WARNING: This article contains spoilers for Dark Nights: Metal #2, by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo.


In addition to teasing out a secret history of the DC Universe, and peeling back the corner of a Dark Multiverse, Dark Days and Dark Nights: Metal have reintroduced such classic elements Nth Metal, Plastic Man, Blackhawk Island, Carter Hall and Kendra Saunders to Rebirth continuity. With Metal #2, on sale this week, we can add another old favorite to the list: the Hall of Doom.

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Although it's not named in the story, the iconic design -- like an early Ralph McQuarrie concept for Darth Vader's helmet -- is unmistakable. Emerging from "the Antarctic lava pits," it's under construction by Vandal Savage for "another purpose," but used for a clandestine gathering of the DCU's immortals to address the danger posed by the Dark Multiverse.

Of course, the Hall of Doom is better known not as the temporary meeting place of the immortals, but rather as the sinister-looking headquarters of the Legion of Doom on the 1978 animated series Challenge of the SuperFriends. It's somewhat appropriate that the hall makes its rebirth debut in Antarctica, as Captain Cold had suggested it be hidden "under the ice of the polar cap" in the weirdly apocalyptic series finale "History of Doom," which recounted the Legion's origin. (Black Manta argued for the bottom of the ocean, Gorilla Grodd for the jungle; as a compromise, Lex Luthor selected beneath the murky waters of a swamp.)

Legion of Doom hall of doom headquarters

Touted as an impenetrable fortress "equipped with the most deadly devices in the universe," the Hall of Doom was fitted with rocket boosters, which not only enabled it to emerge from the swamp's waters whenever the 13 members of the Legion of Doom gathered in its central meeting room (recreated in Metal #2), but also to fly through the air.

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Challenge of the SuperFriends gave way in 1979 to The World's Greatest Super Friends, but neither the Legion of Doom nor its memorable headquarters remained out of sight for long. Perhaps because some of the young viewers of the Saturday-morning cartoon grew up to be writers, artists and producers, the Hall of Doom has appeared again and again over the past four decades, across comic books, animated and live-action television, and video games.

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The Hall of Doom's Comic Book Continuity

The Hall of Doom has cropped up in DC comic books on a handful of occasions, notably inspiring the design of the Gulag, Superman's metahuman prison in Kingdom Come, the 1996 Elseworlds miniseries by Mark Waid and Alex Ross, and serving as the headquarters of the Legion of Doom in Justice, the 2005 ode to SuperFriends by Ross, Jim Krueger and Doug Braithwaite.

From Justice League of America #14

However, the domed structure fully entered modern (mainstream) DC continuity in 2007 with the Justice League of America Wedding Special, by Dwayne McDuffie and Mike McKone, as the base of operations for Luthor's newly formed Injustice League Unlimited, and Justice Society of America #6, by Geoff Johns and Dale Eaglesham. In the latter, part of the "Lightning Saga" crossover, it's depicted as abandoned years earlier by the Secret Society of Super-Villains but used as a temporary home by the time-displaced Legionnaire Sensor Girl.

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The Hall of Doom appears briefly in 2008's Final Crisis, by Grant Morrison and J.G. Jones, where it's offered by Libra as a headquarters for the supervillains, and then again in a couple of years later in Superman/Batman. But then it submerged into the murky waters once more, until resurfacing this week in the new continuity, for use in Vandal Savage's mysterious plan.

In other media, a version of the structure serves as the headquarters for Gorilla Grodd's Legion of Doom on the fan-favorite animated series Justice League Unlimited, for Vandal Savage's incarnation in the 2008 direct-to-video film Justice League: Doom, and for Lex Luthor's teams in 2014's JLA Adventures: Trapped in Time and 2015's LEGO DC Comics Super Heroes: Justice League – Attack of the Legion of Doom. The base of operations of the Injustice League in the 2011 episode of Young Justice, "Revelation," is an homage to the classic Hall of Doom as well.

hall of doom
From DC Universe Online

In the 2011 massive multiplayer online game DC Universe Online, a LexCorp-designed Hall of Doom is the submersible lair of the Secret Society of Super-Villains. Although based in Slaughter Swamp, the hall is connected to nightclubs around Gotham City and Metropolis by a teleportation system. It's also a location in the 2014 action-adventure game LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham, accessible through the Hall of Justice, of all places.

Not limited to animation, comics and video games, the Hall of Doom made its live-action debut earlier this year, during the second season of DC's Legends of Tomorrow. Used by the CW drama's version of the Legion of Doom, formed by Malcolm Merlyn, the Reverse-Flash and Damien Darhk, the helmet-shaped building isn't located in a swamp, but instead in the middle of a city.

It's unclear, at least for the time being, whether DC's new Hall of Doom will play a larger role in the events of Dark Nights: Metal, or it's simply a fun callback to the long history of the DC Universe. However, it's a little difficult to imagine Snyder is going to reintroduce the iconic lair, and tease a plot by Savage, only for both to be quickly abandoned.


Dark Nights: Metal #2, by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo, is on sale now from DC Comics.