DC Comics has announced a content change to the Dark Nights: Death Metal – Legends of the Dark Knights one-shot. A two-page short story written by Warren Ellis and illustrated by Jim Cheung will be removed from the issue.

In a notice to retailers shared on social media by retailer Ryan Higgins, DC announced that the Ellis-written story in the Death Metal tie-in will be replaced by another story written by former Batwoman writer Marguerite Bennett and illustrated by The Wrong Earth artist Jamal Igle.

The news comes following numerous allegations of sexual misconduct leveled against Ellis earlier this week. Ellis released a statement regarding those allegations on Thursday, which has been met with mixed reactions (to say the least) online.

Ellis was reportedly recruited by Dark Nights: Death Metal writer Scott Snyder and colorist Marie Javins to write the two-page story for the Legends of the Dark Knights one-shot, which was planned to reveal the origin of Bat-Rex, the robot dinosaur housing the consciousness of an alternate universe Batman. No information yet on what Bennett and Igle’s story will feature.

The question still remains of what will happen with The Batman’s Grave, the twelve-issue series Ellis has been writing with artists Bryan HitchKevin Nowlan, and Alex Sinclair. A new issue of that series is due out on Tuesday, July 7th. Order cut-off for that issue was this past Monday, so it may be too late to cancel at this point if that’s what DC intends to do.

Dark Nights: Death Metal – Legends of the Dark Knights #1 is due out in stores on Tuesday, August 25th.

16 COMMENTS

  1. In DC’s defense, they probably didn’t have much of a choice. Plus, it is a lot easier to pay a “kill fee” to Ellis and Cheung on a 2-page story, than it is to cancel a bigger project. I too am interested to see what they do with the Batman book. I abhor cancel culture, but from a pure PR move it makes sense why they would want to avoid controversy surrounding a tie-in book to their big event.

    Plus, more Jamal Igle is always a good thing in my book. Wish I had read something from Bennett that interested me. The Synder proteges haven’t done much for me, outside of a couple projects.

  2. Pretty big stretch to call the thing Ellis has been accused of (and essentially admitted to) “sexual abuse.”

    Frankly that may well be a libelous statement.

  3. “Pretty big stretch to call the thing Ellis has been accused of (and essentially admitted to) “sexual abuse.””

    Haven’t you heard? It’s illegal to be a bad boyfriend. It’s also illegal to be a cad, a scoundrel, a hound, and a ladies man. Being a raging slut? That’s still perfectly okay.

    Mike

  4. The problem with cancel culture for the left is, eventually it will swing right back to them.

    “When the Girondists were led up the scaffolds to the guillotine, one of them yelled at Robespierre ‘you will follow us up these steps!’.”

  5. Considering everything retailers have been going through, DC should at least make that issue of The Batman’s Grave returnable.

  6. William Burns: Just out of curiosity, why? I hate to say this, but the number of comic book readers who actually care about any of this is quite small and the ones that do, tend to not be reading books like Batman’s Grave anyway.

  7. I’m still not sure what wrongdoing dude’s actually guilty of but from what I’ve read I’m certain calling it “sexual misconduct” is quite a stretch lol

  8. Stop pretending the right never tries to cancel anyone.

    It’s the reason we’re still waiting for Guardians 3.

  9. Surely, they should still publish the story though? Regardless of the outcome of such accusations I think this is a part of a wider question as to whether it is still possible to enjoy a body of work and separate it from the artist. Prior to the advent of social media, it was possible. However, now each producer themselves are effectively a ‘brand’ with every typed or spoken word or action inextricably linked to the ‘brand image’.

    There have been many historical artists who have been accused of or indeed perpetrated such indiscretions and yet their work is not obliterated, instead they are exhibited in public galleries for all to see and learn about.

  10. Isn’t Ellis married? At any rate he used to talk about having a partner who was his kid’s mother. I remember him saying how he met her: “At a party. With her husband. Heh heh,” – a line which stuck in my mind as good dialogue for establishing a character as obnoxious.

  11. Seriously. The right couldn’t care less about canceling anything. I’d love to see the new guardians as long as it has the same feel as it’s predecessors. The problem with marvel and Disney is they have no original thought anymore and spend most their time appeasing people and showing how woke they are. Just tell good stories leave personal life out of it and move on. Personally I wanted to read Ellis story and now the woke mob took that away too.

  12. Jason Atkins: It was a 2 page story in a random Death Metal tie-in. Also, BleedingCool “reported” that Ellis was the one who asked for it to be pulled.

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