After a week of teases, DC Comics has finally revealed details of Scott Snyder, Greg Capullo, Jonathan Glapion, and FCO Plascencia‘s forthcoming sequel to their hit Dark Nights: Metal event. The follow-up series, Dark Nights: Death Metal, is a six-issue series that sees the Justice League trying to save a world that has been consumed by the dark multiverse and the forces of The Batman Who Laughs. The series will debut in May, and run for three monthly issues before taking a break in August; the final three issues are planned for release in September, October, and November.
According to DC, Dark Nights: Death Metal will act as a conclusion to both Snyder and co-writer James Tynion IV‘s recently-concluded Justice League run, as well as to Tynion IV’s currently-running Year of the Villain: Hell Arisen miniseries. Here’s how DC describes the series:
The Earth has been consumed by Dark Multiverse energy, having been conquered by the Batman Who Laughs and his evil lieutenants, corrupted versions of Shazam, Donna Troy, Supergirl, Blue Beetle, Hawkman, and Commissioner Jim Gordon. Some heroes, like Wonder Woman and the Flash, have made compromises as they negotiate to keep humanity alive in this hell-born landscape. Others, like Batman, are part of an underground resistance looking to take back control of their world. Superman is imprisoned, cursed to literally power Earth’s sun for eternity.
But a mysterious figure provides Wonder Woman with vital information she might be able to use to rally Earth’s remaining heroes to resist the Batman Who Laughs. Can the Justice League break away from the Dark Multiverse and defeat Perpetua?
Dark Nights: Death Metal will also be supplemented by “Metalverse” one-shots, which will “[expand] the vast world created by the Death Metal storyline.” how those one-shots will differ from the previously-released Tales from the Dark Multiverse one-shots is unclear, though one-shots released during the initial Metal storyline served to introduce new characters who appeared in the background of the event.
Snyder & Tynion IV’s Justice League run concluded with the League having failed and the cosmic being Perpetua spreading doom throughout the multiverse. With the Leaguers forgotten by the world they once protected, they prepared for their next battle, and the final issue ended on a cliffhanger tease for the Metal sequel. Two issues still remain in the Tynion IV-written Hell Arisen series, in which a Perpetua-powered Lex Luthor squares off against the main antagonist of the original Metal series, The Batman Who Laughs.
Along with the announcement, DC shared some cover art and interiors by Capullo, Glapion, and Plascencia for the sequel series. Also previewed are variant covers by David Finch, Francesco Mattina, and Stanley “Artgerm” Lau.
Check out all that preview art below, and look for Dark Nights: Death Metal #1 (of 6) in stores in May.
