YMMV / Dark Nights: Metal

• Anti-Climax Boss: The majority of the title Dark Knights in the end, as with the exception of Red Death and the Batman Who Laughs, the majority of them are killed off in half a panel.
• Awesome Music: The comic has been given its own soundtrack, and as expected with a comic named "Dark Nights: Metal" the soundtrack is made up of amazing heavy metal pieces. "Red Death" a theme for the titular Dark Knight, "Red Death." It’s a song so awesome it was even used for the comic book's trailer!
• Angst Aversion: It's not uncommon to find readers who are turned off by some of the story elements in this series, which can come across as overly Grimdark to some readers.
• Base-Breaking Character: The Batman Who Laughs is even more explosively popular than one would expect a concept of "what if Batman became the Joker" to be, and even more hated as well. Fans of him see him as just flat-out Evil Is Cool, with his crazy BDSM design and horde of evil Robins giving him an iconic presence, not to mention the sheer threat level he presents and the dozens of creepy notes to his character. Non-fans see him as combining all the worst traits of Batman and the Joker—an "edgelord" feel, ludicrous hypercompetence fueled by Plot Armor, inexplicable importance, and a motivation amounting to For the Evulz—along with accusing him of being little more than the Joker with a new coat of paint. There are also several fans that argue he should've remained a one-time villain, and DC overusing the character in further stories just made him worse, whether he was liked or not.
• Broken Base:
  • The Immortal Men stuff. Some like that it ties the various immortals of the DCU into each other. Others think it doesn't make sense given the characters' different histories and motivations, and that it's more than a little forced.
  • Keeping this story separate from the overarching DC Rebirth Story Arc and the events of Doomsday Clock especially in light of the numerous similarities the event has with them (focus on The Multiverse and Hypertime, delving in to the nature of metahumans, invoking The Bus Came Back for numerous characters, etc.) On one hand making it separate means the event is generally a more successful take on the intent behind The New 52, where creators could tell new stories with familiar characters without the burden of established continuity, and harkens back to other successful events that were largely one-in-done while having longer term results for the DC Universe. On the other hand not tying it in to the ongoing narrative can be seen as a missed opportunity to reveal answers to some of the mysteries in said narrative, which is especially true of the characters that The Bus Came Back is in effect for.
• Catharsis Factor: After establishing himself as a despicable Hate Sink with a Wangst filled origin, fans cheered when The Dawnbreaker got the tar kicked out of him by Hal Jordan even if Hal still ultimately lost.
• Complete Monster:
  • The Batman Who Laughs is a being born of The Joker's toxins infecting the Bruce Wayne of Earth-22, giving rise to something new and far more evil that slaughtered his entire world. As the right-hand of Barbatos and leader of the Dark Knights, the One Who Laughs gleefully gave all for a chance to massacre entire worlds, summoning Barbatos to Earth to annihilate it and torture and kill everything there. Surviving his master's downfall, the One Who Laughs continues massacring others in his path, tries to start entire world wars, attempts to twist Gotham into pitiless monsters like him, and eventually becomes the herald of Perpetua. Betraying her upon achieving a new cosmic awareness, the One Who Laughs rechristens himself the Darkest Knight, vowing to become a bullet to the Multiverse itself as its worlds fall before him. Slaying Perpetua, he unleashes an army of the worst he has to offer, plotting to turn all existence into a nightmarish reflection of his own soul in an eternal chaos that will devour itself until nothing remains.
  • The dark god Barbatos, one of the first beings in all creation, turned on and killed his master the Forger, allowing a multiverse of worlds to decay and rot, eventually forming the Dark Multiverse. Influencing Earth to spread evil and cause bloodshed and destruction, Barbatos developed a fixation on Bruce Wayne after encountering him on his trip through time. Barbatos proceeded to allow countless worlds to die to torment each Bruce Wayne and corrupt him in a myriad of realities, choosing the seven most twisted and evil incarnations of Batman as his Dark Knights. Invading the Multiverse and coldly having his loyal servants, the Court of Owls, disposed of, Barbatos has the Dark Knights wreak death and destruction on a global scale, having countless innocents corrupted to serve as a power source for his machines in order to eventually bring the Dark Multiverse into reality, completely wiping out most of the Multiverse and killing or corrupting everything there while Barbatos reigns over it like a god. One of the evilest beings to ever grace the Multiverse, Barbatos shows himself utterly devoted to making everything that lives suffer until it is a reflection of his own twisted self.
• Crosses the Line Twice: The Batman Who Laughs killed Wonder Woman by strangling her with her own lasso. It's truly horrifying considering how in many stories Bruce and Diana were close enough to be lovers, but at the same time it's not too hard to see how someone with the Joker's insanity might find it funny.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: The new portrayal of Starro as an unpleasant Troll with a mindset akin to Bill Cipher has become quite the hit with fans.
• Epileptic Trees: With the reveal of the Dark Multiverse, a multiverse born from the fears of the inhabitants of the normal Multiverse, usually involving a hero falling, the idea that Injustice is part of the Dark Multiverse is fairly popular. However, there are some factors against this idea, mainly that Dark Multiverse worlds usually crumble away because they're so unstable, while the Injustice world is still going strong.
• Evil Is Cool: Of the Dark Knights, many fans just love the designs for the Red Death, The Drowned and the Batman Who Laughs for being cool and different, while still taking enough inspiration to be identifiable as evil counterparts.
• Fan Nickname: The Batman Who Laughs was called "Cenobite Batman" before his name was revealed. Also "Laughable Bats" of those fans which found his concept and design to be silly instead of scary or interesting. He has alternately been called Giggles, and in Spanish, El Risitas (the little laughs). There are also nicknames that change "laughs" for "keks", "lols", and "lmaos," and on /co/ the nickname "Batkek" became somewhat common.
• Genius Bonus: Starro being able to regrow itself from a small surviving piece makes more sense when you consider his very starfish-like anatomy. Real world starfish have remarkable regenerative abilities and are able to regrow almost an entirely new body with access to nutrients being the main limitation.
• Harsher in Hindsight: One subplot involves Green Lantern defeating Starro by using his power ring to perform what's implied to be Black Comedy Rape. In The Suicide Squad Starro alludes to the Thinker sexually abusing its host bodies, which isn't played for laughs at all.
• Ho Yay:
  • Clark carrying Bruce bridal-style, with this look of utter sincerity on his face as he pleads with Bruce to let the League help him, while noting that he knows Bruce's heartbeat almost as well as Lois'.
  • The Devastator had some... interesting choice of words for his Superman during their final battle.
    Devastator: I really...loved you, Clark. I believed in the world you promised us. You made me hope for a better future. But now, I know it was all a lie. And I won't let you hurt me anymore.
• Memetic Mutation: The Batman Who Laughs is Crazy Steve.^ExplanationA joke about how the Batman in ASBAR acts more like Joker than Batman, which is awfully TBWL-like in hindsight.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Ares didn't kill Wonder Woman in the Merciless' world. He just stunned her, but Batman, under the influence of the helm, killed the god and then her to stop her from taking it off.
  • The Batman Who Laughs crosses the MEH in the same moment he kills the entire Bat-Family (sans Damian) in order to prevent them from alerting the rest of the heroes about Batman's changes into a "Jokerized" version of him. It only gets worse from there.
  • The Dawnbreaker crosses it when he murders his world's Jim Gordon just for calling him out on his unnecessarily violent deeds (something he is also implied to have done to his Earth's Harvey Bullock), which is what makes him cross the line from Unscrupulous Hero to a straight-up villain.
  • The Red Death got his powers by forcibly merging himself with the Flash who is screaming at him to stop while both are ripped apart by the Speed Force. It’s also implied Batman murdered all the Rogues to get their tech to fight the Flash.
  • In-universe, the Devastator believes his Superman crossed it when the latter killed his Lois Lane.
• Narm:
  • Metal #2 reveals the last of the metals Batman was investigating has been named after him, Batmanium. In an otherwise harrowing climax, it just kind of kills the moment by how seriously everyone takes the reveal.
  • The Merciless carving Wonder Woman's likeness into rocks with his fingers. It's supposed to be tragic, but it comes off as cheesy instead.
• Narm Charm:
  • The Red Death’s origin: Strapping Barry Allen to the hood of the Batmobile that’s been augmented with Cosmic Treadmill tech and then driving it into the Speed Force to merge the two together with Batman standing in the driver seat with arms stretched out like a rock star as both are ripped to pieces. It’s both as ridiculous and awesome as it sounds.
  • The entire series is meant to run on this, as Snyder described his approach as being a celebration of "bonkers storytelling."
• One-Scene Wonder: Starro only gets one scene in Issue 4 and is then defeated off-panel in Issue 5. Despite this, the reworking of his character was funny enough to make him an Ensemble Dark Horse.
• Salvaged Story: Much like DC Rebirth as a whole, this series brings back several characters that haven't been seen for some time and the clear goal with the characters is to act as a celebration of DC's long history. Examples include the Golden Age Hawks, the Outsiders, and Mister Terrific.
• Squick:
  • Some of the Robins cling onto the Batman Who Laughs's leg. Considering his fetish gear look, that imagery is pretty unsettling. Especially since they're numerous Jokerized children.
  • The Drowned wears an outfit that shows off her sizable bust, but due to her body modifications she's got a nasty case of necrosis around her mouth, with the implication that the rest of her is in a similar state. Presumably her bodice is the only thing keeping her mammaries from succumbing to gravity.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!
  • The Hawks' new origin. Instead of the simple idea of a reincarnating Egyptian couple cursed to die forever by a jealous priest, they are now immortals who were killed by an amnesia dagger because of some vast conspiracy. It just feels forced to some as a way to tie every immortal together somehow.
  • Duke being a metahuman. While he's by no means popular compared to the rest of the Bat-Family, Duke was liked as a more modern take on Robin, as a kid who was normal and was more akin to a partner than a student, one who was very down to the Earth. And now he glows.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: The Bus Came Back for several characters at the start of the event but next to nothing was done with them outside of either cameo focus or One-Scene Wonder actions. This is especially true of the Dark Matter characters that are first mentioned here but recieve no more than teases.
  • The Joker suffers especially hard from this, despite being promoted as an integral part of the story. He only appears in the prologue chapters and promptly disappears from the narrative afterwards. He shows up at the end to help Batman defeat the Batman Who Laughs. Even then, he's a Deus ex Machina.
  • The Outsiders make their return as an obstensible black-ops team to explore the metals but only get mentioned twice and only seen once, in hologram form at that.
  • Mister Miracle makes an appearance to help Batman retrieve the Anti-Monitor's dimensional tuning fork and exits the story. Given the New Gods' unique connection with the multiverse it would have been intriguing to see their involvement. Their involvement amounts to their Applied Phlebotinum, Element X, being used as the final weapon used to defeat Barbatos.
  • Damage is apparently a Cadmus experiment which is connected with similar experiments on others but isn't even seen properly until his own series.
  • The Silencer gets mentioned but that plot line doesn't come into effect until their titutlar series.
  • The Immortal Men were aware of the oncoming crisis and are connected to Duke Thomas but don't even appear or get mentioned past the first prologue.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: There are small hints about the history of the characters that The Bus Came Back for, but they're quickly swept aside to deal with the Dark Multiverse invasion plot. Getting more information on the background of these long-established characters in the current DC Universe could have been quite intriguing.
  • The second prologue mentions and shows several immortal characters (Etrigan, Uncle Sam, the Phantom Stranger, Swamp Thing, Ra's al Ghul, etc.) but only a scant few have any bigger role in the story than that.
  • The ancient tribe plot could have mixed with the immortals' sub-plot to go further into the Ancient Conspiracy presented at the beginning of the story.
  • The Rock of Eternity, Black Adam, and a dagger forged by the wizard which helps move the plot forward all appear but Shazam himself is completely absent.
  • The Guardians of the Universe were somehow aware of what was going to happen with the Dark Multiverse but the only presence they maintain is Hal Jordan's work during the event which also precludes any further involvement from the cosmic side of the DC Universe.
  • Despite the fact that the Dark Knights are evil counterparts to Batman, we don’t see the main universe Batman meet or talk to any of them apart from the Batman Who Laughs. Maybe Batman could’ve met the other Dark Knights at some point and see their backstories to understand them, and then try to convince them to turn on The Batman Who Laughs and Barbatos? Nope. They die without ever interacting with the main Batman.
• Ugly Cute:
  • Baby Darkseid, wearing the most adorable goggles.
  • The Robins that accompany The Batman Who Laughs. It didn't take for artists on Tumblr to produce cutesy fan art.
• Unexpected Character:
  • Dream of the Endless from The Sandman (1989) shows up at end of the first issue of Metal, and to say it's not expected is an understatement. Not only does he have next to nothing to do with the idea of a mysterious metal connecting to the Dark Multiverse, but he's never been someone who interacts with the wider DC Universe that much. He's also from an old Vertigo comic that was canon with the main DCU, but very unlikely to be canon with the post-Flashpoint DCU. Definitely not one of your predictable appearances.
  • The third issue brings back Detective Chimp!
  • The Monitor is brought back to life. Not a Monitor, The Monitor, aka Mar Novu who died in the original crisis 32 years ago.
• Wangst: The Dawnbreaker seems to be Batman's usual angst and brooding taken up to eleven, his solo issue having a large focus on how he is "filled with darkness inside" and how he wants everyone to feel as bad as he does. Considering that not only is he a teenage version of Bruce Wayne who had been granted the power of a Green Lantern at an inappropriate time but he's also a personification of one of Batman's greatest fears and regrets, all of this might be intentional.
• The Woobie: The mainline Bruce Wayne actually manages to lose his drive after finding out his entire life was a lie that Barbatos used to grant him entry into the Multiverse where he could bring about damnation. Not only that, but he was tortured in ways that left him an aged and emaciated husk of his former self.
• WTH, Costuming Department?: Most people thought the Batman Who Laughs was scary looking while some fans instead laughed at the character design. He wears what looks like a metal spiked dog collar over his eyes which looks too much like Batzarro's design to be taken seriously. He wears tight restricting leather and heavy Cenobiteish chains which would restrict his moments in combat. He never closes his mouth, so his gums look inflamed and puffy and his teeth are filed to points, on top of wearing red lipstick.