Dark Nights: Death Metal - Sequel to Metal is Announced

[Bored at 3:00AM]

With you 100%. Batman Universe was a breath of fresh air, and while some modern writers still make him work for me, I'm afraid the Batman I enjoyed most is a thing of the past. Bronze Age Bruce Wayne? Rad. Even some of the 80s/90s stuff was pretty good Batman. After JLA, though, it just started a downward tailspin he's yet to pull out of.

Given the popularity of the character, I don't see DC switching things up any time soon. The fact that LEGO Batman was wildly popular, with few seeming to realize what that incarnation was actually saying, certainly doesn't bode well for change either.

[Robanker]

Given the popularity of the character, I don't see DC switching things up any time soon. The fact that LEGO Batman was wildly popular, with few seeming to realize what that incarnation was actually saying, certainly doesn't bode well for change either.

Oh, it certainly won't. The Lowest Common Denominator loves Batgod and lap it up so it's here to stay. I don't blame a multimedia organization for giving the customer what they want when it's proven they want Batman to both be "just a man" and literally unbeatable with infinite resources and a loner with a new sidekick every issue of Tynion's run.

[Frontier]

Flash's problems in Central City don't tend to rack up the body counts that Batman's merry-go-round of Gotham City massacres tend to. And Superman is regularly calling in help whenever a situation gets larger than he can handle. The recent Leviathan/Legion of Doom storyarc being a good example. Meanwhile, we have story after story in which Gotham City is regularly the scene of catastrophic events and no one outside the Bat-family is anywhere to be seen.

To be honest it feels like more and more people have been dying in Central City lately.

I feel like Leviathan and the Legion of Doom are different because they're not hero-exclusive.

Again, this could be solved by making the Batman books more self-contained in their own little pocket universe where Gotham City is the literal pit of hell, forever being taken over by criminals, destroyed by earthquakes and catastrophes, and regularly terrorized by mass murderers and sociopathic street gangs like its Dark Knight Returns in perpetuity. If that's all the Batman creators are capable of giving us, just lean into it, but the current status quo makes both Batman and the rest of the DCU look terrible.

I mean, that's kind of the common consensus of the kind of city Gotham is, though we've seen writers like Snyder and even Tynion come up with reasons why people still live in a place like Gotham and why people like Batman still inspire hope despite how bad things get. The Batfamily is the only reason the city doesn't descend into Dark Knight Returns territory.

Again, it's one of the things about Death Metal that I think works the best. The idea that the juvenile nihilistic ethos of the modern Batman comics have completely taken over and left the DCU in ruins is a pretty apt commentary.

I feel like it's just basically summing up all the problems with modern Joker.

Exactly. The moment Snyder decided to try to be Morrison, his Batman stuff stopped working for me. Granted, the sales of his Batman stuff clearly show I was in the minority there. Same deal with the Batman Who Laughs. As much as you and I (and plenty of others) may find the character tiresome and one-note, the character is obviously popular based upon how much merch he sells.

I guess the question becomes when Snyder stops being Snyder and starts trying to be Morrison, because it seems like they have an appreciation for the same kinds of storylines.

[Vordan]

Oh that’s easy Frontier. It’s when Snyder went from Court of Owls to Zero Year. Court of Owls, while very much in the same vein as Morrison’s stuff, was when Snyder was still finding himself as a writer. He and Capullo fought with each other and Snyder was still bringing his horror sensibilities to the book. Death of the Family likewise had a very strong horror vibe to it.

But Zero Year is when he started to work more in sync with Capullo and when he basically abandoned his horror roots to start doing big bombastic Morrison-esque superheroics. Instead of the Mob now Batman starts out fighting the Red Hood Gang and Dr. Death, and a hurricane, and the Riddler turns Gotham into a Hunger Games dystopia while Batman rides around on his motorcycle Mad Max style. It’s where the never ending escalation begins.

[Hypo]

https://twitter.com/InakiMiranda/sta...43093539631107

[Frontier]

https://twitter.com/InakiMiranda/sta...43093539631107

Well, okay then...

[Vordan]

https://twitter.com/InakiMiranda/sta...43093539631107

I’m kinda intrigued by this, looks like we’re finally seeing everyone else go up against their Dark Multiverse counterparts.

[sifighter]

The War of the Multiverses was okay, I think I honestly preferred Last Stories and Secret Origin though. Nothing against this and I liked some of the characters it focused on and those that appeared to battle but I would almost say it’s stories being mainly about fighting off the dark multiverse worlds is not as compelling as what do the heroes do in their last hours.

Also the Penguin story was weird, I’m not entirely sure how that happened but it did.

[Vordan]

It was meh. You can skip this one, doesn’t feel essential to the story at all.

[Clark_Kent]

I read this one digitally...was it out of order? After the first couple pages it says "Begin Interlude", and the very next page was "End Interlude" with TBWL asking WW about what she had just seen...seems like all of the vignettes should have been the interlude there, especially with the "see the conclusion in DM 7!" coming around page 6 lol I hope the print copies are correct, because I have to assume the digital copy is messed up. Otherwise, it's a crazy way to put the book together.

[lemonpeace]

I really liked this. This is exactly what i wanted them to do in the Justice/Doom War arc; just moving around the battlefield, seeing everyone in the mix, fighting the good fight. I like a good "last days before the end" sappy character moment, that's great, but this is superhero fiction. i don't read comics for the prose, if it's a war then lets see some of the shonen action. The Penguin story is weird as hell and i love that noise! this has probably been my favorite week of releases holistically this whole year.

[Johnny]

Was this the first post-Rebirth acknowledgment that Alan and Hal know each other. Though since "everything happened" I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

[sifighter]

Was this the first post-Rebirth acknowledgment that Alan and Hal know each other. Though since "everything happened" I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

I think so, especially since the JSA haven’t exactly gotten the most acknowledgments for being back outside of Jay Garrick, Wildcat training a young Bruce, and Jakeem Thunder’s teen titans appearance.

[lefthanded]

Tales of Multiverse was bad. Entirely meaningless, as the protagonist has no personality aside from being revealed to be a character we know. His power up at the end is meaningless as well, as there is no future regular purpose for the character in this mode aside from the random cosmic level event.

War of the Multiverse was merely okay. I wanted it to be better, but it felt very paint-by-numbers. Batman-who-laughs monologueing at Wonder Woman highlights how there is nothing going for the character other than costume design. It didn't sound like a Jokerized-Batman nor a Batmanized-Joker. You could have had Lex Luthor or Gorilla Grodd delivering the same lines, and it wouldn't have sounded any different. Even within issue, it contrasts with the dialogue in the Batman focused story, as the villain sounds a bit more identifiable and formidable.

The Superman focused story was enjoyable - highlights how the evil Superman are in strong contrast to Superman's core identity, as opposed to just being nightmare versions for the sake of being nightmare versions.

[silverlantern]

So ready for this era of DC to end next week and Snyder to step away from the main line for a long , long time.