Dark Nights: Metal

Comic Info

Dark Nights: Metal #2

Reprints Dark Nights:  Metal #1-6 (October 2017-May 2018).  An ancient prophecy is coming to fruition, and the Multiverse is about to discover that there is a Dark Multiverse that is deadly.  When Batman discovers he is literally the key to the Dark Multiverse rising, he sets out to stop the event…but even Batman and Justice League of America can’t stop what is coming.  Bubbling from beneath the Multiverse, the Dark Multiverse cannot be stopped!

Written by Scott Snyder and James Tynion IV, Dark Nights:  Metal is a DC Comics event limited series.  The collection features art by Greg Capullo, Mikel Janin, and Alvardo Martinez.

Though highly debated, I liked the New 52 relaunch of the DC Universe.  It did what it promised.  It simplified the timelines and relationships between the characters and the worlds.  It wasn’t going to please everyone, but it was more consistent than many of the comics being released.  Dark Nights:  Metal followed Rebirth and feels like it is an attempt to balance the New 52 past and the future of the DC Universe.

The story is basically Batman based.  While the Justice League of America and other superheroes are involved in the storyline, the story keeps circling back to Batman (which isn’t a huge shock with Batman’s positive effect on sales in the DCU).  There are a few more standouts in the storyline, but fans of Batman can enter Dark Nights:  Metal and feel that they are getting an expanded Batman story that just happens to have other heroes.

Dark Nights: Metal #5

The New 52 universe is essentially overwritten by Dark Nights:  Metal in that this Dark Multiverse allows old and new stories to exist.  The New 52 was a simplification of what was a clogged and overlapping universe, but it feels like Dark Nights:  Metal overdid it a bit with the attempts to appease new readers and old readers…it results in a confusing story.  I am always happy to see Dream and the Endless show up however (though they don’t always work when they’ve been placed in traditional stories).

In many ways the whole storyline feels like gobbledygook and techno-jargon.  Comics generally have no limits, but that doesn’t mean that readers can’t be pushed a bit hard and some parts feel incoherent.  Much of the story feels extraneous and that “magic” is the answer for any jumps in logic.  This isn’t always a good solution to a write-around.  It isn’t a horrible story idea, but it takes too much suspension of belief and flow.

Dark Nights:  Metal in the bigger picture might be forgotten over the years (the biggest thing to come out of it was the Batman Who Laughs), but in some ways big “universe” changing events are supposed to be forgotten (Crisis on Infinite Earth was literally forgotten in the DCU).  Series like Zero Hour or Infinite Crisis generally feel like course correctors and Dark Nights:  Metal is another entry in those type of series but also not entirely enjoyable.