Metal Shavings: The Easter Eggs of Dark Days: The Forge
Tomorrow sees the release of Dark Nights: Metal, the start-in-earnest of a Crisis on Infinite [...]
Hawkman's Origin
Dark Days: The Forge opens on Hawkman's origin, as an alien craft crashes to Earth, bringing the Nth metal to humanity and creating, essentially, Hawkman, Hawkgirl, and Hath-Set, their first and most dangerous adversary.
Later in the issue, we get a look (seen below) at various reincarnations of Hawkman and Hawkgirl throughout history -- a mythology established when the reincarnation was introduced.
Many of these characters were already DC adventure heroes created at a time when mainstream superheroes were not the only popular genre at the big two.
prevnextIs that an SFX joke?
This one might be nothing, but as Snyder and Tynion were setting about creating the DC Universe's greatest mystery, one of the things they seemed to do was take advantage of things that had already-mysterious connotations.
Latching onto Ancient Egypt, which has given so much popular fiction creepy mystical stories, was obvious because of the ties to Hawkman...but setting the Wayne Black Site in the Bermuda Triangle added that extra little bit of an in-joke to it.
When that site goes up in flames, the sound effect -- KRAKATOW! -- may be one we have seen in comics before...
...but that doesn't change that fact that it looks a bit like "Krakatoa," a volcanic island nearly destroyed in an 1883 eruption that killed tens of thousands of people.
Given the fact that the Black Site's island suffered a similar fate, it's not hard to guess that the SFX might have been a joke or a clue of some kind -- especially since popular fiction has often picked up on the tragedy of Krakatoa for storytelling purposes.
prevnextYellow
During his scuffle with Duke in the Batcave, Hal Jordan picks up the Bat-sidekick by his yellow-and-black jacket, prompting an objection from Duke that he thought the ring didn't work against yellow.
Hal's response -- that it does if you know how to make it do so -- is less than satisfactory to Duke, but it's a fun beat for readers who have about 15 years now of stories where the way the Lantern rings work against yellow is pretty well-defined.
prevnextImmortal Men
There used to be just the Immortal Man. We guess he has friends now?
More seriously, Klarn Arg was the archenemy of Vandar Adg, the caveman who would eventually call himself Vandal Savage. Like Savage, Arg was immortal.
He's not used nearly as often as Savage, obviously, although the dashing, tuxedo-wearing Immortal Man did show up in Grant Morrison's The Multiversity. He was also, at one point, part of the Forgotten Heroes, a team assembled by Rip Hunter to battle Vandal Savage.
(Yeah, kind of like the Legends. And, yes, they had a similar schtick in that they were generally castoff characters from other books who had been all-but-forgotten until they were brought back into play by the Forgotten Heroes' adventures.)
The new race of Immortal Men sound like they're some kind of Inhumans or New Gods-style society of powerful immortals. It will be interesting to see whether or not they have any real ties to Klarn Arg or if it's just a name.
They're one of the groups who have a new series spinning out of Metal, the details for which you can check out below:
IMMORTAL MEN
- Debuting in October
- Written by James Tynion IV with art by Jim Lee
- Born at the dawn of time, five siblings find that with eternal life comes eternal war. As the forces of destruction march into the modern world, they operate from the shadows, recruiting the elite against the foes who seek to bring about Armageddon. They are humankind's hope sprung eternal….they are the IMMORTAL MEN.
Nightmare
At one point, Bruce wakes up from a nightmare: a giant statue of Batman, with bodies lashed to it, is rising up over a Gotham City overrun with Brother Eye-like Bat-tech.
And that's quite a dream. The cover first worried some fans who felt it was going to be another in a line of "superhero goes out of control and has to be reminded of his own ethics" kind of alternate future or alternate reality stories.
It now appears it will instead be one of the batmen from elsewhere in the multiverse that's represented in that dream.
But what's arguably more interesting is that it's a dream at all.
When Dark Nights: Metal #1 hits the stands this week, the issue will feature a surprising cameo from Daniel Hall, the current representation of Dream of the Endless, who first appeared in Neil Gaiman's award-winning Sandman series for DC's mature readers line.
One of the most acclaimed comic book series of all time, Sandman took the name of a Golden Age DC superhero and applied it to a metaphysical being -- the embodiment of dreams -- who was part of a larger family of beings that also embodied the concepts of Destiny, Death, Destruction, Desire, Despair, and Delirium. Gaiman, who has been protective of the characters in the past, signed off on Snyder's use of Daniel in Metal.
"I was so excited. It was one of the greatest days of my professional life," Snyder told The Washington Post. "[Gaiman] couldn't have been more generous. I just want to say thank you to him for sharing such an incredibly special character with us. It's literally one of the best moments of my career, to be able to get to write a character that meant so much to me growing up and still does."
Daniel already has ties to the DC Universe: he is the son of Hippolyta "Lyta" Hall (Fury) and Hector Hall (Doctor Fate). Hector Hall was recently revived in Blue Beetle and a helmet that looks like his appeared in Dark Days: The Forge, a prequel to Metal.
In Metal, Hawkman and Batman are both pursuing a mystery tied to Nth Metal, the alien alloy that gives Hawkman and numerous other DC heroes and villains power. Along the way, the heroes discover a "Dark Multiverse," which has known of our world for years and is preparing to strike.
It is not yet clear what role Dream will play in the event, although he was only one of a number of off-the-beaten-path characters and exotic locales Snyder mentioned when talking about Metal at Comic-Con. Others included Skartaris, home of Travis Morgan the Warlord, and Mongul's Warworld, which plays a role in Metal #1 as well.
"[Dream] has some very key moments that spin the story in its essential directions," he said. "At the same time, this really is a Justice League story focused on their discovery of the Dark Multiverse and the invasion with these evil Batmen [now] here and the desperate attempt to stop that using Nth metal."
The connection between Sandman and the DC Universe has always been somewhat fluid. In the early days of the series, before Vertigo was a standalone imprint that existed outside of the DC Universe, characters like Superman and Green Lantern appeared in the pages of Sandman. By the time the series was done, it seemed fairly fully divorced from the DCU.
After Sandman concluded, Daniel went on to appear in a handful of issues from Grant Morrison's critically-acclaimed JLA run and JSA, the Justice Society-centric sister series.
For more Metal talk with writer Scott Snyder, join ComicBook.com on Wednesday. We've got some cool stuff coming.
prevnextPlastic Man
About halfway through the dark mystery that is Dark Days: The Forge #1 from Bat-family writers Scott Snyder and James Tynion IV, Batman and Mr. Terrific -- two of the world's greatest minds, working on a top-secret project together -- agree that "it's time to let him out of the box."
Who's 'him?'
Well, according to Batman, "We all agreed he was too unstable...that there was no end to what he could do if we weren't careful. But I'm going to need him for what comes next."
In this dark scene, lit only by the LED green of a Wayne Enterprises security system, Terrific finally...smiles.
And as the reader turns the page, a large, egg-shaped something is in the middle of the room, held in place by an elaborate metal apparatus.
Longtime DC fans will quickly recognize the egg-shaped "something" as Plastic Man.
Patrick "Eel" O'Brien was a small-time crook and con artist who, after an accident imbued him with the ability to stretch and shape his body into an infinite number of forms, decided to go straight and use his newfound abilities as a superhero.
In addition to his malleable physiology, Plastic Man enjoys invulnerability, size alteration, superhuman strength and agility, regenerative abilities, immunity from telepathic attacks, and he seemingly does not age.
The character, who was a staple on the Justice League from around the time of the mid-'90s JLA relaunch until Flashpoint in 2011, has hardly been seen since the reboot.
Two notable exceptions are Justice League International #1, in which Plastic Man was pictured as one of a handful of superheroes who were considered as potential candidates for the JLI; and Justice League #25, in which O'Brien was seen as a criminal, and his origin briefly touched upon as part of the Forever Evil event.
If "Plas," who starred in his own animated series from 1979-1981, plays a significant role in Dark Days: The Forge, it will be his first full-on story since the 2011 reboot.
We also know that the character will play a role in the forthcoming series The Terrifics, which sees Jeff Lemire and Ivan Reis riffingon the idea of the Fantastic Four.
prevnextHistory Lesson
There's quite a bit to run down in a two-page spread here, but it isn't actually elaborated on much in The Forge, so it seemed like a good opportunity to just kind of take a quick look at each instead of trying to go too in-depth and misreading the whole thing.
The points raised:
Electrum: As alluded to in the dialogue, electrum is a metal that is used to grant immortality to the Talons in the Court of Owls, or to raise them from the dead. Many Batman readers assumed it was tied to the Lazarus Pits (and we guess it still could turn out to be) when it was first introduced, but here it has a much richer history, which apparently Snyder and Capullo have been building to for years.
We also see a trio of familiar items: Doctor Fate's Helm of Nabu; Aquaman's Pentdent; and a pair of (Wonder Woman's?) Amazon bracelets.
While all of those things seem more or less impossible for Bruce to have his hands on for various story reasons, that may be just a misreading of the art. It looks like they are actually projections. This isn't Bruce keeping a cave full of trinkets like Carter is doing; it's just evidence in his big, virtual cork board.
Dionesium: A component found in the Lazarus Pits that has helped Batman and The Joker revive themselves from the edge of death in the past.
prevnextThe Outsiders
Batman headed up a team called The Outsiders, featuring a numebr of second- and third-tier DC heroes, throughout much of the '80s and '90s.
That history was all but lost with The New 52 and even Rebirth hasn't much touched upon it...but here they are.
In the Snyder/Tynion take on the history, The Outsiders were Batman's "secret," black ops team who were helping him look into the encroaching Dark Multiverse.
They're also pretty much the classic/familiar lineup -- including Metamorpho, who will join Plastic Man (already mentioned) and Mr. Terrific (seen in this issue) in The Terrifics soon.
prevnextThe Arm
Recently, DC Comics premiered a pair of covers from the forthcoming Dark Nights: Metal series, and while both of them make things look pretty bad for the Justice League, one in particular has caught the eyes of internet commenters.
It appears as thouhg on the cover of Batman: The Murder Machine, a Cyborg-inspired alternate-universe Batman might not be the oddest element of the art.
Rather, it appears as though Green Lantern Hal Jordan has part of his arm missing (with what looks like little energy bits around it, either to call attention to it or as part of a ring-generated recovery device, perhaps?). He's also got what appears to be some kind of brace running down his left leg, although that is less conspicuous since it matches the color scheme of his costume.
There are a number of unexplained elements on the page, including little boxes that look like energy-based cubes a la the pixels in the movie Pixels. There are also some elements that are clearly meant to be more conceptual than literal, with the Cyborg-Batman seemingly successful in killing the whole Justice League on the book's cover.
Despite all of those elements, the arm and leg stick out as oddly specific while having no real connection to the larger story being told in the image.
That Green Lantern is using his ring on his left hand seemingly seals the deal that something happens to his right hand along the way: Hal is depicted as being a right-handed ring-slinger in pretty much every comic he's ever appeared in (Alan Scott was a lefty).
What's also pretty interesting is that this may be the culmination of a story that started back in Dark Days: The Forge. As Green Lantern and Signal investigated the cave that would lead to The Joker hidden within the Batcave, here's what Hal had to say:
prevnextSlide 10
The giant keyhole inside the Fortress of Solitude -- which hid the next item we will talk about behind it the door it adorned -- is a clear callback to the pre-Crisis look of Superman's Fortress of Solitude.
For a while, Superman just used to roll a massive rock out of the way to get into a mountain hideaway -- that's what he did again in Superman: Lois and Clark and in some issues of Action Comics before that version fo the Fortress was destroyed.
Its most recognizable incarnation, though, was a giant wall in the side of a glacier, featuring a giant lock which could only be opened with a giant key that Superman had to fly up into place.
We get a kind of modern age, New Gods-ian take on that here.
prevnextTuning Fork
Don't look now: it's another new crisis!
(Apologies to the Kirby Krackle for that joke.)
While the launch of DC's Dark Days summer event today may not answer many questions -- and trust us, it raises plenty! -- longtime DC fans likely recognized some story elements that hint at something very big and very bad for the future of the DCU.
First of all, one of the upcoming Dark Nights titles gets a little tease in the form of two of the Immortal Men, who appear and talk about the mysteries of the universe with one another for a bit.
At one point, the lead Immortal Man tells his partner, ""the world of the public heroes is careening toward a crisis unlike anything they've seen before."
That word -- "Crisis" -- has a pretty significant history at DC Comics. The company celebrated its 50th anniversary in Crisis on Infinite Earths, which rebooted the long-running superhero continuity and is arguably the defining event comic in the history of either Marvel or DC. Two decades later, they followed it up with a sequel titled Infinite Crisis, and a few years after that audiences got Final Crisis, which was a bit more on the surreal and cerebral side as far as comic book mega-events go.
So with the last Crisis being called Final Crisis and the fact that the word "crisis" may be loaded at DC but also gets used in a more small-C "crisis" way every day, why should we believe this is as big a deal as we're building it up to be?
Well...
The image above is what's called a cosmic tuning fork. Giant structures built by the Monitor during Crisis on Infinite Earths, the "tuning forks" helped to slow the merging of multiple earths during the Crisis.
For context: the universes in DC's multiverse occupy the same physical space but are separated by different "vibrational frequencies." One of the ways The Anti-Monitor hoped to destroy all of reality was to cause the remaining Earths he had not already destroyed to vibrate at the same rate, ultimately colliding into one another and causing a cataclysmic event.
The implication seems to be that the fork was constructed at least in part using Nth Metal. Around the same time it is revealed, Carter Hall/Hawkman warns against "following in my footsteps." It isn't clear just what his footsteps are yet, but since numerous of the Dark Nights titles reference people who have crossed over into a Dark Dimension in one way or another, it seems likely that's where Batman hopes to go, with the help of this tuning fork (which, while designed to keep universes apart, could presumably be repurposed to travel the multiverse).
For Batman to be seeking out a cosmic tuning fork, things must be...very very dangerous. The threat of the Dark Dimension is not the only major, looming darkness, as Superman will soon be squaring off against Doctor Manhattan in Doomsday Clock, but it seems the larger DC Universe might be headed for another battle of Crisis-level proportions...complete with callbacks to the great-granddaddy of comic book events itself.
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