Over the past several months, DC has been building up to their first big post-Rebirth event, Dark Knights: Metal. Over the course of two prologue comics, Dark Days: The Forge, and Dark Days: The Casting, we learned that the story will focus around the Dark Multiverse, a negative analog to the version of the DC Multiverse that Grant Morrison introduced during his Multiversity series. And of course, when worlds have evil opposites, you know the heroes are going to have to face nightmarish versions of themselves as well.

Surprisingly, the catalyst for the Dark Nights: Metal event is Batman, who has stumbled upon a series of mysteries that have all built up to him opening a portal to the Dark Multiverse. In doing so, he unleashes a tidal wave of new threats including evil versions of himself– these are the Dark Knights.

The Dark Knights will see their stories told in a series of one shots, kicking off with Batman: The Red Death #1 and Batman: The Murder Machine #1. These two books channel the Flash and Cyborg, respectively. The Beat has a first look at their killer costumes.

Evil versions of the Dark Knight are coming to terrorize Earth this fall! Seven one-shot comics that tie into the upcoming DARK NIGHTS: METAL event are on the horizon, each spotlighting a different, corrupted version of Batman spawned from the Dark Multiverse.

How can the Justice League stop a horde of deadly beings that appear to be powerful, nightmare versions of themselves? Find out in these special tie-in issues, beginning September 20 with BATMAN: THE RED DEATH #1 by Joshua Williamson and Carmine Di Giandomenico followed by BATMAN: THE MURDER MACHINE #1 by Frank Tieri and Ricardo Federici on September 27.

BATMAN: THE RED DEATH #1 cover by Jason Fabok and Dean White.
BATMAN: THE MURDER MACHINE #1 cover by Jason Fabok and Brad Anderson