Dark Nights Metal #5 - A Review

The Justice League continues to face the approaching evil of The Dark Multiverse. There must be a source of hope in all of the nightmares they face... but what if there is not?


Unfortunately, the concept behind Dark Nights Metal has started to wear a bit thin. In attempting to think of a way to summarize the events of this issue, it occurred to me that there really wasn't any way to do so. Describing this issue requires giving away the entire story, piece by piece. Worse yet, even after all of these events occur, nothing really seems to have changed. This issue is filler, plain and simple.

That being said, it is gorgeous, well-written filler. The artwork by Capullo and Glapion and Plascencia is as amazing as ever and Scott Snyder's concept informs a lot of interesting ideas. Ultimately and unfortunately, this issue is nothing more than spectacle. A fantastic spectacle, true, but still more flash than substance.

The Final Analysis: 6 out of 10.  As a concept, it's brilliant, but nothing really happens.

Dark Knights: Metal #4 - A Review

As Batman and Superman are pulled from The Dark Multiverse and into The Dreaming so that Dream, once called Daniel, may inform them of the stakes for which they fight, the rest of The Justice League work to assemble as much of the potent Nth Metal as possible for the battle to come.



Dark Nights: Metal is beginning to lose steam in its fourth chapter, more concerned with explaining its story than offering up action. This wouldn't be so bad if the exposition didn't require a working knowledge of DC Comics cosmology. Those who haven't read Neil Gaiman's The Sandman, for instance, will be completely lost as to the significance of Dream showing up and the mention of Lucien's Library.

The artwork by Greg Capullo and Jonathan Glapion remains fantastic, with some truly epic and horrific scenes on display here. The pretty pictures are only a distraction from an increasingly stretched-out story, sadly. While I'm still enjoying the ride, I wonder if the ending will prove worth it.

The Final Analysis: 6 out of 10.

Justice League #33 - A Review

With the rest of The Justice League in the clutches of The Dark Knights, if falls to Cyborg to save the day. Yet doing so many require Victor sacrificing what remains of his humanity to fully empower the Motherbox that powers his cybernetics. Will he make the ultimate sacrifice for the sake of all reality?


Despite being largely devoted to explaining Cyborg's powers and setting up the next part of the Dark Nights Metal event, Justice League #33 is an enjoyable little book. Teen Titans fans will be glad to know the story also reaffirms the friendship between Cyborg and Raven (something missing in the Rebirth reality) and there's a sequence I'm fairly certain is a nod to one of the better episodes of Teen Titans Go!  The artwork is equally brilliant, with the colors of Arif Prianto and Jeromy Cox giving the pencils and inks of Tyler Kirkham and Mikel Janin an almost painted appearance at times.

The Final Analysis: 7 out of 10. It would have been higher if they'd confirmed the song Cyborg plays to inspire himself is "The Night Begins To Shine"

Batman Who Laughs #1 - A Review

Now we come to the last of the Dark Knights. Their leader. The Bruce Wayne who gave himself over to madness after his final battle with The Joker created a monster far worse than The Clown Prince Of Crime... The Batman Who Laughs!


It's no surprise that this final one-shot detailing the origins of The Batman Who Laughs should involve The Joker's victory over Batman even in defeat. What is astonishing is how utterly creepy James Tynion IV' makes this comic despite the audience having some vague idea of what is coming. Riley Rossmo - Tynion's artist on Constantine, The Hellblazer - proves the perfect partner in bringing this horrific tale to life, his skewed yet lively art being a good fit for the tale at hand, particularly once Ivan Plascencia's colors are added into the mix.

The Final Analysis: 10 out of 10.

Batman: Lost #1

Lost in The Dark Multiverse, Bruce Wayne finds himself experiencing story after story, world after world where things are wrong. He must find his way back to his reality but can The Dark Knight deduce what is truly real?


With multiple writers, artists and inkers, there is very little cohesion between the various bits and bobs that make up Batman: Lost. Yet that confusion, sown as an elderly Bruce Wayne reads stories of his adventures to his granddaughter, proves the unifying x-factor as the creative teams go hog-wild on presenting us with various visions of Batman. It has the feel of a fever dream but it captures that sensation perfectly.

The Final Analysis: 9 out of 10. An interesting trip that must be experienced for one's self.

Hal Jordan And The Green Lantern Corps #32 - A Review

Trapped in a dungeon built of his worst nightmares with the villainous alternate-Earth Bruce Wayne known as The Dawnbreaker, Hal Jordan is in for the fight of his life. The Dawnbreaker has a power ring of his own - a corrupted Green Lantern ring that absorbs the light around it. It won't be easy but if there's one man who knows something about beating enemies he has no business even facing, it is Hal Jordan!



Hal Jordan And The Green Lantern Corps #32 is a pretty piece of filler. Nothing really happens to advance the plot of Dark Nights Metal but Robert Vendetti writes one hell of a fight scene. It's gratifying to see Hal using his brain in battle and the "strobe mode" Hal uses to counter Dawnbreaker is a brilliant conceit. It also leads to a visually interesting spectacle from artists Liam Sharp and Ethan Van Sciver and colorist Jason Wright, as the artwork cuts between pitch blackness and bright flashes of green-tinged action.

The Final Analysis: 8 out of 10. Not much of a plot, but a great action-packed issue with fantastic art!

Justice League #32 - A Review

Batman is lost. Superman is trapped in another universe. And now The Dark Knights have used Cyborg to trap what remains of The Justice League in "Bat Caves" designed to drag them down before their inevitable deaths!




Justice League #32 is a thrilling piece of filler. There's not much to be found here beyond non-stop action but Robert Venditti's script presents that action well enough as The Justice League faces down their counterparts in The Dark Knights.

Liam Sharp's artwork is as finely detailed and well-presented as one would expect based on his recent work on Wonder Woman. Adam Brown does an equally impressive job on the color art. In terms of plotting relative to the rest of Dark Nights Metal, this issue may not be essential, but it is enjoyable for what it is.

The Final Analysis: 6 out 10.

Batman: The Devastator #1 - A Review

The Dark Knights continue to carve their way across Earth Zero. The Knight known as The Devastator - a Batman who turned himself into a monster born of Kryptonian science to stop the corrupted Superman of his world - is about to pay a visit to Lois Lane and make his mark on Metropolis.


If nothing else was accomplished by Batman: The Devastator #1, it gave me a new level of respect for Frank Tieri and James Tynion IV. I shan't spoil the hows or details but the flashback sequence detailing the creation of The Devastator puts a nail in the coffin of the idea that Batman would easily beat Superman in a fight given enough time and resources. Emphasis on the word "easily". The artwork by Tony Daniel and Danny Miki proves equally impressive, being vividly detailed yet smoothly presented.

The Final Analysis: 10 out of 10. A Must-Read for all fans of Superman and Batman. 

Batman: The Drowned #1 - A Review

The Dark Knights continue their assault on Earth 0, as Aquaman and Mera face off against The Drowned. Hailing from Earth -11, this Batman is a Batwoman. Fearful of the potential threat posed by the metahumans of her Earth, she set about killing them all. This led to her ultimately transforming herself into a water-breathing monstrosity in order to wage a one-woman war on Atlantis itself!


With this issue, the novelty of the various Dark Nights specials is beginning to wear thin. Dan Abnett weaves a great story and The Drowned is easily the most unique of the various dark dimension Dark Knights to date. Unfortunately, the plot is exactly the same as most of the other specials, with a flashback detailing the background of The Knight in question, a battle in the present against their Justice League counterpart and Dr. Fate showing up at the end to spirit the hero away when the Evil Batman proves to be too much for them. It's still a good read but one feels it could have been great.

The artwork is similarly conflicted. There's two great art teams at work here, though their styles are so different as to completely wreck the visual flow of the book. It would have been better to have one artist but everything looks good in spite of that.

The Final Analysis: 7 out of 10. It's good but it could have been better.

Batman: The Dawnbreaker #1 - A Review

On Earth -32, a Green Lantern ring found Bruce Wayne at his darkest moment. Through the force of will possessed only by a child who has just seen his entire world destroyed, Bruce Wayne was able to overcome the ring's programming forbidding lethal force. Worse yet, he tapped into something far stronger than the collective willpower of his dark universe. Something dark. Something hungry...





Fans of Ethan Van Sciver will be pleased by his turn here. Van Sciver is famed for his detail-driven style, which is well in evidence throughout this issue. Indeed, the level of gore depicted in some scenes is stunningly rendered in such a fashion as to skirt the lines of a 15+ rating. Paired with Jason Wright's vivid colors, this is one amazing-looking comic.

The story by Sam Humphries inspires less enthusiasm. The origin of The Dawnbreaker is told well enough but his confrontation with Hal Jordan lacks the psychological power of the earlier chapters in which The Flash and Cyborg faced their dark counterparts among the league of Dark Multiverse Batmen. Additionally, the story lacks clarity, making it unclear at first if The Dawnbreaker tapped into some unknown dark force or if he is drawing upon the power of Nekron and The Black Lanterns.

The Final Analysis: 7 out of 10.  Great artwork but the story is a little flat.

Nightwing #29 - A Review

Lost within a ring of snow and ice - the second circle of the labyrinth formed out of Gotham City - our heroes find themselves contending with a twisted version of Mr. Freeze and an army of frost giants! Thankfully, Nightwing has arrived on the scene to join the search for Batman, but he faces his own inner-conflict regarding the menace they face. Meanwhile, The Teen Titans meet up with The Suicide Squad, forming a reluctant alliance to get into the maze themselves...


The unfortunate thing about comic-book crossovers is that new readers, attracted by the linking story line, may find themselves turned away from a single chapter due to unexplained references to the book's regular story. This problem plagues Nightwing #29 which makes repeated mention of a villain called Dr. Hurt and Dick Grayson's connection to The Court of Owls. While I am vaguely familiar with this plot-line from Scott Snyder's Batman, Tim Seely doesn't do a very good job of explaining it and it's largely incidental to the action of the issue in any case. Even that much might be confusing for those readers who haven't already read Batman: The Red Death #1, which is more efficient in explaining the basic idea of The Dark Multiverse.

Thankfully, this issue's script makes up for this shortcoming in other ways. Seely's grasp of the characters, for instance, is top-notch. I was particularly gratified to see Killer Croc as being written as something other than a complete idiot, though Damian Wayne is back to being a spoiled brat. Your mileage may vary on if this is an accurate assessment of his character, but it doesn't jibe with what we saw in Teen Titans last week. But whatever - I can forgive a lot simply for the revelation that Harley Quinn and Green Arrow are both pen-and-paper RPG players.


The artwork is a similarly mixed bag. Paul Pelleiter is a good artist but his detail-driven style suffers in the small panels that the story requires. This frequently causes the panels to be cluttered and only the fact that Andrew Hennessy applies his inks so sparingly saves the issue. Even then, the fine details are often lost in the more heavily-shaded panels with a higher saturation of darker colors.

The Final Analysis: 6 out of 10.  Decent enough but it could have been so much better.

Dark Knights Metal #2 - A Review

The Justice League hunts one of their own, as Batman goes on the run with an artifact of great power. Batman thinks he alone can save the world from an ancient menace tied to the fate of his city. But is Bruce Wayne a savior? Or a pawn of prophecy?
Dark Knights Metal #2 is like riding a roller-coaster blindfolded. I can't see where I'm going and all I can do is hold on, feel the sensation of motion and give myself over to the thrill.

Summation of the story beyond that is pointless. This is not a comic you can read and quantify, piece by piece. Like Batman, Messrs. Snyder, Capullo, Plascencia and Glapion have tapped into something primal. This book must be experienced to be understood and it is an amazing experience.

The Final Analysis: 10 out of 10. This is an event book done right!