I’ve been hearing for months that I missed out by not reading DC’s Dark Nights: Metal, which means I get to play catchup. The first volume, in comic shops today and everywhere next week, is the official jumping on point for the saga, so I’m jumping on. See below for a review of Dark Days: the Road to Metal.
(It probably goes without saying, but this review is more of a recap for anyone who hasn’t read it yet. Anyone who’s already read it is going to have a way better handle on what’s going on than I do.)
The first two issues of the book are “The Forge” and “The Casting,” the kickoff for the Dark Nights: Metal saga.
The art’s gorgeous. We have several inkers (Scott Williams, Klaus Janson, and Danny Miki) but the pencils are extremely recognizable: Jim Lee at his best and most familiar, morphing into Andy Kubert, morphing into John Romita Jr, and then back to Jim Lee. All three are artists I fell in love with over at Marvel in the 90s, and after all these years it’s still a kick to see them over on the DC side.
I hear sometimes that Romita Jr. is a bit of an acquired taste (not everybody is into the square lips) but I think his work here looks great. There’s one panel I’d love to have framed and on my wall, a shot of Batman and Wonder Woman from behind, standing at the door of an abandoned lab. It’s lovely and intricate but somehow straightforward, two heroes quietly looking up at the ruins. Really beautiful work.
There’s also some excellent colors by Alex Sinclair and Jeremiah Skipper: I’m not sure which one is responsible for the beautiful gradients and warm tones in the scenes where light is shining out of the darkness, but that was my favorite.
Story wise, it’s pretty wordy. This is the intro to a major saga, so it’s very heavy on the talking. Pages and pages of exposition in text blocks, which gets to be a wade halfway through the second issue. (To be fair, if I kept up with DC storylines better it probably wouldn’t seem so overwhelming.) Plus there’s a lot of those “that can’t be what I think it is” and “Batman what have you gotten yourself into?” lines where we the reader can’t see what they’re talking about, which can get annoying the third or fourth time it happens.
Still, there’s a lot of good information there, tidbits of things that are important later on, and callbacks to previous stories. There’s ties to the Court of Owls, the history of Hawkman and Hawkgirl, and the multiverse. Plus Snyder and Tynion are great with dialogue when they’re not having to dole out too much exposition. I love how snarky Hal gets with Duke.
“Glad to see Batman’s still recruiting teenagers…”
“…if you don’t get out of here right now, you’re going to regret it.”
“Aw, you’re doing the voice and everything.”
After the first two issues we get a selection of classic DC stories that lead into the Dark Nights: Metal saga. Or rather, stories that the writers have taken pieces from to create the mythos behind Dark Nights.
First are two issues from Final Crisis, and it’s Grant Morrison at his most complex and wordy. Even looking up the wikipedia recaps I run into a wall of words. And I like words. Mostly I got an impression of the multiverse, anti-life, Mandrakk, the death of Batman, and the Miracle Machine. (Also Obama as Superman. How could I have forgotten that?!)
The next issue is The Return of Bruce Wayne, also Grant Morrison, but much more fun: following Final Crisis, Batman is dropped into a different time stream, struggling with memory loss and helping the good savages fight the bad savages. Chris Spouse and Karl Story’s art is very fun, both for Batman in a cave-bear bat suit, and the silhouettes of the Justice League hanging in the air while they try to track Bruce down.
After that is Snyder’s Endgame, which is a lot more familiar to me, since it’s from 2014 when I was reading Batman more regularly: this is where we start to get an idea of who Duke is, and see Joker’s actions after Death of the Family. Most importantly, it’s where we get references to Dionesium, the strange metal Batman’s investigating in the first two issues of the book. This issue is also Greg Capullo’s work, probably my favorite Batman artist to date.
After that, Nightwing #17 gives us a look at Deathwing, and also Nightwing’s visions of the multiverse, the Dollotron, and Professor Pyg.
Finally a very quick selection from Detective Comics #950, which I’m sure was included because of Tim confronting Batman with the question “Why are you preparing for war?”
(Plus a map of the Multiverse, with a lot of words that I’ve read but haven’t memorized.)
Throughout the book we’re bombarded with so much information that I think your best bet is to just keep reading and try to absorb the general idea: Batman is poking around into the origins of Dionesium, and the warning signs are everywhere that this is is a Very Bad Idea, but he’s going to keep poking because He Has To Know, and you can be sure it Won’t End Well. Honestly, if the Joker is trying to save you from yourself, exactly how screwed are you?
Review copy courtesy of DC. Dark Days: The Road To Metal is available now.