After existing for nearly eight decades on the fringes of the DC Universe, Nth Metal has emerged as perhaps this reality's most important substance. The rolling revelation, unfolding in the pages of Dark Days: The Casting, Dark Days: The Forge and Dark Nights: Metal, not only rewrites DC history, it opens the door to a multiverse of storytelling possibilities.

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Introduced, alongside Hawkman himself, in 1940's Flash Comics #1, Nth Metal is as integral to the hero's convoluted mythos as, say, Gotham City is to Batman's. Long depicted as native to Thanagar, home planet of the Silver Age Hawkman and Hawkwoman, the remarkable substance can negate gravity, permitting someone wearing an object made of Nth Metal to fly. It also enhances the strength of the wearer, and protects him or her from the elements and extremes in temperature.

A quintessential comic-book material, mysterious enough and malleable enough to be bent to the needs of most any story, Nth Metal is most closely associated with Hawkman and Hawkgirl/woman, from the Golden Age to the present. However, it's also been utilized by other characters -- most notably, the Legion of Super-Heroes, whose signature flight rings are composed of Valorium, an Nth Metal derivativel. Yet the wondrous substance, which actually predates kryptonite, has never played a central part in DC Comics lore.

But writer Scott Snyder & Co. are redefining the role, and origins, of Nth Metal. No longer native to Thanagar, the unusual material now appears to originate in a dark, and potentially evil, realm on the flip-side of the Multiverse (think of it as the DCU's Upside Down). As spelled out by Kendra Saunders in Dark Nights: Metal #1, Nth Metal "gives vastly different powers to those who possess it. Eternal life. Flight. Mystical vision. ... It defies all rules of science and magic." It's connected to Doctor Fate's helmet, Psycho Pirate's mask and even to the wizard Shazam. It began the cycle of reincarnation experienced by Hawkman and Hawkgirl, and leached into the blood of some Earthlings, creating generations of metahumans, including Batman's new partner Duke Thomas, The Signal.

We don't yet fully know what Nth Metal is -- that mystery will help to fuel Dark Nights: Metal and beyond -- but it's undoubtedly the key to the future of the DC Universe.

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Cataclysmic Events & Mutations

From Dark Days: The Casting

There's a history of writers and editors attempting to explain why, and how, a bunch of superheroes and supervillains sprang up at about the same time. Milestone Media's "Dakotaverse" had its Big Bang, in which the experimental nerve gas Quantum Juice was unleashed to end a gang war, nearly killing everyone present -- gang members, police, innocent bystanders -- in the process. The survivors, however, gained superpowers. Likewise, Marvel's New Universe tied the emergence of superhumans to the White Event, an astronomical phenomenon that triggered genetic anomalies in some Earthlings. In the Ultimate Marvel universe, mutants could trace their origins to an attempt by the Weapon X program to create a super-soldier like Captain America.

By contrast, the superheroes and supervillains of the DC Universe have traditionally been a mix of aliens, magic users, the results of sci-fi accidents and experiments, or "metahumans," the approximately 12 percent of the human population who possess the metagene. Introduced during 1989's Invasion! event, the metagene is a convenient catch-all explanation for those powers that don't have specific oddball sci-fi or magical roots.

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By redefining Nth Metal, DC has an opportunity to move beyond the metagene, and to create its own "White Event." We already know the material is linked to the powers of dozens of heroes; it's even connected to the Lazarus Pit through Dionesium. How much of a stretch would it be for Nth Metal to be the underlying reason for all superpowers within the DC Universe?

Think about it: What if the reason Barry Allen gained super-speed was because the chemicals and lightning reacted with the Nth Metal in his blood? What if the reason Kryptonians exhibit incredible powers on Earth isn't simply the effects of the yellow sun, but instead how the radiation stimulates the Nth Metal in their alien bodies?

The metagene has long been DC's answer to Marvel's X-gene, but Nth Metal has the potential to be so much more: the source of all powers in the multiverse. And that's only the beginning.

Nth Metal May Unlock Even More than Superpowers

Unlimited Danger

The secret history, and far-reaching influence, of Nth Metal won't remain a secret for long, If, as we're told in The Casting, that Batman has been tracking those with a certain metal toxicity for years (he has his own "meta-file"), what are the odds that someone like Amanda Waller is already aware of its existence? If not, she undoubtedly will be soon.

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Within the DC Universe, government agencies like the Department of Extranormal Operations already monitor the activities of superhumans, including those with the metagene. But what would the DEO and Waller do if they knew Nth Metal is lurking, like a ticking time bomb, in the blood of untold thousands of people, if not more?

From Dark Days: The Casting

What's more, what if someone like Mister Bloom somehow acquired Nth Metal, and used the substance to grant people dark, twisted abilities?

Untold Mysteries

Duke Thomas has been around since “Zero Year," more than five years in comics time, but it wasn’t until Dark Days: The Casting that his powers manifested. Logically, that could mean there are other known costumed heroes, and villains, who have abilities that we -- and they -- don't yet know about.

While a flood of Nth Metal-infused retcons is unlikely, not to mention unwise, previously unrealized powers could answer a host of questions about improbable resurrections and inexplicable physical feats.

From Dark Nights: Metal
From Dark Nights: Metal

There's also potential for the material to form a basis for magic within the DC Universe, with such supernatural characters as Zatanna, John Constantine and Klarion the Witch Boy using the Nth Metal within their blood as a conduit to channel the energies of its place of origin, this mysterious Dark Multiverse?

Of course, all of that's secondary to the introduction of Nth Metal's home: If this wondrous material is the source of almost countless powers, and may well be responsible for superheroes as we know it, then what else lurks in the dark?