Dark Nights: Death Metal Designed to ‘Sort Out’ DC’s Continuity & Universe

Article by Carl Bryan

Clean up! Clean up! Everybody, Everywhere!

Turns out that Spring Cleaning is in the air in the DC Universe. The upcoming DC event Dark Nights: Death Metal isn’t just a sequel to Metal, but will also attempt to “sort out” DC’s continuity according to series writer Scott Snyder.

Snyder tweeted in reply to a fan question:

That’s the idea – The purpose of the whole story is to sort out continuity and the universe and give you something fun bright and coherent on the other side

Originally solicited to come out May 13, the effects of the coronavirus pandemic have put Dark Nights: Death Metal #1’s release date off into “to be determined” territory.

DC had planned a lot of continuity fixing in May it seems, as the the concurrent “Generation” one-shots aim to ret-con the company’s modern continuity as well.

Snyder and Capullo’s Pandora Box

Death Metal is a sequel to a prior event story that Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo provided in June, 2017 during the Rebirth era, entitled Dark Nights: Metal. 

The story involves Batman discovering a dark multiverse that exists beneath the core DC multiverse. It was revealed that both multiverses are connected through mysterious metals that Batman has encountered over the years. The Dark Knight’s investigations eventually resulted in his releasing seven evil versions of himself from the dark multiverse, led by the dark god known as Barbatos, who plans to unleash darkness across every Earth.

That event had a ripple effect throughout a number of other titles penned by Snyder (Justice League) and close collaborators such as Josh Williamson(Batman/Superman) and James Tynion IV(Year of the Villain), with the prime antagonist from Metal – the Batman Who Laughs – wreaking havoc across the DC Universe.