Dark Nights: Metal (2017-2018)

Dark Nights: Metal (2017-2018): written by Scott Snyder with James Tynion IV; illustrated by Greg Capullo, Mikel Janin, Alvaro Martinez, Jonathan Glapion, Raul Fernandez, and others: Metal writer Scott Snyder notes in his foreword that he wanted this Event Series to be a big event like the ones he remembered enjoying in his youth. And Snyder does manage lots of cosmic melodrama, dire moments, and seemingly doomed heroic final stands.

Metal may have the oddest set-up for a cosmic event comic ever. In the months prior to Metal, Batman had been investigating the origins of the weird metals of the DC Universe. That would include the resurrectional Electrum of his enemy The Court of Owls, the strange Nth metal of Hawkman's mace and wings, and even the protean shapeshifting of Plastic Man himself.

Against all advice, Batman -- who has probably been the cause of and solution to all of the Justice League's problems more than any other hero -- pursues his quest to the point of fulfilling an ancient prophecy that he thought he was working to forestall. Hoo ha!

To not give anything away, Batman's successful failure allows a whole lot of bad things to invade the DC Universe. It will be up to Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, and all Earth's other heroes to rescue the multiverse from Batman's mistake. 

Snyder proves to have a strain of cosmic goofiness in him that I was not aware of. Metal evokes the original craziness of DC's 1950's and 1960's Silver Age while also playing at the edges of metafictionality as do the cosmic DC Comics of Grant Morrison. This is a story that is very explicitly about Story. Bringing Daniel, the 'new' Lord of Dreams (well, new since the conclusion of Neil Gaiman's Sandman back in 1995) into the fray serves to make the whole Story emphasis very, very emphatic.

It's not much of a stretch to note that essentially the DC Multiverse comes under fire from a whole lot of misguided pro revisionism and creepy fan fiction. I kid you not. 

It all works, somehow. Greg Capullo, who partnered with Snyder on a lengthy Batman run, channels his days drawing cosmic melodrama on Todd Macfarlane's Spawn to good effect. Things get a bit crowded with characters, not really a problem because that too is a nod to George Perez's meticulous, overcrowded work on the Nexus of all DC Comics Event Series, Crisis On Infinite Earths. Capullo does a nice job with all the punching and the kicking, the weird character designs for the invading villains, and the endless leagues of heroes and villains he must draw. 

Metal certainly isn't perfect. Like most Event Series, a number of story points briefly touched upon in the main narrative require the purchase of other comics in which those points are fleshed out more fully. Things get a little rushed at the end, to the extent that some confusion sets in as to who is doing what where, and what the heck is happening in some of the action sequences. This is not a problem peculiar to Metal. But in all, this is an enjoyable superhero comic that could probably be read by someone who's not fluent in the 80 year history of DC superheroes. Recommended.

Dark Days: The Road to Metal (2018)

Dark Days: The Road to Metal (2018): written by Scott Snyder, James Tynion IV, Grant Morrison, and Tim Seeley; illustrated by Andy Kubert, Jim Lee, John Romita Jr., Doug Mahnke, J.G. Jones, Eddy Barrows, Chris Sprouse, Greg Capullo, and others:

Technically a hybrid collection consisting of the prologue to the Batman/JLA story Dark Days: Metal, that prologue being Dark Days: The Forge and Dark Days: The Casting, along with select stories that supply some background to Dark Days: Metal. In theory, this volume could have been about a gajillion pages long.

Why?

Because Dark Days: Metal attempts to create a Grand Unified Theory for the origin of a wide variety of the strange metals and substances that have been appearing in DC Comics since 1940, from the original Hawkman's anti-gravity Nth Metal to the resurrecting Lazarus Pit of Batman foe Ra's Al Ghul. And dozens more. And the theory brings in the origin of certain types of superpowers, the reason why the Joker never dies, and... well, a lot. 

Dark Days: Metal writer Scott Snyder is definitely better at this sort of continuity epic than most, in part because the prologue is structured as a detective story. Batman tries to unravel the mystery of a variety of signs and portents linked to the mysterious origins of a whole lot of weird stuff in the DC Universe. 

Not to pick a nit too much, but the volume could actually use one of those Who's Who encyclopedia-like stretches in which the various thingies we see and are occasionally informed about are simply listed in terms of name, appearance, that sort of thing. I know that the 'Nth metal' of Hawkman's wings dates back to his first appearance. I'm a little shakier on '8th metal.' I know the Lazarus Pit from 50 years of Batman stories. The Electrum Ring of the Court of Owls? Unh, no.

Or was Hawkman's mace made of Nth metal? See what I mean? 

But as a prologue, this is certainly enjoyable stuff with some nice art and an interesting selection of earlier stories that also seem to have been selected to force you to buy those stories in their entirety, as most are cliffhangers from longer story arcs. 

In order to create even more cliffhangers, I'd recommend a volume consisting of pages or even panels introducing various objects and substances, ripped without context from 80 years of DC Comics. Recommended for continuity hounds. Maybe not so much for people who don't know what Nth Metal, a Lazarus Pit, or Vandal Savage are.

The Last Race

Showcase Presents: The Trial of the Flash, written by Cary Bates and Joey Cavalieri, illustrated by Carmine Infantino, Dennis Jensen, Frank McLaughlin, Klaus Janson and others (1983-85; collected 2011): I can't think of a major superhero who became tragedy's punching bag more than DC's Flash did in the late 1970's and early 1980's. And I'm not sure why this was allowed to happen. But happen it did. His greatest villain killed his wife, and that was just the beginning. A couple of years later that same villain -- 25th-century speedster Professor Zoom, aka The Reverse-Flash -- tried to kill the Flash's fiancee on their wedding day. In the ensuing super-speed struggle, the Flash breaks Zoom's neck, killing him.

And so begins one of the longest storylines ever contained in a single DC title, The Trial of the Flash, which would ultimately span nearly three years and end with the cancellation of that title. It was a story so long that several peripheral issues of the title are omitted here to allow the collection (still the longest in the Showcase reprint series) to avoid requiring two volumes. It's still enough, and maybe too much.

By 1985, DC had decided to reboot its entire line of superheroes, beginning with a massive crossover event/line-wide reboot and purge called Crisis on Infinite Earths. The Flash would play a pivotal but heroically self-sacrificing role in that event. After the Crisis, his nephew Wally West would take over as the Flash in the brave new post-Crisis world. Ultimately, this is The Last Flash Story But One. Sort of. To paraphrase Algis Budrys, in comic books death is always conditional.

The Barry Allen version of the Flash helped usher in DC's Silver Age in the 1950's, as new characters were given the names of cancelled heroes of the 1940's, most prominently the Flash, Green Lantern, the Atom and Hawkman. They apparently lived on a different Earth than their 1940's forebears (in the first appearance of the Barry Allen Flash, Barry is seen reading a comic-book issue of the 1940's Flash from whom, after gaining his super-speed powers, Barry ultimately takes his superhero name).

Writer John Broome and penciller Carmine Infantino made the Flash a zippy, fun, quasi-super-scientific thrill ride over the character's first decade. (In-story 'Flash Facts' gave explanations of certain speed and scientific effects seen in the story, such as how a boomerang works). In The Trial of the Flash, Infantino has returned to the character after nearly 20 years away, staying with him to the end with pencils that are much more stylized and 'loose' than his Silver Age work, but still often possessed of a quality of speed and quickness and time-bending simultaneity that most other Flash artists have lacked.

Longtime Flash writer Cary Bates puts the Scarlet Speedster through quite a wringer here, as various parties try to wipe out the Flash's defense lawyers, kill him before the trial, or just do the usual super-villain thing of mayhem and thievery. It's a surprisingly harrowing and often downbeat ride, though it does have a conditional happy ending -- conditional because the Flash's fate in Crisis will supercede any ending in his own title and, indeed, that fate had already been published before the storyline herein ended.

It would take more than 20 years for the Barry Allen Flash to return from the dead -- several eternities in superhero comics -- and his history has recently been purged and restarted once again. There are some absurdities here, and one major annoyance (that would be the frankly ridiculous mental health issues of Flash's fiancee Fiona), but overall this is a lot of melodramatic fun. It would have been interesting to see what occasional cover inker Klaus Janson (so integral to Frank Miller's art on Daredevil and The Dark Knight Returns) could have done with Infantino's interior pencils -- the Infantino covers Janson inks are terrific -- but the interior art remains solid and sometimes startling. Recommended.

Batman Beyond Forever

Batman R.I.P., written by Grant Morrison, illustrated by Tony Daniel and Lee Garbett (2008): Batman finally faces the Ultimate Enemy he never knew he had...and then, as the last two issues tie into megacrossover event Final Crisis (also scripted by Morrison), he also has to face Darkseid, the DC Universe's amalgam of Satan and Dick Cheney. Seriously, though Darkseid was created in the early 1970's. Tony Daniel and Garbett provide some dandy artwork in the hyperrealistic tradition of great Batman artists that include Neal Adams and Jim Aparo.

But it's the story, bringing to at least partial fruition Morrison's first two years on Batman, that shines -- though it shines a lot more if you read everything over again. Morrison's made himself into the master of zippy high-density superhero comics. Almost everything he does rewards a second reading, indeed, almost demands it at points.

Old Batman stories and characters once cast out of continuity are hereby returned to continuity, often with odd spins. Fifth-dimensional prankster Bat-Mite returns as what appears to be a figment of Batman's imagination, there to warn him about what's coming -- but as Bat-Mite notes when Batman asks him if he really comes from the Fifth Dimension or if he's imaginary, "Imagination is the Fifth Dimension! Geez, some world's greatest detective you turned out to be!"

A bizarre old Batman story about an extraterrestrial Batman holds part of the key to Batman winning now against The Black Glove and its malign, possibly immortal leader Dr. Hurt. So does the Joker. And the Club of Heroes. And Batman's son, Damian. And Nightwing, the original Robin, and the current Robin. But Batman, poisoned, buried, mind under attack, has to carry a lot of the weight himself. And then, if he succeeds, he has to face the origin of all evil -- Darkseid himself -- with the fate of all universes depending on the outcome. And there this story ends, at the moment before Batman faces Darkseid, though later revelations would allow for Batman R.I.P.: The Missing Chapter about two years later, also by Morrison and Daniel, once certain things had been revealed in the due course of other stories. Highly recommended.