to be able to defeat Darkseid and bring everything back the way it's supposed to be."
Snyder sees KO in the light of a Marvel all-the-superheroes-fight crossover event:
"So it's almost like the first time that we've gotten to do a big fight event. Marvel's done them a bunch. You have Avengers vs. X-Men, Secret Wars, Civil War. But I realized, like, we haven't actually done almost any of them. So for us, this is our knock-down, drag-out fight. But it's done in a way that isn't meant to be grim. It doesn't really hit them against each other in a way that has fault lines over deep issues. It is supposed to be something that you can enjoy. It has a very personal message, which I think will become apparent as you get closer to the end. So it's not just some kind of big escapist bubblegum thing. It's very much about what I think these superheroes are meant to stand for and represent to us, especially in difficult times. But it is coded in 10 layers of bloody candy fun. Out of control, violent candy fun. No edgelord bullshit. It is PG-13 in its own way. We'll have some red band issues, but overall, it is really supposed to get you that kid joy of Saturday morning cartoons on steroids. Who will win? That fun. Get you into stores."
And then there's the practicalities of the crossover playing out in comic book stores. This reminds me of Alan Moore's Twilight Of The Gods pitch, where he started talking about the point-of-sale marketing and role-playing game spin-offs.
"There'll be a bracket with the 32 contestants that you can winnow down and take guesses and we'll have rewards for stores. to guess right or come closest. We'll have all kinds of incentives. We're going to even have a voting thing at New York that'll be a lot of fun that we'll announce soon that'll allow you to participate. So we want it to be something like All In that drives you into stores, that gets you going there for fun, that gets you talking with your friends, that makes you enjoy the month wait in between. We're going to have special months where we have tie-ins and all kinds of cool stuff that's already planned, but I don't want to get ahead of myself and announce stuff that I'm not supposed to yet."
As well as the already announced Batman spinoff Knightfight...
"But Knightfight, you have Batman versus the Batman versions of all of the former or a lot of the former Robins to see who would be better. It's almost like Batman's journey through Hell. It's amazing. It's written by Josh Williamson with a little help by me and obviously the incredible Dan Mora on art. We have Fight Month coming in December where you're going to have matches between some of the great contestants, the champions. And again, that's going to be a blast. I'm writing one of those. It's just meant to be pure comic book joy with a lot of heart. As you get deeper in, you'll see it's a personal Superman story about what I think about Superman and why he's such a great character. So I can't wait for you to see it. I know I've been talking about it a lot, but we're really excited about it."
As to why the event comic itself is only five issues long…
"It's very small, also. I'm not a big believer in events that go on for 12 issues. I'm sure we'll do one someday. But I know right now your wallets are tight. We want to keep it modular. We don't want you to have to interrupt a lot of your other series. You don't have to read anything but the main series if you don't want. But we will have some tie-ins in Teen Titans and in Flash. Superman is also building a lot of the architecture right now if you want to check it out. So you can check all of that stuff out if you want to get the full picture. But if you want to just read five issues in and out, you can do that too. And again, It's not going to kind of interrupt books that you're really enjoying."
And how it fits into his whole plan for DC Comics.
"But the big goal of something like KO for me, just to give you a behind the scenes peek, is A, to keep the great saga going of Darkseid, you know, to keep the big story that you guys are invested in going strong. So it's part two of, essentially, three. If All In was part one, this is part two."