Comics: Batman – Dark Nights

I used my DC Unlimited Comics subscription to read up on the Dark Nights Metal characters. These are “The Dawnbreaker”, “The Devastator”, “The Drowned”,  “The Merciless”, “The Murder Machine”, the “Red Death”, and “The Batman Who Laughs”.

The gist of the story arc is that there are multi-verses that are created and destroyed and all are based on the main one where the original DC comics character’s stories took place. They are subservient to the prime universe and come to complete destruction. However, because of a “dark metal”, or Nth metal, one Batman from one of the universes discoveries this multi-verse and invades the prime universe with a pack of never-do-wells. This “Batman Who Laughs” is from a universe where Batman is infected with a toxin that is released upon the death of the Joker and Bruce Wayne becomes him. He then recruits other Batmen from other universes that have co-opted the powers for various reasons of the Justice League for their own benefit and then teams up with them to escape their collapsing universes and invade the main one to save their own lives and wreak havoc on the world. For example, there is the Red Death Batman who forces the Flash to meld with him and become master of the “speed force” so that he can in that dimension fight crime faster. It’s a bad idea for both but in a multiple universes that are build upon the fears of people, there’s going to be some that are created from Batman’s voluminous mind.

My take is that it is OK story wise. It seems like the greater comic community isn’t a fan of them because they are trying to be too “edgy”, but the comics are super popular. I’m not sure I am going to spend too much time following this story line as I’m going to swap over to reading Batman’s “New 52”, starting with “Court of Owls” saga which is supposed to be pretty good.