The events of Dark Nights: Metal have had some wide-reaching implications for DC Comics’ universe, well beyond setting the stage for the current Justice League line up. The roster in the Hall of Justice is not the only thing being shaken up right now; the fundamental forces of the entire cosmos are as well.
The totality makes its presence known in the first issue of Justice League. Image: Jim Cheung, Mark Morales, Tomeu Morey and Tom Napolitano (DC Comics)
The first two issues of Justice League – from the ginormous all-star team of Scott Snyder, Jim Cheung, Jorge Jiminez, Mark Morales, Tomeu Morey, Alejandro Sanchez and Tom Napolitano – have seen the latest iteration of the team dealing with the reckoning brought about by the Source Wall breaking down in the climax of Dark Nights.
The wall, once the literal barrier at the edge of the multiverse keeping everything vaguely normal, has cracked, which already lead to the attack of the Omega Titans – bizarre cosmic entities from beyond the Wall’s reaches, attempting to munch down on the entropic energies of Earth – during the events of the No Justice miniseries.
Oh hello, creepy sand-face! Image: Jorge Jiminez, Alejandro Sanchez and Tom Napolitano (DC Comics)
But that’s been dealt with, and it’s far from the biggest problem the League is facing right now. The cracks in the Source Wall have lead to all sorts of weird cosmic events afflicting Earth and the universe at large – primarily, the arrival of a giant beam of cosmic energy the League has dubbed the Totality, allegedly containing a code some members of the team believe could jumpstart the evolution of the decaying multiverse into something new… or just outright destroy it.
The Totality has smashed into Earth, coalesced in a giant, horrifying face the League is just barely managing to keep hidden from the public, because whoever comes into contact with it is mutated into wildly enhanced beings designed to protect the Totality from outside interference.
The giant sand-face of unknown ancient energy in the Nevada desert is not the only hint that something is deeply, deeply wrong with the natural order of the DC universe though.
In today’s Justice League #2, we get a lot of tiny little nudges about everything not being quite right. Sinestro uncovers an entirely new ultraviolet spectrum of emotional light to control, subsuming John Stewart as his first recruit in a new, hate-filled Lantern corps.
The Guardians of Oa are investigating the decay of the cosmic membrane at the edges of existence.
Sinestro the Ultraviolet Lantern makes his presence known. Image: Jorge Jiminez, Alejandro Sanchez and Tom Napolitano (DC Comics)
The Speed Force, the source of Barry Allen and countless other speedsters’ power, has become intermittent, shorting out randomly (and for Barry at least, at the worst possible times).
Hell, even Lex Luthor and his all-new Legion of Doom are getting in on the weirdness, with Lex hatching a secret plan to unlock seven of the “hidden forces” of the universe now unleashed by the Source Wall’s cracking, in an attempt to control the Totality for himself.
It’s all being dripped into this new Justice League series in small moments, here and there around the events focused on the Totality’s arrival, but they’re all adding up to paint a very grim picture for the DC universe right now: Slowly but surely, the very fabric of the multiverse is coming undone at the seams, and none of our heroes have any idea with how to deal with it.
Whatever happens, the DC universe is in for a very weird time in the near future.
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7 responses to “The DC Universe Is Kinda Broken Right Now”
It’s all well and good, and I love my comics, but everything in comics right now, both DC and Marvel, feels like it has to be on this giant Universal scale. I really do kinda miss those small scale stories we used to get :\
Amen. It was bad enough when they’d have a huge event once every 5 or 10 years. Now it seems like there is one running literally all the time. And hell, sometimes there seems to be more than one running at once (still dealing with the Metal events even now).
It’s a big part of the reason I’m getting more indy (or at least non-Marvel/DC) titles these days. It’s nice being able to read self contained stories (or story arcs) in 6ish issues without having to pick up five different titles and special editions.
I’ve found image or old vertigo etc. as long as it’s only like one book it’s just so easy to follow. You read invincible 1 to 200 or whatever it’s up to now. Same with walking dead. Or you can just grab all the sandman collections and know you’re getting the complete story. Of course, once you’ve read most of the great ones you have to wait a while for all these more indie ones to release a good chunk of story, but it’s worth it.
Keeping up with dc and marvel comics and knowing which comics to read and when so you’re up to speed on the main storyline of their respective universes is almost a hobby in itself
Yeah exactly. While Invincible had a couple other characters appear in it (like Brit, Wolfman, Tech Jacket and others) it was still perfectly self contained. And the couple spinoffs it had were self contained and easily skippable if you chose.
I feel like there are enough indy titles though that there’s always something coming out to keep me interested. There’s a fun series called John Carpenters Tales of Sci-fi that’s floating my boat at the moment. And another sci-fi one called Delta 13 that feels similar. Some horror/supernatural ones like Peek A boo, Dark Ark, Jeepers Creepers and Gideon Falls. And Harrow County which is sadly winding up. Fantasy like Coda, Curse Words and I Hate Fairyland. And that’s just a very few on the list.
Side note: Invincible has finished it’s run. After the hype and leadup I actually felt a bit let down by the last couple issues. Like they jammed too much stuff into the background and went “yep we’re done”.
Shit has it finished up ey? I haven’t been following much for a while but now I know it’s over I’ll finish that book up. Unfortunate about the ending, it’s really hard to finish up stories as long as these convincingly but some have managed to do it. Transmetropolitan is one that comes to mind.
And thanks for the list of books there, I’ll check them out one day for sure.
Yeah, it wrapped up a few months ago now. I won’t spoil it beyond saying I found the ending a bit underwhelming. There was nothing inherently wrong about the actual ending (as in where the characters ended up, how they did it etc.) just that the pacing was bad. It felt like they could have had at least a few more issues, if not a whole story arc.
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