Some thoughts about Death Metal #1

Whatever happened to the DCU?

Wonder Woman is now the Warden of Hell but she can't help but remember another time where she and her friends fought a final battle against the Mother of the Multiverse, Perpetua. Now she will have to do anything in her power to bring everything back.

Well, here it is. The reason why Scott Snyder's run on Justice League ended in such an abrupt and underwhelming way and don't give me that look, you know it ended in such way because Snyder needed to set-up yet another overhyped event. It happened with the original Metal crossover, then the No Justice miniseries and after that, his infamous Justice League run. I just can't get excited about another "big epic story" that is bound to repeat the cycle.

Then again, I'm willing to give this and Snyder the benefit of the doubt and treat as its own standalone story, and with that in mind, I think this has some decent moment.

The idea of the Multiverse was kinda overused even before Snyder's Metal arrived but he did a few interesting things with the concept and those are also present here. The idea of Wonder Woman being basically the protagonist of this tale ("Basically" being the key word) is appreciated and she does have cool moments concerning her role in the story. Wally West is also present here which is not really a spoiler since solicits already mentioned that, and he gets also an intriguing role due to his new Dr. Manhattan abilities he gained during the Flash Forward miniseries.

The best parts from the original Metal were the references to the bigger DCU (and that's how it's called in story, "The DCU") and fortunately such mentions are also present here including the flashback to the multiple crisis which involve the Anti-Monitor (which looks like a Bat-Anti-Monitor, we will talk about that in a bit), Superboy-Prime, Parallax, Darkseid among others along with other subtle appearances like Sgt. Rock, Jonah Hex and others. Is fun fanservice.

Then comes the problem and they all share the same theme, Batman. Saying that Scott Snyder is obsessed with the Dark Knight is putting it lightly and despite that this is supposedly Wonder Woman's story, you can't help but feel overwhelmed by the Bat-presence of pretty much everything. There are Batdinosaurs, Batmages, Batwhatever, it's just too much and this was already tiring during the previous event. Oh, and of course, the Batman who Laughs who is as annoying as always and it seems like this might be his final story but Snyder is too in love with him to trust that.

The plot has nice pacing and it's intriguing enough in its execution aside from some issues with the dialogue which can be cringey at times.

Greg Capullo's artwork never disappoints, it's beautiful, full of detail and has a very kinetic feel.

Not bad but let's see how it continues.