SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains major spoilers for Dark Nights: Metal #4 by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo, on sale now.


The concept of a multiverse has always historically been a central element of DC Comics continuity, but eventually had become too much of a quagmire for its writers to handle. In response, the publisher eventually initiated its first-ever "event" story – Crisis on Infinite Earths – to try and plausibly get rid of it, but once done, was missed by many. With some more careful planning, the idea of a multiverse was ultimately reinstated, and in fact has been enhanced with even more complexity.

RELATED: Metal’s Dark Knights Aren’t Just Evil Batmen – They’re Bat-Failures

Dark Nights: Metal has played a large part in that enhancement, with Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo introducing the notion of a Dark Multiverse, residing on the flipside of the already known multiverse. At first pass, the addition of a whole new realm based on the fears and nightmares stemming from the known worlds is seemingly poised to further complicate continuity. However, Dark Nights: Metal #4 goes a long way towards doing just the opposite, by not only explaining the origin of the Dark Multiverse, but just how the known multiverse fits into the bigger picture of DC continuity.

Re-Enter Sandman

The cliffhanger ending to the first issue of Metal integrated perhaps the most surprising DC character of all into the story: Morpheus, aka Dream, aka The Sandman. Dream's appearance signaled that there was more than just another multiverse to deal with – there was also the far larger fabric of reality to consider, at least within the confines of DC continuity. In Dark Nights: Metal #4, Dream not only returns, but also takes on a more active role within the context of the story. Having been trapped in the Dark Multiverse and unwittingly luring Superman there, Batman calls upon Dream for aid, and The Sandman complies. The two shortly find themselves transported to The Sandman's realm, specifically in the library of Dream's servant Lucien.

Sandman readers will recall that the library within the realm known as The Dreaming contains every book that was ever written – even if only in the writer's imagination. Among those stories are those that were never meant to be, and should never have come into existence – stories that Dream calls "horrors from the human heart." Dream tells Batman and Superman that these imaginary, horrific stories are the foundation that the Dark Multiverse is built upon, and it's Barbatos' machinations that are giving these tomes a life they never should have had.

RELATED: Batman Who Laughs’ Origin: Destroying the World To Become a Dark Knight

As these horrors come to life, The Dreaming's library begins to burn, making Dream's motivation for taking action clear: he needs the world's heroes to prevail, so that his realm, and all of reality, can be saved. Dream's removal of the World's Finest duo from the Dark Multiverse has momentarily prevented Earth from being drawn any closer to the dark realm, but Barbatos remains positioned for victory. To help the heroes defeat Barbatos, Sandman provides the two with an important piece of information: the origin of the Multiverse.

Page 2: [valnet-url-page page=2 paginated=0 text='The%20Dark%20Multiverse%20and%20Nth%20Metal%2C%20Explained']



To the Dark Multiverse, and Beyond

Dream speaks of the spark of creation, and the resulting genesis of not only the existence of matter and anti-matter, but also the beings that oversaw them. These beings, of course, are The Monitor and the Anti-Monitor, first seen in the continuity-altering Crisis. Dream also reveals the existence of a third being he calls The Forger, who mans the World Forge – the origin point of all worlds. The discourse expounds on Kendra Saunders' explanation in issue #1 – that in addition to the two known fundamental forms of matter and anti-matter, dark matter is a recently discovered third.

RELATED: How A Hawkman Villain Might Be the Key to Dark Nights: Metal

From here, Morpheus goes on to explain the nature of the multiverse. The most stable of the Forger's worlds gravitate towards the Orrery – the collective of worlds in the known multiverse. The others, though, sink towards the realm of the Dark Multiverse, awaiting their eventual destruction, with their raw energies returning to the World Forge to be reformed. The eventual annihilation of these various worlds has been seen in the various Dark Nights: Metal tie-ins.

The destruction of these worlds had long been carried out by none other than Barbatos, at the behest of the Forger. Morpheus reveals that Barbatos' urge to destroy ultimately led to him killing the Forger himself, stopping the creation of any new worlds. This also led to the cessation of the malformed worlds' destruction, allowing Barbatos to presumably cull his Dark Knights from those that remained.

Dream's explanation solidifies much of what is known about both multiverses. With no one left to create new worlds, the reason for a finite number of worlds in the "bright" multiverse is given plausibility. Conversely, the infinite amount of twisted, nightmarish what-if scenarios that give birth to the worlds of the Dark Multiverse likely spawn a similarly infinite number of earths that die in a comparatively cosmic blink of an eye.

Nth Metal, Also Explained

The raw material of any forge is, what else, metal – and Morpheus' continued explanation just might reveal what the metal in the Dark Nights: Metal really represents. Dream explains that the Nth Metal – which, yes, he calls the Ninth Metal – is a nearly pure derivative of the substance used to create the multiverse. The Nth Metal is known to be harmful to the Dark Knights, so its pure form – Tenth Metal? – the material used to create all worlds, is postulated to be the ultimate weapon against Barbatos and his army.

But with the Forger dead, the Forge of Worlds has gone dark, with no way to forge a weapon against Barbatos, as Batman and Superman learn when Dream transports them there. Upon arrival, the duo discover that the Forge has a guardian to ensure that it will remain forever dark – that of Carter Hall himself, writer of the journal that professed it to be a place of creation, hideously transformed by Barbatos into an evil incarnation of Hawkman.

Now that the true origin of the Multiverse has been told, it appears that its days are now numbered. Its fate, and that of the Dark Multiverse, will likely continue to be explored in Dark Nights: Metal #5, on sale January 31.