Dark Nights: Death Metal

Dark Nights: Death Metal is a comic book crossover event by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo by DC Comics. It was originally set for release on May 13, 2020, but was later rescheduled to June 16 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Publication history
Dark Nights: Death Metal is the sequel to 2017's Dark Nights: Metal and concludes Scott Snyder's run in DC Comics; he stated "Everything is coming back, we want to pay it forward. The Omega Titans, Barbatos, the Forge, it’s all coming back. Everything you read, our goal is to reward. All of it culminates in like a year in like a Metal event."

In April 2020 during an interview on DC Daily, Snyder assured that the purpose of Death Metal is to unify every storyline from mainline DC Universe comic books, including the standalone stories.

Following the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic over comic book industry, the series was later postponed from May 13 to June 16, 2020.

Background
Following the final battle between Batman and the Batman Who Laughs, the Source Wall is shattered, causing a chain of events that frees Perpetua from her cosmic prison. Despite Apex Lex capturing the Batman Who Laughs, the latter reveals that the future Lex saw was a hoax made by Perpetua in order to manipulate him. After this revelation, Perpetua strips Lex of his powers and returns him to Earth.

Meanwhile, the Justice League survived their battle with Perpetua after they were saved by the Quintessence, who reveal they were protecting something very important. The Quintessence then sent the League to an unknown location in order to search for it.

Somewhere, Tempus Fuginaut revised several Earths from the Dark Multiverse and then recruits Wally West to access Metron's Mobius Chair (which is upgraded with Doctor Manhattan's powers) and restore the balance between the Light and Dark Multiverses. This action causes Wally to become a new persona and with his new powers, he wants to mend of all of reality into one single timeline, but the presence of the Batman Who Laughs prevents that from happening.

Issue #1
The goddess Perpetua has taken over Prime Earth and is in the process of destroying all realities (of the 52 local universes, only eight are left) so that she can restart everything in her image. Her lieutenant, the Batman Who Laughs, aided by an army of evil Batmen from the Dark Multiverse, enforces her rule. All resistance has been crushed, and even Earth's heroes have been press-ganged into servitude. But when a mysterious prisoner is to be banished to Tartarus Pits of Hell (formerly Themyscira), he awakens memories in Warden Wonder Woman. When a meeting with the Batman Who Laughs's Justice League (Harley Quinn, Aquaman, Wonder Woman, and Mister Miracle; each paired with a respective Dark Knight of the Dark Multiverse) is interrupted by the mainstream Batman, Wonder Woman argues with her former teammate, saying that it is not enough to just win small “street battles” like Bruce is, and they need to fix everything, not what is left. Meanwhile, out in space, the bounty hunter Lobo is hired to uncover something. Back in Tartarus Pits, Diana meets up with the prisoner, revealed to be an exhausted Wally West, who retells Diana the story of Perpetua, how she has manipulated many of the previous Crises from behind the scenes, and how she survived the previous battle with the Justice League through the Batman Who Laughs. When the Amazon decides the best cause of action is to make the first Anti-Crisis, she is confronted by the Batman Who Laughs, whom she proceeds to gut with an invisible Chainsaw of Truth. Though dead, the Dark Knights set to work to unleash the Batman Who Laughs’ true plan; preparing the body of the final Bruce Wayne. In an underground bunker, Batman enlists the help of a severed Sgt. Rock.

Issue #2
In the Hellscape (outside of what used to be Washington, D.C.), Wonder Woman, Wally West, and the Swamp Thing drive the hijacked Batmobeast where they run over the Batom (a Batman/Atom hybrid). They gain access to the Valhalla Cemetery, a secret Crypt of Heroes that is currently guarded by the surviving members of the JSA: Alan Scott, Jay Garrick, Doctor Fate and Wildcat. The password the three of them used to get in was Ma Hunkel who was the guardian of the first JSA headquarters. Batman and Jonah Hex are also there, in the process of conscripting an army out of tombs in the crypt. The heroes buried there are the Atom, the Black Condor, the Dove, the Human Bomb, Johnny Quick, the Liberty Belle, the Phantom Lady, the Sandman, and Uncle Sam. The former disapproves of Diana's killing of the Batman Who Laughs (as the villain will just evolve into a new nightmare), saying how they needed to fight small; but Diana could not live with that. Bruce plans to use this army to take Castle Bat and forge a new Earth in the dark, saving only who they can. Diana tries to persuade Bruce to join her in creating a new Multiverse, but he refuses to listen (he blames himself for everything that has happened and thinks Diana will make the same mistakes he did). Diana's plan is to travel to the Dark Multiverse and to the original Crises, steal the energy taken by Perpetua, and give it to Wally to not only defeat Perpetua but also restart the Multiverse. Jay calls in Barry Allen (who has been unable to fix this with the Speed Force, as there is no way out of the present), and together with Diana and Bruce, plan to travel to New Apokolips to save their friends. Meanwhile, at Castle Bat, the Dark Knights succeed in transferring the Batman Who Laughs’ brain into an energy construct based on Doctor Manhattan's powers, an action that may have repercussions if Perpetua were to find out. At this point, Perpetua is ravishing Earth-30 and warns the Batman Who Laughs of the beings like her who may sense her actions (worried they might destroy her). The Batman Who Laughs proceeds to wipe out the remaining Dark Knights with the exception of one Robin, who he decides to make his “Robin King”; he then shifts into a new form (“the Darkest Knight”) exclaiming that he knows Diana plans to remake the Multiverse, he however wants to make “52 Planets of Nightmares”. In the Arkham Wastes, Diana, Bruce, Barry, Hex and Harley enter the workshop of the Toymaster to use his new stealth ship designed as a composite version of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman to head to New Apokolips.

Legends of the Dark Knights
The Batman Who Laughs has previously recruited five new Dark Knight members:


 * The Robin King, a psychotic child who kills anyone, even his own family, to get what he wants.
 * Batmansaurus Rex, a Batman who turned his body into a robot dinosaur.
 * Castle Bat, a Batman who killed his son as part of a ritual to transfer his soul into Gotham City.
 * Batmobeast, a Batman who transferred his soul into a cybernetic vehicle.
 * Baby Batman, a Batman who made himself a cloned body in order to still live, but was reborn prematurely.

In the middle of this, the Batman Who laughs discovers the existence of Batmanhattan (the "final" Bruce Wayne), who replicated the formula of Doctor Manhattan's powers. The Batman Who laughs incapacitated him to access his body and transform into the Darkest Knight.

Issue #3
On New Apokolips (the prison of the remaining DC heroes, inside the heart of a dying sun), Wonder Woman's team are combating an army of Para-Robins (a hybrid of Parademons and different Robins). The planet is now run by a Batman who took the powers of Darkseid; a "Darkfather" who is currently torturing Superman with a new inescapable Murder Machine designed by the captive Mister Miracle, emitting different forms of Kryptonite from the Dark Multiverse. When the heroes attack, Batman must find a way to get Superman out of the machine without it unleashing Anti-Life on the Kryptonian. However, when Darkfather decides to shoot Batman with the same gun he used on Darkseid in Final Crisis (which he has modified to erase Batman from history), the demonic tyrant is surprised to find it did not work for reasons only Superman seems to know. Superman breaks free of the machine with Batman's Black Lantern Ring protecting him and punches the Darkfather into space. Breaking the remaining heroes out of the super-prison, Diana reveals the scope of her plan to save all reality. They have come for Jarro, the baby Starro that is possibly the most powerful psychic being in the universe, to keep the heroes from being detected by the Dark Knights. With his help, Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman will re-enter the Dark Multiverse to require the energy needed to restart the Multiverse. Meanwhile, the Darkest Knight and the Robin King break into Valhalla Cemetery. Knowing that they are after Wally's power, Jay Garrick, Barry Allen, and Wally West run with the Darkest Knight giving chase. In the Fifth Dimension, Lobo acquires the fifth and final box of "Death Metal" needed for his employer Lex Luthor, who is planning to begin work to "change the story of this universe, once and for all".

Dark Nights: Death Metal Guidebook
Lex Luthor narrates how Earth was invaded by armies of Dark Knights led by the Batman Who Laughs, leaving catastrophic consequences in the process. He then hires Lobo to help him rescue the Legion of Doom.

Trinity Crisis
Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman travel back to the times of the three great Crises to stop Perpetua's attempts to manipulate those events. As they travel, they encounter Barbatos who taunts them with the idea that each Crisis is an example of how they failed rather than how they succeeded as things became so bad that a Crisis was the only option. The trinity reject that idea and continue to each Crisis - Batman visiting the original Crisis, Wonder Woman visiting the Infinite Crisis, and Superman visiting the Final Crisis - but they emerge to be confronted by a victorious Anti-Monitor, Superboy-Prime, and Darkseid, respectively. Superboy-Prime taunts Wonder Woman that Perpetua has already changed the outcome of these events.

"Doom Metal Part 1"
Nightwing along with a band of allies, including Hawkgirl and a reluctant Detective Chimp, are tasked by Lex Luthor to rescue the Legion of Doom.

Speed Metal
Barry, Wally, and Jay team up with Kid Flash and the rest of the Flash family to outrun the Darkest Knight and his army of Dark Multiverse Flashes in order to reach the Mobius Chair.

Multiverse's End
The Green Lantern Corps and the Justice Incarnate have united against the remaining Earths that have sworn loyalty to Perpetua: Earth-3, Earth-X, Earth-29, Earth-43, and Earth-50. All the while, John Stewart tries to convince a reluctant Owlman to betray Perpetua and rise up against the destruction of the Multiverse.

Issue #4
Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman are trapped in Dark versions of the original Crisis Trilogy where the main villains have won. Batman is trying to console the Anti-Monitor (only to be unmade by him). Superman is being trampled by the corrupted Supermen of the Multiverse as Darkseid plans to finally turn Superman into his acolyte. Across the land of Gotham, the Flash family are burning up the Speed Force to outpace the Darkest Knight. Wally contacts Jarro, who is trying to stop Harley from killing the Robin King after the evil Boy Wonder murdered Hex. Instead, the Swamp Thing decides to drop the cavern on him. Meanwhile, Wonder Woman learns how Superboy-Prime killed Alexander Luthor Jr. as he served no purpose in this “world of hope” after bargaining with the Batman Who Laughs. He holds Diana responsible for everything. In leaving Wally exposed and sending the Lanterns to destroy the antennas across the Multiverse while redirecting the Crisis area to one she is trapped in, she has given the Darkest Knight everything he needs. And now Superboy-Prime stands to direct all Crisis energy to his new master. Diana begs Superboy-Prime to reconsider; imploring that change is constant, and that in the end there is room for all universes. Superboy-Prime shatters the Crisis worlds, saving Batman and Superman in the process, and directs all energy to Wally. However, it does not work. Before they had a chance, the Darkest Knight rigged the Mobius Chair so it would always direct the power to himself. And now he has everything he needs to remake the Multiverse in his own image called the Last 52.

"Doom Metal Part 2"
Starfire and Cyborg are fresh from their return to Earth and team up with Nightwing's gang where they come face-to-face with a valley of Starros. Meanwhile, the Martian Manhunter matches wits with the Dark Knight equivalent of himself called the Mindhunter.

"Doom Metal Part 3"
Lex Luthor and Nightwing help the others escape the valley which is revealed to be one big giant Starro. Lex has constructed a vessel (which he names after Lana Lang) to continue the journey to Brimstone Bay. However Detective Chimp is disheartened by the whole experience and Hawkgirl is more prioritized with saving Martian Manhunter.

Robin King
The Robin King tells his story of how the Batman Who Laughs recruited him into his Robins army. When the Robin King defeats his opponents, the Red Tornado, Animal Man, and the Blue Beetle arrived at the scene where the Robin King took down the superheroes. During their fight with the Robin King, the Red Tornado is sprayed with a Mortal Coil chemical that causes him to spin out of control. Then, the Robin King summoned Anti-Living versions of Animal Man's family, who start to eat him. The Mortal Coil then causes the Red Tornado to become human and rip apart as a shrapnel from the outcome kills Animal Man. Then, the Robin King unleashed a giant beetle on the Blue Beetle, which killed him. In a back-up story, the Signal along with the Spoiler, the Orphan, and the Red Robin battle against Quietus.

Rise of the New God
A being called Chronicler first views the DC Universe (through the eyes of the Psycho-Pirate and Vril Dox) while also resurrecting the New God Metron. In a back-up story spinning out of the events of "Multiverse's End", John Stewart begins to recruit more members into the Green Lantern Corps.

"Doom Metal Part 4"
Perpetua's Omega Knight is about to deal the final blow to Nightwing's team when Detective Chimp comes to the rescue (finally breaking out of his stupor), while Hawkgirl saves J'onn from the Mindhunter. Regrouped, the team work together to both distract the Omega Knight and destroy the throne tower holding the Legion of Doom captive.

Infinite Hour Exxxtreme!
Lobo narrates his perspective on how Lex Luthor hired him to receive the Death Metal while on the run from a Batman/Lobo mashup known as The Batman Who Frags.

Soundtrack

 * "Warship My Wreck" by Marilyn Manson
 * "Broken Dreams, Inc." by Rise Against

Future
The aftermath of Dark Nights: Death Metal will lead to the next crossover event called Future State, set to be scheduled for January and February 2021.