Demonic Batmen from the Dark Multiverse invade the regular Multiverse to kill everything because that’s what bad guys do. The Justice League stop them because that’s what heroes do. I mean, they have to stop them. But you know they stop them. Anyway the real struggle is remaining awake while reading this boring drivel! I wonder if a dark Scott Snyder kidnapped the good Scott Snyder and that’s why we’ve been getting utterly shite Snyder comics since the end of Zero Year?
Large chunks of the story are incomprehensible. Batman is being controlled by the evil bat god Barbatos to act as a portal for his demonic Batmen to invade our universe. Ok - how long has Batman been controlled for and in what way does that even work? Why does Barbatos want to invade - what are he and his Batmen looking for? The story seems to hinge on Nth metal; which is… ? I think it’s 8th metal but what does that mean? There’s also a 9th metal - no idea what that is either. How many kinds of metal are there and why should we care? Also, once Batman becomes the portal to the Batmen, what happens to him? Why is he suddenly old - or is that another Batman? Why is Superman captured along with him?
There’s no protagonist but a slew of characters splinter to gather up the remaining Nth metal in the world to defeat Barbatos and co - the Nth metal is the only material that can hurt them apparently - by using them to make music or something? And reading about these characters’ quests is not in the least bit interesting. You know what’s less interesting? Reading Hawkman’s journal on Nth metal. Is anyone ever jazzed about seeing this dumbass - why can’t DC just keep him dead?!
Several characters cameo to no effect before disappearing forever. I won’t spoil one of them but if you’re a Vertigo fan there’s a surprising guest star in this story though his only role is to deliver up heaping globs of tedious exposition. There’s some nonsense about tribes - it’s so muddled.
I barely got through this one. I was never once interested in what was happening, not least because I didn’t know but also because Snyder didn’t give me a reason to be. He seems to have lost the ability to tell a coherent, even half decently-written comic and thinks that non-stop action - the more chaotic, the better - is what people want. And it’s such boring crap to read.
Why isn’t this book a total fail? Greg Capullo’s art. The only benefit to Snyder’s batshit script is the uniquely weird stuff Capullo gets to draw (none of which has any bearing on the plot) like Joker dragons, zombie Robins (who all say “Crow” because birds and subversion?), and a Justice League-themed Megazord! Barbatos looked so damn cool as did the giant Hawkman avatar and the numerous incarnations of Batman, though really I found most pages to look impressive. The Batman Who Laughs’ design though looks like a complete rip-off of Dredd’s Judge Death.
Visuals aside, Dark Nights: Metal is another worthless event comic and the kind of dull convoluted mess that is Snyder’s speciality these days. Hot garbage that’s a chore to read from first page to last - don’t do it!
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