spoiler warning: the following article contains major spoilers for dark nights: metal #4 by scott snyder and greg capullo, on sale now.


dc's juggernaut dark nights: metal miniseries took a break in november, but it's back with a vengeance. in issue #4, the heroes of the justice league are still trying to get any kind of advantage over barbatos and his evil batmen. we won't tell you how successful they are (at least not right now), but we will explore all the nooks and crannies of dc lore into which metal continues to poke. as always, once we get into the references and easter eggs there will be spoilers galore, so grab your copy and let's have at it!

dark nights: metal issue #4 was written by scott snyder, pencilled by greg capullo, inked by jonathan glapion, colored by fco plascencia and lettered by steve wands. rebecca taylor was the editor, assisted by dave wielgosz.

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better down where it's wetter (pages 1, 6)

while the page 1 image of aquaman riding a seahorse goes back to the silver age of the 1960s, for many readers it may be most closely associated with "super friends" in the 1970s. in that context it fits with the familiar conception of the sea king as too fantastic to be effective. however, alongside metal's various other excesses, not only is aquaman's faithful finny steed presented unironically, deathstroke has one too. in fact, deathstroke may be on a seahorse which traditionally belonged to aqualad. make of that what you will.

arion #1
arion, by jan duursema

on page 6 we learn that these are no ordinary giant tame seahorses. aquaman's finny friend storm first appeared in october 1965's aquaman #23, while aqualad's ride imp (a/k/a sea imp) first appeared in april 1965's issue #20. the grand comics database doesn't list a writer for either story, but nick cardy drew them both.

related: scott snyder is having a blast jumping the shark in dark nights: metal

arion, lord of atlantis (also referenced on page 6) was created by paul kupperberg and jan duursema and first appeared in march 1982's warlord issue #55. the feature was a backup in warlord, but before long arion had earned his own series, which ran for 35 issues starting in november 1982. as an immortal homo magi sorcerer born in 45,000 bc, arion was charged with protecting the not-yet-sunken kingdom of atlantis. because this included the anti-monitor's antimatter wave, arion got a decent amount of exposure in crisis on infinite earths. apparently it wasn't enough to keep his own series from being cancelled; but arion's legacy lived on, touching heroes from aquaman (duh) to power girl (don't ask), guy gardner, wonder woman, hawkman and superman. that star-shaped symbol on the coffin manifests itself whenever arion uses his powers.

coincidentally, there's an ancient thanagarian goddess named ar rehon (or ar rheon). as far as we can tell, her only appearance was in september 1991's hawkworld issue #15 (written by john ostrander and drawn by graham nolan). we don't think there's a connection between her and arion, but these days you never know.

we're not quite sure about aquaman calling arion atlantis' first king. we thought atlantis' first king was orin (for whom aquaman was named). still, who are we to doubt aquaman?

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dark supermen and tortured batmen (pages 2-3)

page 2 gives us three alternate supermen in at least two very unusual outfits. the luthor-esque green battle armor comes from the billionaire's post-forever evil, pre-rebirth stint as a justice leaguer. there it was drawn by the likes of ivan reis, doug mahnke and jason fabok. of course, the other armored superman wears a variation of batman's dark knight returns armor, designed by frank miller. in the background is the "electric superman" of 1997-98, designed by dan jurgens and debuting in may 1997's superman issue #123.

related: the sandman just explained the entire dc multiverse in dark nights: metal

appropriately enough, "five finger death punch" (page 3) is a las vegas heavy metal band formed in 2005. its name refers to the 1972 kung fu movie king boxer, a/k/a number one fist in the world, a/k/a the five fingers of death.

kryptonite starter kit
a kryptonite primer

we're surprised that in a miniseries about dc metals, we haven't yet discussed kryptonite. superman's co-creator jerry siegel had written an unpublished 1940 comics story called "the k-metal from krypton," but kryptonite itself first appeared on a 1943 episode of the "adventures of superman" radio program. since it meant that superman would be incapacitated for a decent amount of time, kryptonite let superman actor bud collyer take a vacation. its first comics appearance was november 1949's superman #61.

since then, over a dozen major and minor varieties of kryptonite, both natural and artificial, have appeared in the comics. the most common (and the one we mean when we simply say "kryptonite") is green kryptonite, which robs kryptonians of their powers and slowly poisons them. extended exposure to green k will kill kryptonians, and will make their skin glow green to boot. red k (september 1958's adventure comics #252) has a different unpredictable effect every time a kryptonian is exposed to it. blue k (october 1960's superman #140) only affects bizarros. white k (december 1960's adventure #279) kills an entire planet's plant life. gold k (august 1962's adventure #299) robs kryptonians of their powers permanently. jewel k (march 1964's action comics #310) amplifies the psychic abilities of phantom zone inmates. black kryptonite (october 2005's supergirl #2) splits kryptonians into good and evil entities. x-kryptonite (january 1960's action #261) gives earth creatures super-powers, as in the case of streaky the super-cat. finally, periwinkle kryptonite (march 2013's all-ages superman family adventures issue #9) nullifies kryptonians' inhibitions. there are also various alloys, including red-green k, red-gold k, red-green-gold k, etc.

batman's thirty-year "nightmare" was the subject of last month's batman lost special (written by snyder, james tynion iv and joshua williamson; pencilled by doug mahnke, yanick paquette and jorge jimenez; inked by jaime mendoza, paquette and jimenez; and colored by wil quintana, nathan fairbairn and alejandro sanchez). there, barbatos tormented batman by telling him that he had been an unknowing agent of evil literally since the dawn of humanity.

of course, this isn't the first time batman has endured an extended amount of torture. in december 1997's jla issue #13, the justice league of an alternate future discovered a batman who had been desaad's prisoner for eight years. not only did the caped crusader win their "battle of wits," he disguised himself successfully as darkseid's right-hand man.

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i wanna rock (pages 4-5, 16-19)

the seven deadly sins (page 4), a/k/a the seven deadly enemies of man, first appeared (in this form) in february 1940's whiz comics issue #2, the debut of captain marvel. there they watched over the hall leading to the wizard shazam's throne. normally pride, envy, greed, hatred, laziness, selfishness and injustice (or sometimes anger, sloth, gluttony and lust) are imprisoned in statue form. occasionally, though, they are unleashed upon the earth, as in geoff johns and carlos pacheco's 2002 graphic novel jla/jsa: virtue and vice. in the new 52 era, the immortal pandora was charged with fighting them, but she was killed by an unknown assailant in the dc rebirth special.

come to think of it, contrary to what doctor fate says, they don't sound "welcoming" at all.

seven deadly enemies of man
the seven deadly enemies of man

on page 5 kendra says that "carter left from [the rock of eternity] when he ventured into the dark." however, dark days: the casting suggested that carter hall walked into a portal which he'd set up in his home. either way, if the casting already showed us that event, carter's mace is nowhere to be seen. it doesn't exactly inspire confidence in kendra, you know?

related: how a hawkman villain might be the key to dark nights: metal

kendra's plan to spike the anti-monitor's "astral brain" into the core of the rock of eternity came from morgaine le fay in metal issue #2. back then kendra was reluctant to do so, because "mixing anti-matter and dark matter" would be bad. (for what it's worth, looks like kendra was right.) however, batman's actions apparently forced her hand.

we're not quibbling with "lady blackhawk's" design on page 18, but to us she sure does look like a talon from the court of owls.

metal has already alluded to black adam, but page 19 brings us the man himself. created by otto binder and c.c. beck for december 1945's the marvel family issue #1, he was the first of the wizard shazam's champions. for him, the magic word "shazam!" bestows powers from ancient deities shu, haru, amon, zehuti, aton and mehen. known originally as teth-adam, when he was a hero in ancient egypt he was called mighty adam. shazam's power corrupted him and he became a supervillain and occasional antihero; and in the present he sometimes goes by the civilian name of theo adam. his self-proclaimed status as "one of the immortals" is somewhat ironic, considering that at the end of his first appearance, he crumbled into dust after accidentally changing back into the millennia-old teth-adam. somewhat surprisingly, he stayed dead(ish) for over 30 years, until march-april 1977's shazam! issue #28. he doesn't often fight wonder woman; but as a member of the justice society he sometimes teamed up with doctor fate.

speaking of fate, his power tends to reside in the helmet of nabu, which holds the spirit of nabu, a lord of order. nabu's influence is so great that it can overshadow the wearer's personality. naturally, though, it's a lot more effective if somebody's wearing it.

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cosmic connivers (pages 7-9)

not only does thanagar "exist at multiple coordinates at once" (as mister terrific says on page 7), but it's been through a lot in the past dozen years. during the 2005 rann-thanagar war miniseries, the planet's surface was devastated when the planet rann was teleported to its doorstep. after the crisis had passed, green lanterns kyle rayner and kilowog repaired the damage.

sandman vs. starro
daniel imprisons starro in jla #23

on page 7 hal jordan voices a familiar lament about the guardians. in fact, hal's rocky relationship with his blue-skinned benefactors goes back to the denny o'neil/neal adams days of the early 1970s. over the decades it's resulted in hal's ring being underpowered, his exile from earth (to focus on the other planets in his sector), his quitting the green lantern corps, and eventually the parallax-infused breakdown which resulted in the corps' destruction. even after the corps was restored (and hal was brought back to life), the guardians concealed dire secrets about ancient lore like the black lanterns and the first lantern. add in the legend about a rogue oan creating the infinite multiverse; and it seems like if the guardians aren't talking it's never a good thing.

related: dark nights: metal brings classic green lantern character’s rebirth debut

onimar synn (page 8) was last seen in the death of hawkman miniseries, where he teamed up with despero to kill hawkman and take over thanagar. created by david s. goyer, geoff johns and stephen sadowski, onimar debuted in june 2001's jsa issue #23. considered the deadliest of thanagar's legendary "seven devils," onimar was locked in a vault of nth metal. when he emerged, he used all the nth metal he could find to make himself as powerful as possible; but led by hawkman and hawkgirl, the justice society stopped him (june-august 2001's jsa issues #23-25). onimar returned (and was defeated again) during the aforementioned rann-thanagar war.

starro the conqueror, a/k/a the star conqueror, a/k/a "it" (page 8) was created by gardner fox and mike sekowsky to be the villain of the very first justice league story (february-march 1960's the brave and the bold issue #28). there he was defeated in part by a goofy teenager with a rudimentary knowledge of pest control. nevertheless, across his many battles with various justice leagues, starro has only gotten deadlier. in fact, in september-october 1998's jla issues #22-23, the league needed the help of daniel the sandman to defeat the star conqueror. apparently starro's last encounter with mister terrific has yet to be told, but we suspect it may be part of the upcoming the terrifics series.

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into the dreaming, out of the past (pages 1, 10-15, 20-22)

february 1989's sandman #2 (by neil gaiman, sam kieth and mike dringenberg) contains the first reference to the dreaming's library. there, lucien the librarian informs daniel's predecessor morpheus that the library was destroyed during the dream king's decades-long imprisonment. it had been restored as of january 1991's issue #22 (by gaiman, kelley jones and malcolm jones iii), where it was first seen on-panel.

as you'd expect, by page 10 superman seems to be recovering pretty quickly from having all his energy sucked out by the dark multiverse. except for the white temples, he looks almost normal. batman looks better than he did, but not by much.

lucien's library
lucien's library, from sandman #22

we know from the annotations to issue #1 that carter hall is daniel's grandfather, so that's probably why daniel considers this a "far more personal" story.

related: the dcu origins of dark nights: metal’s sandman

pages 12-13 do a good job of recapping the monitor and anti-monitor's origins while simultaneously introducing the world forge and great dragon. however, it brings up an issue which may actually be more complicated in the post-crisis on infinite earths cosmology. originally the pre-crisis universe of earth-one had some unique features, including the planet oa, the guardians of the universe, the green lantern corps, and the monitor and anti-monitor. when dc got back into the multiverse business in 2007, though, each different universe got its own monitor, and some got their own sets of green lanterns.

now, we get that there is only one sandman and only one barbatos. by the same token, though, we're starting to wonder when the justice league will think to start recruiting their non-evil counterparts from other parallel universes. that's exactly what happened towards the end of final crisis, when various superman counterparts from captain carrot to majestic joined the main man of steel (plus the angels of the pax dei and the green lantern corps) to dogpile on the bad guy.

and while we're on the subject of final crisis, we think the term "orrery" started to be used for the multiverse in 2007, around the time that dc was ramping up for that event.

page 14 finally explains that the difference between nth metal and "ninth" metal is one of semantics. it's not the most complex explanation, but we'll take it.

superman's page 15 pep talk about batman's inspirational value is both a nice role reversal and perfectly in character. superman isn't diminishing his own inspirational qualities, he's finding ways to build up his friend. the whole exchange is a welcome bit of warmth before they plunge (almost literally) into hell.

on page 21, batman relates what hawkman said about the forge. this must come from a previously-unrevealed portion of hawkman's journal, because we can't find any mention of the forge before this issue.

finally, page 22 gives us ... what? doomsday hawkman? metal hawkman? the winged warrior was turned into a bird-creature in 1996's elseworlds miniseries kingdom come; and for a while in the mid-1990s he was the avatar of a "hawk-god." still, this is the scariest hawkman by far.

what else did you spot in metal issue #4? let us know in the comments!