WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Dark Nights: Death Metal #1 by Scott Snyder, Greg Capullo, Jonathan Glapion, FCO Plascencia and Tom Napolitano, available now from DC.

The latest DC Comics crossover event Dark Nights: Death Metal opens with a bang, as the iconic heroes and villains find themselves in a radically different vision of the DC Universe. Rewritten by the omnipotent Perpetua and her loyal vassal, the Dark Multiverse's Batman Who Laughs, the DCU was now a much more fantasy-oriented, fiery place, where several of the familiar superheroes have been placed in subservient roles supporting the Dark Multiverse's regime. However, as Wonder Woman leads a tentative resistance against the Dark Knights, her collections of the past potentially open a deeper mystery.

In Dark Nights: Death Metal #1, Diana thinks back on the final moments of the DCU before it was conquered and reshaped by Perpetua and the Dark Multiverse villains, Wonder Woman recalls an extra-dimensional portal that she and the Justice League entered.

The sequence calls back to the final moments of Scott Snyder's run on Justice League, which concluded earlier this year with the Quintessence offering the team one last chance to save the day after Perpetua completed her conquest of the DCU. However, the original sequence, in this past January's Justice League #39, illustrated by Jorge Jimenez, Daniel Sampere and Juan Albarran featured one key difference: John Stewart was the Green Lantern present going through the portal, not Hal Jordan as Diana recalls.

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The visible discrepancy in Green Lanterns raises several big questions: Is Wonder Woman simply misremembering her final moments in the previous DCU? Is the ending to Justice League #39 a separate incident leading into Death Metal? Could the replacement of John Stewart with Hal Jordan be a harbinger of more significant things to come for the Green Lantern Corps in the hellish, new iteration of the DCU with the cackling Batman Who Laughs at the helm?

In the opening issue of Death Metal, the Green Lanterns were conspicuously absent, with the action focused on the Earth-bound heroes and villains of the DCU. As the crossover event is poised to expand its scope in the issues to come, the cosmic heroes are virtually guaranteed to play a prominent role, with some incarnation of Green Lantern likely among them.

However, given the reality-altering nature of the event and its nods to past crises, the change in Green Lanterns may not be related to Justice League but rather Geoff Johns and Gary Frank's Doomsday Clock, especially since Wonder Woman's memories are more reminiscent of the start of DC Rebirth rather than her second chance from the Quintessence.

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DC Universe Rebirth

Now wielding the immense power of Doctor Manhattan, Wally West referenced Doomsday Clock and the previous Crises after his return from the DC Multiverse. Now back in his native universe, Wally may be able to provide a better recollection of what happened before Perpetua and the Batman Who Laughs conquered the world, including a more accurate look at what happened to Green Lantern with the wholesale revisions to the universe.

With many of the Dark Knights merging various members of the Justice League to evil Batmen, including the Green Lantern/Batman fusion Dawnbreaker, Hal and John may make an appearance to take the fight directly to the Dark Knights as the battle for the fate of the DC Multiverse grows even bigger. With those who worship evil's might currently in charge of the DCU, the cosmic superheroes will likely not rest idly by as Perpetua and the Batman Who Laughs tighten their grip.

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