Dark Nights: Death Metal - Sequel to Metal is Announced

[Bored at 3:00AM]

Okay, I followed y'all's advice and was selective on which tie ins to read. Read Speed Metal, Robin King, Trinity Crisis and Last Stories along with Death Metal 1-5.

Uh...this is really, really bad. Like....bad

Few qualifiers - I would consider myself a pretty big Scott Snyder fan. His Batman run was excellent. And I liked the original DC Metal series. it didn't make a ton of sense but it was a fun throw things at the wall series and the art was amazing. I will admit I had trouble with his Justice League, I truly hated the ending, but I understand it was setting up this series. But this series makes no goddamned sense. I've been reading comics since i was four years old (I'm 35 now). I think I've read every previous crossover at the Big Two I would like to think I have a decent grasp on the nonsense science, plot devices, crazy twists and energies of superhero stories. But this series has finally broken my brain. I have so many questions:

1. Do people actually like the Batman who Laughs? Is that what I'm missing? He's actually popular? Because he's just the worst. A horrible design (Cennobite meets Spawn meets Venom). But he's like..actually popular?

2. He's so popular that people now like this Robin King thing? With dead bodies being put in Flash rings? This is what DC Comics is now?

3. What did I miss in between the end of Snyder's Justice League and the start of issue one of Death Metal? How did Batman die? What the hell is going on with Flash having Dr. Manhattan powers? And why does the Mobius Chair matter? Why was Wonder Woman working with the evil Batmen? I got that she was being blackmailed with the Amazons at risk but where are they? Why haven't the amazons been killed if she's now trying to fight the evil Batmen?

4. What the hell Crisis/anti-crisis/dark multiverse energy? How are they different? How does it work? Who has access to it?. How is it wielded?

5. Why are there random pages in the main mini that have ugly, hard to see art with just text boxes over it?

6. Where did the Justice Society come from? Why does Jay say he'll never forget Wally "again"? Have we seen him in the Rebirth era and I missed it? Is this from Doomsday Clock? I feel like I would've known if they had reintroduced the Justice Society in the main books but I'll admit I may have missed it. But really, WHERE DID THEY COME FROM?

7. Why is the Speed Force energy being used up? Who is doing that? The Batman who Laughs I assume? Is that in a Flash tie in or we're just supposed to accept that dropped bit of info as part of his machinations?

8. Who is the Dr. Manhattan Bruce Wayne the BWL puts his brain into? Just some other Dr. Manhattan character?

9. What happened to the big Batman/Superman/Wonder Woman robot that debuted after issue 2? In Issue 3 it's just destroyed on page one. We just didn't see what happened with that? That's how you end an issue cliffhanger?

10. Why are they all friends with Harley Quinn? Didn't she kill like...LOTS of children in her New 52 Villain issue that Matt Kindt wrote? Like...a lot? They're just cool with that now because she's popular?

11. How are all the characters getting to all the other earths in Multiverse's End? The Carrier I guess? When did they get that?

12. What exactly happened with Superboy Prime? How did he and Wonder Woman save Batman and SUperman from the Crisis of Infinite Earths or Final Crisis worlds? What Earths were those? I thought they were traveling to the past to those events but those were different Earth's where those events are just happening in perpetuity?

13. Why is Proxima not getting any development if she's the big bad?

14. If Wally West has Doctor Manhattan powers why isn't he more powerful?

15. Why has Wally West been forgiven for killing people in Heroes in Crisis? He's just a hero again?

16. What was that moment in issue five of Death Metal where Batman admits he's dead and Superman says there is no changing him back? What was the reveal there? What were we supposed to take away from that? Why was that played like a big confession scene? It didn't change anything

17. On a structural level, why are some of these tie-ins not part of the main series? What's the advantage of that? Trinity Crisis was an essential part of the story it seemed to me and yet it was its own one-shot at a higher price? Why wasn't the main mini just 8 parts?

I'll freely admit the answers to some of these questions might be in the mini and I missed them, or in tie-ins that I haven't read, but I find this just bewildering.

I. Hated. This. All the spectacular Capullo art in the world couldn't save this nonsense. I am shocked it's not a bigger story what a mess this miniseries is. Is this fallout of Didio's firing, DC changing their 5G plans and Doomsday Clock coming out so late and being such a dud? Is that why this is such a mess?

Were you high as $#!@ when you read it because, if you weren't, you should have been

[Vordan]

That’s a lot of questions:

1. Yes BWLs is popular. His stuff sells well. People here hate him but the people who actually buy comics like him

2. Everyone hates Robin King though, least that I’ve seen.

3. They fought Perpetua and lost. There was a time skip between the end of Snyder’s JL and the first issue of Death Metal. In the last issue of DM we found out more about what happened.

4. This was explained in DM so go reread the issue. Crisis energy is used to do continuity changes via erasing stories, anti-Crisis brings stories back

5. No clue what you mean

6. They came back from Doomsday Clock but were already in an issue of Snyder’s JL

7. Go reread the Speed Metal issue

8. A Dark Multiverse Batman that turned himself into a Dr. Manhattan investigating the Button. Yes it’s dumb.

9. It jobbed and got destroyed

10. She’s popular so she’s an antihero now, same crap as Injustice Harley being everyone’s wacky pal despite nuking Metropolis, murdering multiple people, and getting Nightwing killed

11. Yes the Carrier. The Flash can travel to the Hall of Heroes so him grabbing it isn’t a problem

12. He punched reality. Those were DM Earths BWLs gave to Prime, Darkseid, and AM, this was all explained in the issue

13. Because she isn’t, the BWLs is the Big Bad sadly. Most of Perpetua’s development happened in Snyder JL though

14. He’s only got some left over energy, not all of it

15. Because HiC sucked and it will be retconned away and forgotten

16. That the two of them were screwed and are running on fumes, if they don’t save reality soon both of them will die

17. To take some of the workload off of Capullo

[Hcmarvel]

Vordan - an honest and heartfelt thank you for the answers. My post was kind of a rhetorical cry at the heavens at my frustration and never expected anyone to attempt to answer them so I do really appreciate it.

The answer you gave that I know is accurate but is just infuriating to me is "Crisis energy is used to do continuity changes via erasing stories, anti-Crisis brings stories back"

Why is this a thing that would exist in a universe except for meta reasons? Do they know they're in a comic book? The macguffin in this story is the energy required to make retcons or eliminate retcons? That's what this event is about? How does that make any sense whatsoever unless they all know they are in a comic book universe?

[Vordan]

Vordan - an honest and heartfelt thank you for the answers. My post was kind of a rhetorical cry at the heavens at my frustration and never expected anyone to attempt to answer them so I do really appreciate it.

The answer you gave that I know is accurate but is just infuriating to me is "Crisis energy is used to do continuity changes via erasing stories, anti-Crisis brings stories back"

Why is this a thing that would exist in a universe except for meta reasons? Do they know they're in a comic book? The macguffin in this story is the energy required to make retcons or eliminate retcons? That's what this event is about? How does that make any sense whatsoever unless they all know they are in a comic book universe?

They know their history has been messed with on account of Doomsday Clock. They know it’s possible to mess up the timeline thanks to Flashpoint. They don’t know they’re in a comic book (aside from Harley maybe). The mindset is “the current present is absolutely awful so why don’t we deliberately mess with time ourselves in order to fix things”, similar to how any “time travel” plot such as Endgame worked.

[Jody Garland]

DC has had an increasingly meta cosmology for a long time anywho, going back to when Earth-Prime residents could write the continuity on the fly in the Pre-Crisis days. The metafiction nature of the Crisis/Anti-Crisis Energy plays well with existing stories, like the original Crisis on Infinite Earths where the Crisis Wave was a blank page, something the seldom-remembered Second Crisis in Animal Man ran pretty far with.

That said, there is a more or less valid in story reason for the continuity shenanigans. Perpetua draws power from conflict and has sought to erase periods where there isn't any. It's obviously talking about the reality bending Crises, but in universe it works too.

[Vordan]

Well WW got to do something cool finally.

spoilers:

Looks like she got her own One Million form!

end of spoilers

[j9ac9k]

So, now all the characters remember all their histories and thus all the previous relationships and dynamics are essentially restored regardless of "continuity"? And it never has to be explained again moving forward. Is that what's happening? All this just so writers and readers don't have to nitpick over continuity details and enjoy the story in front of them. Isn't that what every Crisis has been trying to do? Let's just hope good comic books come from this latest cosmic reset.

[king81992]

Looks like our long, incoherent nightmare is almost over. Just one more issue of this nonsense and we can move on to hopefully better things. For all my concerns about Future State, it can't be worse than this.

[kalai]

Why is Darkest Knight suddenly blue and back to Batman Who Laughs design?
He had eyes and is red the last issue?
And Sinestro is still yellow this issue despite the last one-shot, so what's the point of that one-shot?

And all the designs for Multiverse Who Laughs are changed,
last issue we saw a Dark Martian Manhunter, a BatWonderwoman(possibly Kull, the daughter of Bruce and Diana), and a pale Spectre,
and this issue we got no Martian Manhunter, no Wonderbatwoman, no pale Spectre but a Skeleton Spectre,
what's up with that?

The Solar Dark Superman is cool though,
and the three types of enemies seem to be Monsters with huge mouth, monsters with horns and shadow demons?

[Hol]

Haven't read this yet but does Wally West play any part in this issue?

[king81992]

Why is Darkest Knight suddenly blue and back to Batman Who Laughs design?
He had eyes and is red the last issue?
And Sinestro is still yellow this issue despite the last one-shot, so what's the point of that one-shot?

And all the designs for Multiverse Who Laughs are changed,
last issue we saw a Dark Martian Manhunter, a BatWonderwoman(possibly Kull, the daughter of Bruce and Diana), and a pale Spectre,
and this issue we got no Martian Manhunter, no Wonderbatwoman, no pale Spectre but a Skeleton Spectre,
what's up with that?

The Solar Dark Superman is cool though,
and the three types of enemies seem to be Monsters with huge mouth, monsters with horns and shadow demons?

I don't think the writers and artists know, they're just throwing stuff at the wall trying to be deep and fool readers into thinking this debacle makes sense.

[lemonpeace]

Well WW got to do something cool finally.

spoilers:

Looks like she got her own One Million form!

end of spoilers

I interpreted it more as she became the lasso of truth (the Wonder Woman of Truth?) but not that you mention it, it is reminiscent of Superman One Million.

[LordUltimus]

So if all the DC characters remember all their history now, does Harley remember that she's a child murderer?

[Vordan]

Haven't read this yet but does Wally West play any part in this issue?

Nope.

So if all the DC character remember all their history now, does Harley remember that she's a child murderer?

Harley’s always been a murderer and a criminal, as far as I can tell she’s never “forgotten” that, she just gets off scott free.

[kalai]

So I took a look back through the series,
and I think the design change for Darkest Knight is intentional.

In issue-2 he started as a black and white blank stick figure with only two horns, and no costume,
in issue-4, he became supercharged with Crisis energy and grew larger into a cosmic being,
in issue-5, he began to emit blue energy from eyes and mouth, and he began to grow those spikes around his head,
in issue-6, his eyes are gone, and the spikes are really long, and he's got a whole costume similar to Batman Who Laughs,

interesting design choice actually.