Does DC's Crime Syndicate Come From The Dark Multiverse?

SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains major spoilers for Batman: The Red Death #1 by Joshua Williamson and Carmine Di Giandomenico, on sale now.

Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo's Dark Nights: Metal has put forth that the newly-established Dark Multiverse is the longstanding, shadowy underbelly of the DC Comics Multiverse, while Joshua Williamson and Carmine Di Giandomenico's Batman: The Red Death #1 provides the first look inside one of the worlds inhabiting that gloomy dimension. The mainstream Batman of Earth 0 has long been shown to be DC's flagship dark, driven, and determined hero, but the Batman of Earth -52 (read "negative 52") goes well beyond determination and crosses over into problematic actions that puts this incarnation of Batman's status as a hero into question.

The Origin Of Evil: Earth 3, Or . . . ?

While this is but one example of a hero's fall within the infinitely larger fabric of the Dark Multiverse, the other glimpses seen thus far point towards a dimension ripe with evil and darkness. As a dark flipside to the Multiverse, where the forces of good originate and generally triumph, could the Dark Multiverse be the realm that's the birthplace of evil, and where darkness by nature generally wins the day?

Perhaps, but hasn't the birthplace of evil already been established as Earth 3, right here in our very own multiverse? Why, yes it has – this revelation happened in Trinity War back in 2013, leading off to the incursion of Earth 3's Crime Syndicate as subsequently told in DC's Forever Evil event. But relatively little has been revealed about the Crime Syndicate's origins – while Earth 3 is presumed to be their home world, various incarnations of the CSA over the years have shown their penchant for invading our world from time to time. Could this wanderlust have originated elsewhere -- say, from an Earth -3 in the Dark Multiverse -- with Earth 3 merely being their first stop in the "Light" Multiverse?

The Crime Syndicate – Orphans From The Dark Multiverse?

If worlds within the Dark Multiverse are destined to die, as claimed by the Batman Who Laughs in Red Death, then a CSA who inhabited the back side of the multiversal map would not only have plenty of incentive to flee, but also the proven capability to traverse across worlds not their own. Earth 3's destruction, as revealed in "Forever Evil," necessitated the Crime Syndicate evacuating as a matter of survival -- the idea for such a move may likely well have sprung from the fact that they've had to make such a move in the past already.

Had the pervasive evil nature of the Dark Multiverse ever somehow made its way to Earth 3, it could have contaminated that possibly once-pure world, in what might have been the first multiversal incursion, well before Dark Nights: Metal. If the Dark Multiverse is in fact a realm where evil prevails, rather than justice, this template could very well have poisoned Earth 3 at some point in the distant past that went on to establish its evil, opposite nature from the remainder of the Multiverse.

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Of course, there's another Crime Syndicate that doesn't get much attention anymore. While no longer necessarily in canon, Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely's 2000 graphic novel JLA: Earth 2 provided a fascinating and in-depth look at the nature of the world that, for all intents, could comfortably fit within modern continuity as the Earth 3 that fans have always known. The world of Morrison and Quitely's story was one whose reverse nature went right to the moral core of humanity. Whereas good triumphing over evil is a fundamental concept long accepted, and embraced, as a basis of human nature, Earth 2 was a world where the triumph of evil is the foundation for everything else, and the rest of the world is shaped around that principle.

This incarnation of the Crime Syndicate was introduced during the two decades between Crisis on Infinite Earths and Final Crisis, when DC continuity took place within a single universe, rather than a multiverse. With the reinstatement of the DC Multiverse and the advent of the new Crime Syndicate during DC's "New 52" era, Morrison and Quitely's version became not only redundant, but non-existent. Ironically, the arguably best-defined and most thoroughly examined version of the CSA was retconned away, with no home other than on bookshelves.

The Dark Multiverse: Birthplace Of Evil, And Possibly Also …

Or, perhaps, it found its home in the Dark Multiverse. If the current Earth 3 incarnation of the Crime Syndicate doesn't originate from there, then maybe the black carpet can be rolled out for the Morrison and Quitely's Earth 2 iteration, instead. After all, the world of that CSA typifies a place that's "wrong at its core," as the Batman Who Laughs describes the worlds of the Dark Multiverse. The psychopathic Batman of Red Death seemingly comes straight out of Frank Miller and Jim Lee's All-Star Batman and Robin, The Boy Wonder, another out-of-continuity story that would blend right into the confines of the Dark Multiverse. The world of JLA: Earth 2, with its good-guys-always-lose motif, would be another all-too-believable occupant of the Dark Multiverse, serving as perhaps the first DM story no one ever knew they read.

On a bigger level, the idea of evil originating from an entirely different realm is more plausible than it coming from a singular world within the otherwise morally-centered Multiverse. Earth 3 has always been unique in that regard, and that's always been its appeal, but the reason why it's always been so fundamentally different never really held up well under scrutiny. The differences between worlds has largely been historical – superheroes appearing decades earlier in one, for instance, or one becoming president in another, are based on definable, quantifiable alterations. Earth 3, though, has essentially been built on the ambiguous template of good guys being born as bad guys, and vice versa, without ever really explaining why or how such a sweeping change could occur. Influence from the Dark Multiverse would at least provide some degree of credibility.

While it's too early to fully understand the overall and long-term impact of Dark Nights: Metal, the possibilities put forth in the few issues seen so far at least hold the potential for giving new life and meaning to already existing characters and storylines.