DC Comics ’ current crossing event is Dark Nights : Metal , a Batman - concenter amour satiate with histrionic pretender - science about the threats coming from an vicious alternative multiverse . The second result is out this week , and it ’s place the bar for a whole new level of crazy .
In the material universe , we know that Dark Nights : Metal is about some messed - up versions of the Dark Knight that will be crossing over into our realness . In the strip , the story so far has seen the main Batman chasing a mysterious history have-to doe with with the supposedly unchurch nature of his own family . Though DC ’s done an admirable job , dropping plenty of hints and clues about what the blaze is go on in the Dark Nights : Metal upshot , the core comic is still the sort of wild fib that you ’ve take to closely follow from offspring to issue so as to full wrap your brain around the plot .
Now that the rest of the Justice League has learned that Batman is the prophesied key to bringing an ancient evil into existence from the dark multiverse , they ’re trying to keep Batman from further investigate the nature of his fate .
When last we saw Batman , he ’d just slip a chunk of Nth metallic element from Kendra Saunders , hoping to use it to picture out the mysteries of the dark multiverse detailed in Carter Hall ’s diary .
Since then , Bruce has recruit the entire Batfamily to help him evade the League by have all of the Bats dress up in convincing reproduction of Bruce ’s cause and leading the Leaguers on wild goose chases around the domain . What the others do n’t understand , Bruce repeatedly reminds himself , is that the matter at paw is n’t just about Batman . It ’s also about how the Wayne family is linked to the interdimensional being , Barbatos ( presently located in the dark multiverse ) , that Hall warns of in his journal .
But because Bruce does n’t really know much more about Barbatos or what he can do to train to fight the being , you get the feel that he is n’t really execute from the Justice League because he ’s got a long - ago , thought - out program in the works . He ’s running because he ’s genuinely frightened . Or so it would seem .
root for off a fast - pace action mechanism sequence involve decoy and veil personal identity is hard enough to do with live action or invigoration , where there ’s motion to help sell the visual misdirection . Jonathan Glapion and Greg Capullo ’s illustrations manage to do that and more . How absurd is this script ? Superman and Wonder Woman catch Batman only to discover that he ’s actually a temporarily concerted Clayface who ’s drag one’s heels for sentence , while the actual Bruce Wayne is off with Dream of the Endless raid the tomb of Prince Khufu in the Egyptian Valley of the Kings .
In his research into the story detailed in Carter Hall ’s diary , Bruce has deduced that the Strigydae , Barbatos ’ human worshippers , have been hunting for him ; he ’s their utter key to do a ritual that will permit Barbatos to cross over from the dark multiverse . For years , the Strigydae have been lurking in Bruce ’s shadow , poison his eubstance with the necessary heavy metals that would eventually ground him to one attribute as Barbatos uses his body as a gateway to move through .
Bruce first became plug in to Barbatos when Darkseid ’s omega beams flung him back through time and blank to the rootage of macrocosm . Barbatos , Bruce explain , was the only reason that Bruce was capable to return to his own clock time , something that the demon would one twenty-four hour period apply to its advantage by using Bruce as a portal to escape from the dark multiverse .
Rather than expect for the events foretold by the prophecy , Bruce pulls an infant - sized Darkseid out of his bag ( Darkseid ’s a baby right now , do n’t ask why ) and says that he plans to use the baby ’s Z light beam to go back to the root of time again to kill Barbatos . But this is only the second proceeds of Dark Nights : Metal ; it ’s not like the event ’s about to just terminate . Of course there ’s yet another plot twist .
Just as Batman ’s about to use an foreign sister to rend open a portal to the past , he , Wonder Woman , and Superman are overtaken by a trio of Strigydae wielding at-bat staves and three members of the Court of Owls who lure Batman to the wrong tomb in the first plaza . With all of the necessary piece of music delineate up just so , the Strigydae begin their ritual to summon Barbatos , and Batman ’s body does start to dissolve into some sort of cosmic marrow before turning into a glowing hole in the priming coat .
This is the point in the narrative where you ’d imagine that Barbatos ’ clawed bridge player would protrude out of the Bat - portal as the demon heaves itself from the emptiness . What jumps out or else , though is far , far more unsettling : three craze , hellish children wear Robin costume who promptly begin to assault the Court of Owls .
The children are soon come by Barbatos and the demented Dark Batman League that DC has been teasing for week now — and they ’re not almost as cagey about their identity as their mainstream counterpart . Wonder Woman take to know what ’s become of their Bruce Wayne as she watches the Robins lick blood from their human face and the evil Batpeople explain that they are Bruce Wayne .
For a book of account that does n’t in reality spend much time give Batman a opportunity to talk the self-examining part of his monologue , Dark Nights : Metal # 2 is actually a rather thoughtful reflection on some of the estimate that are run through it . Bruce already rightfully feels largely creditworthy for setting off the serial of consequence that’ve make everything that ’s happening with Barbatos . But Dark Nights amps up whatever guiltiness Bruce is feeling by highlighting the fact that his intellect and Batman identity operator , the same thing that these other incarnation of himself claim , are belong to be the most dangerous thing about the story .
There was never really any doubtfulness that the evil Batpeople were move to be Dark Nights : Metal ’s primary scoundrel , but actually see them together as a squad after watching the original Batman outsmart the Justice League is its own sort of unsettling experience . One adept Batman was already enough to put the lives of billions of people at risk , but now there are at least seven version of him go around , all hellbent on destroy what ’s left of DC ’s multiverse .
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