Dark Nights: Metal - Dark Knights Rising

Dark Nights Saga #1.1

by Peter J. Tomasi, Joshua Williamson, James Tynion IV

From the pages of DARK NIGHTS: METAL, the seven Dark Knights of the Dark Multiverse take center stage in these one-shots furthere exploring the Nightmare Batmen from Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo’s epic graphic novel saga!

The Red Death. The Devastator. The Merciless. The Murder Machine. The Drowned. The Dawnbreaker. And the Man Who Laughs. These seven Batmen—seven twisted mirror images of the Dark Knight himself—have been unleashed upon Earth-0 and the Justice League with only one thing on their minds: total devastation. How can the World’s Greatest Heroes stop a horde of deadly beings that appear to be powerful nightmare versions of familiar figures?

Written and illustrated by some of the best creators in the industry, this tie-in graphic novel is a must-have for every fan of DARK NIGHTS: METAL and any BATMAN reader! Collects the following special one-shots: BATMAN: THE RED DEATH #1, BATMAN: THE DEVASTATOR #1, BATMAN: THE MERCILESS #1, BATMAN: THE MURDER MACHINE #1, BATMAN: THE DROWNED #1, BATMAN: THE DAWNBREAKER #1, THE BATMAN WHO LAUGHS #1 and
DARK KNIGHTS RISING: THE WILD HUNT #1.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Dc Comics, Batman, Comic Book, Superheroes, Fiction

216 pages, Hardcover

First published June 26, 2018

About the author

Peter J. Tomasi is an American comic book writer, best known for his work for DC Comics, such as Batman And Robin; Superman; Super Sons; Batman: Detective Comics; Green Lantern Corps; and Superman/Wonder Woman; as well as Batman: Arkham Knight; Brightest Day; Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors; Nightwing; Black Adam, and many more.

In the course of his staff career at DC Comics, Tomasi served as a group editor and ushered in new eras for Batman, Green Lantern, and the JSA, along with a host of special projects like Kingdom Come.

He is also the author of the creator-owned titles House Of Penance with artist Ian Bertram; Light Brigade with artist Peter Snejbjerg; The Mighty with Keith Champagne and Chris Samnee; and the critically acclaimed epic graphic novel The Bridge: How The Roeblings Connected Brooklyn To New York, illustrated by Sara DuVall and published by Abrams ComicArts.

In 2018 New York Times best-selling author Tomasi received the Inkpot Award for achievement in comics.

Reviews

[Khurram · Rating 5 out of 5]

“All it takes is one bad day!”

That line from the Joker has never been truer. Over the years Batman/Bruce has had a number of “bad days”. Being the hero he is he has always managed to to fight back. However what happens if on one of those days he.

Decides the to take the Speed force

Is given a Green Lantern ring

Takes the power of a “God”

Loses his humanity to cold hard logic encased in metal

Uses a “Doomsday” weapon

Gains the most evil, sick and twisted sense of humor

These are the variants of the dark hero that live in the Dark Multiverse. A place too evil to exist for a too long until now. Barbatos has given them a purpose destroy Earth 0 and have their worlds “saved”. The nightmare Batmen and woman are here and they plan to stay. Each one is every bit a brilliant, tenacious and single minded as our Batman, but without his moral code. Corrupted to the core. The Dark Knight at his worst times 7.

[Alejandro · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Dark Knights are born!


This metal-foil dustcover hardcover TPB features: “Batman: The Red Death” #1, “Batman: The Murder Machine” #1, “Batman: Dawnbreaker” #1, “Batman: The Drowned” #1, “Batman: The Merciless” #1, “Batman: The Devastator” #1, “The Batman Who Laughs” #1 & “Batman Knights Rising: The Wild Hunt” #1.


THE ROAD TO HELL…

What surprised me more about this origin stories for the “Dark Knights of the Dark Multiverse” was that since they were coming from a parallel dimension zone called “Dark Multiverse”, well, I thought that it would be something like in the classic cartoon episode of Superfriends titled “Universe of Evil” were the heroes were twisted evil counterparts, but surprisingly, those so-called “Dark Multiverse Earths” were quite similar to the usual parallel Earths of the regular multiverse, at least in the seven presented Earths where the Dark Batmen risen…

…where the heroes are good, and even the Batman of each of those Earths were good persons too, and even their “improvements” were conceived out to do good on their own each Earths and save them from stuff that they really considered were wrong…

…but as you well know…

…the road to Hell is paved out of good intentions…

…Batman is merged with The Flash, taking control of the Speed Force twisting it, The Red Death is born!

…Batman develops an A.I. assistant based on his murdered Alfred and tricking the help of Cyborg, becomes The Murder Machine!

…Young Bruce Wayne, right in the moment of his parents’ murder, he got a Green Lantern power ring and using his overwhelming willpower, corrupts the program of the power ring, suffocating the light of the power ring, with his vengeful inner darkness, and The Dawnbreaker risen!

…a female counterpart, Bryce Wayne, in her war against Atlantean forces, she twisted her DNA, becoming an Atlantean-like warrior, The Drowned surges!

…Batman battles side-by-side with Wonder Woman against Ares, God of War, but after the Amazon Princess fell, he didn’t hesitate to become the new god of war, The Merciless!

…Batman is resentful against Superman, since the Kryptonian offered a false sense of hope to his Earth, and after the Last Son of Krypton started to destroy everything, Batman need to actívate his twisted protocol, merging with Doomsday’s DNA, turning into The Devastator!

…Batman reacts against the ultimate evil act of the Joker, but the Clown Prince of Crime has the last card on his sleeve, and The Batman Who Laughs is born! And becoming the primary messenger of a bigger threat to recruit the Dark Knights of the Dark Multiverse…

…since their Earths are doomed to perish, so it’s time leave them and…

…to engage a full invasion against Earth-0 in the regular Multiverse!!!

[Sam Quixote · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oh thank criminey, it’s over! With this fourth and final book, the nightmarishly tedious event Dark Nights: Metal is complete. And speaking of nightmares, here are the origin stories of The Nightmare Batmen. Any of them good? Nope. They add anything to the overall story? Nope. Total waste of time? Yup! And that’s Dark Nights: Metal!

I feel like Scott Snyder came up with some arbitrary dark versions of the Justice League with a Batman slant and didn’t think beyond their appearances. Because these flimsy one-dimensional “characters” are barely more than their visuals and their unimaginative and irrelevant origins are reflective of their overall creative shallowness.

The origins largely go: following some contrived traumatic experience, the Batman of a world decides to take a powerful tchotchke - a power ring (Green Lantern), Ares’ helm (Wonder Woman), the Atlantean trident (Aquaman) - and then they become an evil hybrid of Batman and that character. It’s formulaic and gets really repetitive really soon.

I liked Ethan Van Sciver’s art on Dawnbreaker (the evil Green Lantern Batman) though I hated the lame and cringey new oath rhyme and everything else about that issue. Tony S. Daniel’s art on Devastator (the evil Doomsday Batman) was similarly impressive, and the idea of the AI Alfred turning Bruce into the evil Cyborg Batman, Murder Machine, was interesting. The Red Death (the evil Flash Batman) has a cool name and design.

Everything else though? Just horrible. It’s one badly written, boring comic after another. I’ve already forgotten most of the characters, let alone their origins! The Batman Who Laughs’ origin was the only one I was looking forward to and James Tynion IV flubs it, serving up an utterly underwhelming load of nothing. He may as well have not bothered - in fact that would have been better and more in keeping with the Joker not having a concrete origin story.

Grant Morrison unexpectedly shows up at the end to co-write the Dark Knights Rising: The Wild Hunt issue though, despite a decent Detective Chimp side-story, it was another crap and pointless comic that added nothing to the event.

The Nightmare Batmen, like the rest of Dark Nights: Metal, is rubbish - avoid the whole stinking mess!

[Chad · Rating 4 out of 5]

The origins of the Nightmare Batmen. They are all pretty cool and the art is great. It is a bit of a stretch in that in each of these Batman is an amalgam with another Justice League member. If you like Elseworlds, then you'll dig these. Also included is the Wild Hunt one-shot which I guess is included because they didn't have anywhere else to put it. It really belongs in the main Metal miniseries as it's really issue 5.5 of the mini.

Received a review copy from DC and NetGalley. All thoughts are my own and in no way influenced by the aforementioned.

[Gianfranco Mancini · Rating 4 out of 5]

A tie-in volume far better than the main event, using tne names of heavy-metal songs as titles of single issues was a nice touch, and the stories about the Devastator and the Dawnbreaker Bat-Men were nearly ☆☆☆☆☆ ones for me.



The Bat-Man who Laughs one was creepy and grimdark, but he's still too much a Judge Death's bad imitation to fully appreciate it.



Change my mind.

[James DeSantis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read most of these when they came out but the Wild Hunt came out so much later I didn't get to it. Now to rate them all together?

If want a bigger review on each chapter of the Dark Knights can read my single reviews. Basically these are the origin stories of the evil Batman. We get to find out why Bruce from that Dimension went fucking insane and usually became a killer. Then we get the wildhunt to tie it all up. When we see the final battle about to be all done who will win? And who is the chimp who might save the day?

Good: The dark knights story all vary. Some weaker ones but for the most part there's 5 good-great stories here. The highlights being Red Death and of course Barbatos (joker/Batman mix) and sets up how vicious these bastards could be. All hypes you up for them invading the normal universe.

Bad: The Wild Hunt was a letdown. It was long, kind of boring, and not really all that interesting. I was confused and I'm currently reading Metal to NOT be, but damn...too much shit going on.

Overall it's around a 3.5 for the collecting. Not amazing, but still pretty solid. For the individual stories alone it's worth checking out. A 3.5 out of 5.

[Lukas Sumper · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even before I went into these I liked the idea of "what if" scenarios... just not how they played out here- still the concept is super interesting. So what I thought was missing is more detail... that is mostly personal preference but as these short stories intend to give us background to how the Dark Knights came into existence, it wasn't nearly enough.

Every single one of our knights deserved a whole volume to themselves to explore the story of how they got to that point, instead here you have to do with a couple of pages or sometimes just panels to get into the mindset of why some decisions by the characters were made.

The Characters are really well thought out and they reek of creativity and the great art just adds to the overall picture but it feels like a summary not a story to me.

Really great Book but kind of misses an opportunity to explore more. 4.0 out of 5.0 stars

[Artemy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Only slightly better than the main event, but still an absolute dumpster fire of poorly executed ideas serving some cool-looking art and not much else.

[Malum · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun (and VERY dark) origin stories for the evil Batmen. Each story also ties into the main Dark Nights Metal plot as a whole.

[Lashaan Balasingam · Rating 4 out of 5]

This volume collects all the one shot origin stories for each of the nightmare Batmen who are part of the Dark Nights: Metal event (except Barbatos himself). It also ends with The Wild Hunt, the one story that features the return of the great Grant Morrison, to unveil the intention of these Batmen, and to multiply your questions with key events surrounding Bobo T. Chimpanzee; sounds crazy already, right?

The only real central thread to this volume is the structure of each story as each origin story tackles both the driving principle of these Batmen and what ultimately makes them agree to the Batman Who Laughs to join forces. Most of these stories aren't necessary to understand the main event in itself, but there are some little key details thrown within some of the stories that greatly help connect some dots and that's what really makes this volume so worthwhile.

And to make things even better, these stories that you'd assume to be of lesser quality are actually pretty decent. Some of my favourites are Murder Machine (the pencil art by Riccardo Federici is phenomenal and the father-son touch to the story was well-done), Devastator (Tony S. Daniel does not disappoint with his artwork and the writing is really solid), Batman Who Laughs (this one was obviously going to make it among the top just for the premise behind the character's personality) and The Wild Hunt (I'm to excited by the return of Morrison on this one to want to hate it and it actually pushes the cosmic-level story to new heights in a formidable fashion).

If you've read the original 6-issue event, then you'll most definitely want to pick this one up too. It's complimentary to the event and adds great content worth appreciating. I have to say that the best way to truly appreciate the whole DC event would be read each issue as they were printed out. It might make for a less fluid story, but it will unquestionably answer so many questions that you might have if you were to read the 6-issue event in one shot.



Yours truly,

Lashaan | Blogger and Book Reviewer
Official blog: https://bookidote.com/

[Bookwraiths · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great omnibus. Loved every page of it. Well, most of it anyway.

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

"You see...a Batman who laughs, is a Batman who always wins."

This book compiles all of the one-shot storylines that detail the origins of the seven Nightmare Batmen from the Dark Multiverse, and is essential reading for the Dark Nights: Metal event. These stories become a fascinating look at the variety of ways that Bruce Wayne can be corrupted, wherein each universe, he becomes a twisted amalgamation of Batman and another member of the Justice League, after succumbing to fear, anger, sadness, desperation, or just straight-up madness. These turn into really great character studies of Batman and every writer's work here is impressive. The most indelible character turns out to be Scott Snyder's truly terrifying creation: The Batman Who Laughs, a mad mix of the master-strategist mind and fighting skills of Bruce Wayne, with the absolute lack of moral center found in the Joker. While most of the stories here were pretty enjoyable, the two real standout stories to me were "The Murder Machine" and "The Batman Who Laughs."



Remember, this should be read in tandem with the other stories that tie into the Dark Nights: Metal event. The event and its tie-ins are all pretty deeply connected and should be read in issue order to really follow everything that's happening. Until a comprehensive omnibus comes out, the entire story is compiled in four separate books:


Jump back and forth between each book by following this issue order below:

Dark Days: The Road to Metal
1) Dark Days: The Forge
2) Dark Days: The The Casting

Dark Nights: Metal
3) Dark Nights: Metal #1 - found in Dark Nights: Metal
4) Dark Nights: Metal #2 - found in Dark Nights: Metal
5) Teen Titans #12 - found in Dark Nights: Metal - The Resistance
6) Nightwing #29 - found in Dark Nights: Metal - The Resistance
7) Batman: The Red Death - found in Dark Nights: Metal - Dark Knights Rising
8) Batman: The Murder Machine - found in Dark Nights: Metal - Dark Knights Rising
9) Batman: The Dawnbreaker - found in Dark Nights: Metal - Dark Knights Rising
10) Batman: The Drowned - found in Dark Nights: Metal - Dark Knights Rising
11) Suicide Squad #26 - found in Dark Nights: Metal - The Resistance
12) Green Arrow #32 - found in Dark Nights: Metal - The Resistance
13) Batman: The Merciless - found in Dark Nights: Metal - Dark Knights Rising
14) Dark Nights: Metal #3 - found in Dark Nights: Metal
15) The Flash #33 - found in Dark Nights: Metal - The Resistance
16) Justice League #32 - found in Dark Nights: Metal - The Resistance
17) Batman: The Devastator - found in Dark Nights: Metal - Dark Knights Rising
18) Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps #32 - found in Dark Nights: Metal - The Resistance
19) Justice League #33 - found in Dark Nights: Metal - The Resistance
20) Batman: Lost - found in Dark Nights: Metal - The Resistance
21) Batman: The Batman Who Laughs - found in Dark Nights: Metal - Dark Knights Rising
22) Dark Nights: Metal #4 - found in Dark Nights: Metal
23) Hawkman: Found - found in Dark Nights: Metal - The Resistance
24) Dark Nights: Metal #5 - found in Dark Nights: Metal
25) Dark Knights Rising: The Wild Hunt - found in Dark Nights: Metal - Dark Knights Rising
26) Dark Nights: Metal #6 - found in Dark Nights: Metal

[Chris Lemmerman · Rating 4 out of 5]

[Read as single issues]
The breakout stars of Dark Nights: Metal, the Nightmare Batmen, get their own origin story one-shots, all collected here. Plus, the Justice League battles across the Multiverse in the Wild Hunt one-shot!

Like most anthologies, this one's a little hit or miss, but it's much more consistent than you'd expect despite every issue having a different creative team. Red Death, Dawnbreaker, and Batman Who Laughs easily lead the pack, while Devastator and Drowned are probably the weakest, but they're all solid stories and help flesh out the characters in a short space of time.

The Wild Hunt one-shot's just weird as hell, and I'm surprised it wasn't collected with the rest of the series since it's basically issue #5.5. That said, I thought they'd have put Batman: Lost and Hawkman: Found in the main trade too, so you know.

Not essential to Metal, but nice supplementary material that you'll likely enjoy if you've read the main series.

[Fraser Sherman · Rating 1 out of 5]

My god, that was some grade z crap.
This is part of the Metal crossover in which (I gather) the demon Barbatos leads a legion of evil Batman from parallel worlds against the Justice League. This specific TPB gives us the Dark Knights origins: Batman becomes Flash by stealing the Speed Force so he's fast enough to stop all crime, steals Cyborg's tech to become a Robocop like killing machine, wins Green Lantern's ring by his fearlessness and willpower ... At a couple of panels each, this might have been interesting, but stretched out to one issue each, it's mindlessly repetitive, hitting one note over and over.

[Mohamed Metwally · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of stories from the dark multiverse, from different worlds, and in every world of them, the Batman veers from his heroic path, turning to a villain that gets recruited by the worst Batman of them all, the one who laughs...

While this volume explains how the dark batmen came to be, it can't be read as a prelude since It intercedes with the Metal main story at parts, it is better read after, as a flashback on events

MiM

[Wing Kee]

Wow this collection is fantastic.

World: The art is great, there are a lot of different artists which normally irks me with the different Nightmare Batmen it allows for more creativity and different tone. I love the world building, normally as I said it is filler for me but these characters (and this is a character collection) are interesting and where they end up is the core of the world. The worlds they are from are fascinating.

Story: Normally in an event, the tie in books are fairly meh and don’t really offer anything special to the story and are just excuses to make readers buy more books. However, these characters are interesting, the Nighmare Batmen are visually stunning and therefore intrigues me where they come from and why they became what they became, and this series of issues is exactly that. I want to know, it’s framed very as you would expect but it’s still good. The Wild Hunt issue is also fantastic because it tied into Morrison’s Multiversity and it is so huge for the great world building that it blew my brain. The highlights of course if The Man Who Laughed but I really enjoyed Murder Machine for some odd reason as it really ties into Bruce as a character. Good stuff.

Characters: The character pieces are so good. It’s their origin story and each issue makes sense and is very entertaining. I really liked it and I won’t say more. If you love the Nightmare Batmen and want to know more about where they come from this collection of stories will not disappoint.

It’s really good for a tie in, I’m surprised. Bobo!!!!!!!!

Onward to the next book!

*read individual issues*

[Quentin Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

I haven't read the main Metal series yet, and as a standalone this was very good. We got to see the origin of each of the "evil Batman" characters and as "What If" or "Elseworlds" type stories these were well done, The art was great for the most part and the stories were cool as well. The whole idea is a Justice League made up of Evil Batmen (Evil Flash Batman, Evil Green Lantern Batman, etc.) and a such an idea goes it works. It reads more like a horror story than a superhero tale, but that just made it better.

From what I've read the main series is a let down after this tie in, but I'll keep my hopes up until I actually read it.

[Shadowdenizen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Huh. Color me suprised. This was actually GOOD! Compelling and interesting, and way better than the ACTUAL "Metal" mini-series.

[Ahadi · Rating 5 out of 5]

wow just wow this book is amazing

[Adam Stone · Rating 2 out of 5]

Updated, as part of a read-through of The Batman Who Laughs:

It isn't difficult for me to see why I reacted so strongly to this the first time I read it. It's not a new or interesting concept, but I think I was a little hard on the overall book because of its resolution.

Each of the first seven issues of this collection are fine. While none of the stories wowed me, they also weren't terrible. They were seven different origin stories for Bruce (or Bryce) Waynses/Batmen who decided to turn on their worlds' heroes in the misguided hopes of saving a different world where they could survive. Each sloppily conceived story is well told by some of the best writers willing to work for DC.

What makes this collection a mess is the final issue, co-written by the eight writers of the previous seven issues. It's awful. The art is beautiful and striking, as it is in absolutely every issue. The story reeks of miscommunication between writers. There is no logic to the plot, no real direction to the story other than OMG SOON BAD THINGS WILL HAPPEN! It's difficult to say if the characters act
with any sensical motivations because every character is just a series of bad decisions pointed at a cliffhanger, except Detective Chimp who is used merely as a barometer for how bad things are going around him.

This is a Very 90s idea being written by, again, some of DC's most capable writers. But I'm excited to see what happens with the following series, which has just one writer who will, hopefully, have a more focused sense of narrative.

**********Original Review***********


As an art book, this series is ok. There's a variety of styles, some cool costume designs, and excellent panel layouts.

The writing is terrible.

Every issue is An Evil Batman gains a power of another Justice Leaguer so that he can Evil. What sort of evil does he have plan? What does the World's Greatest Detective want? Ehhhh. Power? Maybe.

There is zero character development, no real explanation for the various Nightmare Batmen (apart from "Dark Matter make bat evil"), no twists in the story. This would have been a three star single issue, maybe four if they managed to cram in all these art styles.

Mostly, this is a seven issue series with less than seven pages worth of ideas in it.

If you love unnecessarily dark Elseworld Batman books, I imagine this one would be okay. Mostly, I'd recommend this for people who like to see how Batman would look with different uniforms and powers. Or, again, fans of stories where the art style changes frequently, and is almost across the board great. Fans of storytelling, character development, or good Batman stories will want to stay far away from this.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received this from Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.

Wow, this was much better than the main Metal volume. Very cool take on the Dark Knights' origins, and how they were called to attack the Multiverse. My favorites were The Drowned (Batwoman from an underwater Gotham City) and The Devastator (part Batman, all Doomsday). I sure would like to see more of these in the future!

[Owen Townend · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been away from Batman comics for a while. Greater distractions appeared in my life and, besides, I wasn't a huge fan of The Court of Owls storyline. It seemed that every year, a new ancient secret society rose up out of the depths of Gotham City to dwarf the Caped Crusader. Odd as it may seem, such things got boring.

Then along came The Batman Who Laughs. He has a striking appearance and a nightmarish aura that was too tantalising to ignore. So I picked up Dark Nights: Metal: Dark Knights Rising to read his origin.

I wasn't expecting the other twisted Batmen or woman. As it turned out, I found their individual origins much more interesting than The Batman Who Laughs. There is The Red Death, a Batman who steals Flash's access to the Speed Force so he can stop every criminal instantly. There is The Murder Machine, a Batman Cyborg corrupted by an Alfred Pennyworth virus. There is The Drowned, a self-mutated Batwoman grieving the meta murder of her lover Sylvester Kyle.

If there's one thing I love about superhero comics, it is how they can take a well-known character with their inevitable origin story and find ways to make it all seem fresh. Granted this collection features 'What If' stories based on pre-existing DC Comics heroes and villains, but each story in this collection reveals a new, peculiar way that Bruce/Bryce Wayne could be corrupted.

That being said, I'm not feeling an impetus to read more of the Dark Nights saga. When it comes to popular comic series like Batman, you know he will ultimately overcome these pronounced edgy threats and then there is a very strong chance that another writer will just retcon them later. Not only this, if the final story Dark Knights Rising: The Wild Hunt: Riders on the Razor is anything to go by, I suspect I'll lose my way in the narrative almost immediately.

Regardless I did enjoy learning a little more about The Batman Who Laughs and his batsh*t cohort. I'm grateful that someone collected these particular comics in one volume for tentative toe-dippers like me. If you're curious about where Batman comics are these days but don't want to commit to a full multiversal event, I recommend picking up Dark Nights: Metal: Dark Knights Rising.

[Javier Lárraga · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sin duda alguna dentro del evento DARK NIGHTS METAL este volumen se ha convertido en mi favorito y me atrevo a decir que aunque este tomo antológico forma parte de una trilogía que se lee de manera simultánea y que tiene vistazos del evento principal, este tomo perfectamente se podría leer aparte si te interesa descubrir el origen de EL BATMAN QUE RIE Y LOS CABALLEROS OSCUROS.

DARK KNIGHTS RISING contiene 8 cómics recopilados, uno por cada Batman alternativo que cruzó la línea y se volvió malvado y uno adicional que forma parte del evento principal de METAL, pero el plato fuerte son las historias individuales de los caballeros oscuros.

Me gusta que Batman sea el tipo bueno pero en esta ocasión tuve un placer culposo al ver las historias de origen de estos 7 grandes villanos y ver como Bruce utiliza su ingenio y su malicia para someter a personajes que estan al nivel de semidioses aunque el sea solo un humano común y corriente, las 7 historias contienen desde drama y tragedia hasta historias de venganza y romance que bien podrían haberle ocurrido al verdadero Batman, todas las anécdotas me gustaron y se me hicieron espectaculares destacando los números dedicados a DAWNBREAKER, MURDER MACHINE y (por supuesto) THE BATMAN WHO LAUGHTS.

Creo que ya no es necesario mencionarlo pero por si las dudas aclaro que este volumen es parte del evento de DARK KNIGHTS METAL y que para entender la historia completa y saber que es lo que estos seres de pesadilla van a desatar en el multiverso y el porque alguien los esta reuniendo, es prioritario conseguir los 3 libros que conforman la serie porque de otra manera solo te quedaras con los inicios de estos personajes como villanos así que la advertencia esta puesta.

Y el arte, pues lo mismo que dije en las demás reseñas: espectacular y a este volumen en especial le viene genial que trajeran a un artista diferente para la historia de cada caballero oscuro así que en conclusión DARK NIGHTS METAL: DARK KNIGHTS RISING (vaya título más largo) me ha encantado y es lo que más disfrute del evento, lo recomiendo bastante.

[Ma'Belle · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm pretty sure this collection of issues by various writers and artists is the height of Scott Snyder's Dark Knights: Metal event. Snyder's own main Metal storylines are a hot mess, but when others were given the chance to write short origin stories for each of the evil versions of Batman, they managed to shine a light in the Dark.

[Jesse A · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a big fan of one-shot elseworld/multiverse stuff so this was right up my alley and for the most part it really delivered.

[Shaya · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Stars

[Alex Sarll]

"Stop me if you've heard this one... Worlds will live, worlds will die... but imagine if your every fear, each bad decision, gave birth to a malformed world of nightmare. A world that shouldn't exist, and desperate as it fights to survive in the light of the true multiverse far above... These worlds are doomed to rot apart, and die, because they are wrong at their core."
But enough about the origin of our own timeline. The main Metal event saw the DC Universe attacked by a team of nightmare Batmen from the dark multiverse, but while their looks made clear that each was a Batman* with the powers of another hero or villain, none of them really got established as a character beyond that. With the obvious exception of their Batman-as-Joker leader, they were whatever you call the superhero crossover equivalent of room meat. In the stories collected here, we get to know them. The most obvious problem with this: as with the last DC event I dared touch, Convergence, this means the stories are limited by having an identical structure, and not much space to make any variations distinctive. Bruce has a bad time, cracks up, nicks someone's powers; that Earth dies; the Batman who Laughs turns up with an invite; they face the main DCU version of the character they robbed; repeat. Even with some of DC's best current writers (and Frank Tieri) working on this, that was always going to get samey. Problem the second: most of the stories hinge on that vile canard whereby any hero who deviates in the least from consensus morality, even if it's just by killing murderous supervillains who richly deserve it, will within days progress to killing their allies and such because SLIPPERY SLOPE. This is especially galling in the Dawnbreaker (ie Green Lantern Batman) issue, because that one starts beautifully, with the young Bruce, orphaned mere moments ago, being picked by the ring as having the ability to overcome great fear – and promptly using his prodigious willpower to push past the ring's prohibition on lethal force, and fuck Joe Chill right up. YES. But wouldn't you know it, a couple of pages later he's eviscerated Jim Gordon, which is clearly bullshit, even for an angry kid Bruce. This icky sense of moral equivalence goes deeper, though. The whole idea of the dark multiverse is that whenever something good happens up above, it casts a shadow down below, worlds where everything fails, Earths doomed to die. And doesn't that serve to undermine the whole point of the heroes? It's a horrible enough idea applied to our own world, where the notion of an alternate reality cancelling out the import of one's every choice is for me the most disturbing aspect of the many-worlds interpretation. But the whole point of superheroes is that they're meant to be better than us, aspirational symbols – and with this conceit, you strip that away, suggest they might as well just stay in bed. Particularly when so many of the stories climax in having the heroes proper snatched away from confrontations with their dark mirrors, leaving their cities and friends to torment and destruction. Yes, some of these images are arresting (especially Detroit beset by nanotech Alfreds), but overall it hammers home one wearying sentiment: OK, so what are superheroes for, then? Now, not being the sort of simpleton who kicks off on the Internet because Captain America said 'Hail Hydra' and I don't understand how cliffhangers or indeed drama in general work, I do get that this is part of the point of Metal. That the story is intended to ask and then answer that very question, to restate the value of the heroes by testing them. But at this point it feels like DC has been asking that same question over and over for most of the past two decades, ever since Geoff Johns started bringing back old characters just to brutalise them and then have them rip other harmless old characters apart while screaming 'Why can't comics be fun anymore?' Well...mainly because you won't let them be, mate. I get that you're in some kind of weird Oedipal thing with Alan Moore, but at this point you've been writing dark, revisionist superhero comics for far longer than he ever did, to the extent that your meta commentary on the form is now the chief vector for the issue about which you're ostensibly complaining. And Metal is a perfect example of how that has metastasised, and exactly like the weird infections and dark energy the nightmare Batmen bring from the dark multiverse, has turned other writers like Snyder and Tynion and Humphries – all of whom can do good work, elsewhere – into more vectors of sorrow. More ways to turn a dream of a bigger, better, brighter world into something even worse than our own.

*Yes, OK, The Drowned was a woman, the Bryce Wayne of a gender-switched universe. Because it's important to have representation, even if that means making the Aquaman of a team of evil Batmen into 'the girl one'. Just imagine, if these were 1980s action figures, how much lower the production run would be for The Girl One Who Is Also Aquaman.

[Liz (Quirky Cat) · Rating 4 out of 5]

3 1/2 Stars.

If you’ve been following the hype behind Dark Nights then you’ve surely heard of this series by now. It gives the short version of the origin stories behind the seven most iconic Batman alternates in the series. They’re beautifully drawn, creepy, and downright corrupt.



Before I had even had a chance to read the Dark Nights: Metal story I had heard about the Batman Who Laughs. At the time I was interested, but when I finally got to reading the series I was confused. The character played an important role, to be sure, but he wasn’t nearly as big as I expected. Then I learned that there was even more to it than that one series! Here is the origin story for these Batmans, and it’s here I learned why people really were going crazy for the guy (though in truth I mostly understood it based on his design alone).
As I said above, this volume includes the origin story of seven of the alternate Batmans. These ones are the most iconic ones shown (I believe there were many more than seven shown in the original series, but I also never took the time to count and be sure of that). Included are the Batman Who Laughs (obviously; he’s been driven mad by the Joker’s final toxin), The Drowned (my personal favorite, a female Batman who has modified her body to take on the power of the Atlanteans), The Red Death (a thief who went after the Flash), The Dawnbreaker (a Green Lantern who found a way around the rules), The Murder Machine (cyborg Batman), The Merciless (Batman with the helmet of Ares; one of the versions that loved and lost Diana), and The Devastator (Doomsday/Batman blend with a special hatred for Superman).
I’m sure we all have our own favorite evil Batman character, and there’s plenty to choose from. Personally while I did like the imagery used for the Batman Who Laughs, he wasn’t my favorite. I found myself most drawn to The Drowned and her story. For one thing she’s strikingly designed. For another I simply liked her way of speech and the trials she went through.
I was also surprisingly fond of The Dawnbreaker. I think because his origin story (up until a certain point) was the most similar to our beloved Bruce Wayne’s (the one from the primary universe that is). He lost his parents the same way, but instead found himself so determined that a Green Lantern ring found him. He then used his willpower to twist the ring to do his bidding, allowing him to break all the laws that the corps abides by. In a way it’s kind of fun to theorize about whether that would have happened in any other universe as well, or just the one.
I wasn’t a big fan of the final story included in this volume, Dark Knights Rising: The Wild Hunt #1. It felt silly in comparison, which was actually really jarring considering the disturbing nature of some of the backstories (did I mention that Batman Who Laughs came last, and therefore was literally right before this one? It was weird). I probably would have liked it more if not for that juxtaposition, but it is what it is.
I think this leaves me with only one Dark Metal plot left, not counting the series that are being affected by what has happened. I’m really glad I’ve taken the time to read and understand everything that’s happening though. I’m already seeing the effects of these plots seeping into other series, like Wonder Woman. I would probably be a lot more confused otherwise.


For more reviews, check out Quirky Cat's Fat Stacks

[Britt Halliburton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not so good.

Although it manages to make these evil Batmen have a little more character to them rather than being 'generic, evil henchmen' as they were in the main Dark Nights: Metal book, it doesn't do much. Each one had something bad happen that pushed them to become evil. Some are a little more believable than the others. Batman-Doomsday makes sense, trying to save the world from something as powerful as Superman, and Bryce was interesting, who also tried to save the world. Others are less believable or compelling as a reason to go evil. The Ares-Batman is boring, but at least it's the one that is most believable with the corrupting influence of the helmet.

What I don't get is why did they all have to be mash-ups at all? It just screams of laziness and a lack of creativity. The Tales from the Dark Multiverse handled this subject matter much, much better than this. The fall of the characters in that book worked much better and were more believable in their respective contexts. Here it's just a series of lame-duck excuses and a mash-up of characters.

It adds just a little to the main series as these backstories do not affect either the main Metal volume or the Resistance volume. In Resistance the Batmen actually get more character through their 'Batcaves' than they do from this volume, frankly.

Also, someone needs to have a word with the person that collects these volumes. It reprints "Riders on the Razor", which was included in Dark Nights: Metal. Who thought readers were going to get this volume but not the main one? While it does fit, as it uses the evil Batmen, it also has a lot of content unrelated to the Batmen, including a backstory of Detective Chimp, that would just be confusing without the main book (hell it was confusing there!) anyway! Bad editorial decision that was probably there for padding.

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the best Metal-related volume I've read yet, largely because each individual issue charts the origin story for each of the dark Batmen featured in the main storyline. Not all of them are evil (or started out that way). Some were corrupted by too much power. One went over the edge trying to stop an evil version of Superman on his version of Earth. They've all been sucked in by the Joker-Batman, who has promised them a world where they can be heroes again, and that's all they really want (or is it?), even at the expense of thousands (millions?) of lives. The Wild Hunt story in the last issue was kind of strange--seemed to come from out of nowhere and didn't have a lot of backstory or explanation. Great artwork throughout this volume. My only question is why are all the evil Batmen some sort of Batman crossed with either a DC villain or hero? There's a Batman-Flash, a Batwoman-Aquaman, Batman-Green Lantern, etc. No entirely original evil Batman (at least so far).