Dark Days
The Road to Metal
The prequel to the Dark Nights: Metal series is short. Unless you buy the 256 paged hardcover or Kindle copy then it's still short you just have a bunch of other comics that they used as a road to this road; unfortunately the digital advanced readers copy was just that. Since I haven't read Final Crisis all the individual, taken from the middle and the end of other series had me completely lost, I can't do that jump into a story part way and only a small part drives me nuts so I skipped all that. The four issues that are Road to Metal were well done I enjoyed the story and the art but it was a short tease and that was really short and that a bit of a disappointment. I saw how many pages were in it and I got all excited and then to find out it was less than half that size, no bueno.Dark Nights:
Metal:
The main book of the series, it's the main storyline. To me it felt like the whole story was missing something, like only part of the story was there, and it was. I enjoyed the story I loved how complex it seemed to be how Scott Snyder tied in past events to all converge into this one massive story the only problem is that it feels like it's a truncated version of itself. It feels like it should be bigger and longer and the ending really wrapped up fast, it made me pause and think, "Really that's it?" I did love the art, Greg Capullo does not disappoint.
Kendra explains that the Court of Owls has been manipulating the whole thing and Barbatos has been behind them from the beginning, the beginning of time basically, to get Batman to do exactly what they want him to do. Batman, nonetheless, feels like he's the only one that can handle the upcoming evil and then he disappears, assumed dead and Superman is the only one that knows he still alive and needs the help from the Justice League to get him into the Dark multiverse to save Batman. I've never been a fan of Kendra or Carter and I was just underwhelmed with their part in the story.
This by itself is good, it's even better if you read the tie-ins.
Dark Nights: Metal:
The Resistance
These are tie-in stories and for me reading them after Metal made the overall story better. It filled in blanks of what happened during the main story and just made the whole chain of events seem more inevitably doomed. I really enjoyed the Gotham Resistance. Nightwing, Green Arrow, Robin, Harley, and Killer Croc work together to get the the center of the labyrinth that Gotham City has become fighting Mr. Freeze, Poison Ivy, The Riddler and so on. The Justice League storyline follows them on their own adventures while helping Superman get to the Darkverse and what happened after that, where Wonder Woman, The Flash, Aquaman, Cyborg, and The Green Lantern basically are faced with the corrupted Batmen that share their power. The main villain in this isn't really Barbatos but the Batman who Laughs. He's out in Gotham manipulating all the other villains and making life hell for everyone. I enjoyed the art pretty much throughout the entire thing and the story lines were. My main complaint is that with everything out of order it was kind of confusing.
Dark Nights: Metal
Dark Knights Rising
(or the Nightmare Batmen depending on which one you get)
Another tie-in for the Metal series this one filling in the blanks where the Nightmare Batmen come in. I really enjoyed all the different stories, all the different ways Batman was corrupted.
The Red Death: a thief who stole his reality's Speed Force power. He used The Flash to control the Speed Force and is now merged with The Flash.
The Drowned: a female, amphibious Batman. The Atlantis of her multiverse devastated her world so she changed herself so she could defeat them all. The Dawnbreaker: a twisted Green Lantern. As a child after the death of his parents the ring came to him but too angry at the world he corrupted the ring making it something very dark.
The Murder Machine: a deranged, deadly cyborg. The death of Alfred has Batman start the Alfred protocol but the Alfred AI didn't quite come out the way it was intended.
The Merciless: a warrior who wears the helmet of Ares. Batman and Diana were in love but in a war against Ares she falls Batman beats Ares and takes his helm and all his Godly powers
The Devastator: a part-human, part-Doomsday monster. Superman went bad and only by becoming part Doomsday is Batman able to save his world and defeat Superman.
And lastly The Batman Who Laughs: a lunatic driven mad by his world's Joker. The Joker is dead but Batman is poisoned and corrupted by the Joker last laugh. Overall I really enjoyed all the storylines I enjoyed Batman becoming the things he feared most. The art was hit and miss for me but it was more good than bad. I absolutely loved The Batman Who Laughs his character through the whole Metal series is one of my favorites.
The series overall I enjoyed but I wouldn't buy it unless the series was all in one big omnibus in order.
