Dark Nights : Metal #1 is legitimately one of the best single issues I’ve read in a long time and I didn’t really want this to be a review mainly because I want to get into some heavy spoilers here but suffice it to say that it is a perfect 10/10 and I can’t wait to see where this series goes.
It really started back in June and July with Dark Days : The Forge and Dark Days : The Casting by bringing The Joker back to the DC Universe, showing us that Duke Thomas is a lot more than what we originally thought he was, giving us our first glimpse into the Dark Multiverse and of course revealing the Dark Knights.
For Refresher, here’s the order of the storyline :
We’re currently in the Dark Nights and supposedly the people who will bring the Dark Matter will be these guys :
And a better picture :
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So Yeah, they look like a fun group, right?
Anyway, we saw their silhouettes on the last page of Dark Days : The Casting and we’ve been intrigued ever since. Now we get to Metal and it flows like a brilliant screenplay and this issue is basically the first 20 minutes of a film. It starts off with this voice over from Carter Hall who has since vanished/died(Presumably he’s coming back.) but during this voice over we’re taken to Mongul’s new War World and the Justice League have to fight in this arena and it’s really epic and it all leads to this big climatic scene of the league forming a massive Justice League robot :
I mean, just look at that beauty! Then the credits kick in and you basically can put any rock song on in the background of this scene and it works perfectly, my preference is Achilles Last Stand by Led Zeppelin but it’s entirely up to you.
I’m not gonna go over the entire issue but I do love that opening a lot. Throughout the issue, the entire Justice League learn of this new threat from the Dark Multiverse and it’s deep connections with Bruce Wayne. Now, if The Forge and The Casting were Snyder’s payoff for multiple years old storylines then Metal is his way of saying thanks to Grant Morrison. Morrison’s run on Batman had two major themes : 1. Always bet on Batman, cause no matter what, he always has a plan. 2. Bruce Wayne is the key to the DC Universe.
The reason I say this is because while they’re explaining about the Multiverse they literally pull out the map from Morrison’s Meta-textual study on comics : Multiversity(Phenomenal Comic Series, another article for another time.) and then they explain what evil is coming and hint towards why it’s coming here. They mention the evil of many names but it’s most common one is Barbatos. Something else that’s a call back to Morrison’s Batman run and the event comic Final Crisis. Barbatos isn’t something that they’ve explained perfectly to us but from what I’ve gathered he’s basically DC’s version of Cthullu. Right down to being gigantic, having a bunch of cult followers and every story involving him is weird and mysterious.
Yeah, so that’s gonna be difficult to take care of.
So even after learning that a Giant Bat Demon is coming and Bruce Wayne is apparently “The Wagon that will carry the Beast here.” How do they top it for the finale?
Whoa! Dream is here from Neil Gaiman’s Sandman? This is one of the biggest reveals in modern comic history. The fact that they’re using The Endless in the main comics again is a huge deal and is just another reason that we need to keep an eye as this series as it continues.
I skipped over a few different things to hit the main beats but I didn’t wanna give everything away. Anyway, hit me up in the comments or on Facebook with your favorite moments from Metal and what you’re excited for in the future of DC Comics.
