How Dark Nights: Metal Just Set Up Justice League: No Justice

SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains major spoilers for Dark Nights: Metal #6 by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo, on sale now.

Dark Nights: Metal is over, but the next big DC Comics event is about to begin. Following the Dark Multiverse's attack on Earth, a new cosmic enemy will set their sights on the DC Universe in Justice League: No Justice and, as it turns out, this new threat has a direct connection to the events of Metal. That connection was glimpsed this week in Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo's massive finale, and it's troubling news for the heroes of the DCU.

A New Threat Seeks Justice

In Dark Nights: Metal #6, Barbatos is finally defeated and the invasion of the Dark Multiverse is pushed back. Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman discover the Tenth Metal (essentially, the new name for Jack Kirby's New Gods creation, Element X) inside the World Forge and use it to set pretty much everything that had gone wrong in the series to date right. After tapping into the power of the metal, they and all of humanity manage to push the Earth out of the darkness. However, things don't stop there. The power DC's trinity unleashes travels to the very end of the Multiverse, to the Source Wall itself -- and manages to break through the long-believed to be impenetrable barrier.

By breaking through the Source Wall, "All of creation is rich with new possibility." As Aquaman so appropriately puts it, "Our universe, the whole thing...is like a tiny fishbowl. That just got poured into the damn ocean." This means the DC Universe has been presented with all-new potential that the heroes could never fathom before, as well as previously unknown threats that will inevitably require the Justice League to be stronger and better prepared to face.

As Kendra Hall states, the Justice League didn't undo the damage Barbatos did to the Earth so much as they rebuilt the world from its ruins. That means not everything is the same, and the heroes "May have also...created new things...from our own sublimated desires." As she explains this strange new status quo, pages from Carter Hall's diary detail the new threats to come, hinting at upcoming storylines we already knew about -- Sandman Universe, the return of the Darkstars, Atlantis rising from the water, a Dark Pantheon of gods, and "Flash War" -- as well as some new ones.

Among these new threats is a group of cosmic entities, whose attention have become focused on Earth following the events of Metal. These are the entities Entropy, Wisdom, Wonder and Mystery, poised to play the role of the big threat in No Justice. Kendra wonders, "What happens when they come for us? If they decide there's been no justice for our actions?"

And there we have the hidden meaning behind the No Justice title.

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The long-dormant forces of the universe have awoken following the destruction of the Source Wall, and it appears that they're coming after the Justice League for upsetting the balance of the Multiverse. Forget about the fact that DC's heroes (and all of reality) were under attack; there will be forces out there who simply don't care about the fate of humanity. When the very structure of creation is challenged, these entities will cast judgement on the Earth and declare whether or not its protectors were justified in what they did to save it.

A New Age of Justice For All

The ending of Metal doesn't just introduce the new threats to come, but also the Justice League's response to a bigger and more mysterious universe. Seeing everything that is coming for them, Batman says that it is time to get ready. That means the Justice League needs to be bigger and better than ever before. It starts with the recruitment of Martian Manhunter and Hawkgirl into the League moving forward. This announcement acts as a lead-in to Scott Snyder, Jim Cheung and Jorge Jimenez's new Justice League title launching in June.

The final page sets up the reintroduction of the Hall of Justice as well, which Snyder revealed at Wondercon over the weekend will house multiple Justice League teams. This would be where the announced Justice League Dark and Justice League Odyssey titles will tie-in, as well as where the new direction for Titans will go. In perhaps the most shocking revelation regarding C's new team structures, Odyssey will include Darkseid on the Justice League's roster and explore what has been done to the cosmic landscape of the DCU.

Change is on the horizon, but the Justice League is adapting to face what is to come. No Justice and the attack by these cosmic entities will be the first dominoes to fall in the aftermath of Dark Nights: Metal. The new, reorganized Justice League will "Change the entire way [they] operate." Let's just hope they're up to the challenge.