WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Justice League Incarnate #4 by Joshua Williamson, Dennis Culver, Chris Burnham, Mike Norton, Andrei Bressan, Hi-Fi, and Tom Napolitano, now on sale from DC Comics
The multiverse is currently heading directly to a new level of threat, with the Great Darkness setting itself up to threaten every reality within all of existence in the DC multiverse. But one of the Justice League's most dangerous threats just settled into a new role that's actually a step down in terms of raw menace.
Justice League Incarnate #4 transforms the Empty Hand from a uniquely existential threat to a more basic villainous form -- which is a disappointment, considering how impressive the character was as a heady antagonist.
The Empty Hand was introduced in The Multiversity by Grant Morrison and a host of artists. A dark and truly unknowable force of evil, the Empty Hand is the being who controls the Gentry, attempting to radically wipe out reality with the Oblivion Machine. Eventually, the Oblivion Machine was revealed to be targeting the readers themselves -- the idea that by consuming media and obsessing over it, the comics were stealing minutes and hours from the reader's lives. When the heroes of Multiversity finally confronted the Empty Hand, he was established as something else entirely. Not a villain to fight or a threat to overcome, but entropy in its purest storytelling form. The Empty Hand isn't beaten, he just leaves because his plans aren't done yet.
It set up the Empty Hand as a uniquely terrifying villain, something that weaponizes the love people have for DC Comics and uses it to empower the darkest aspect of fandom. The Empty Hand was one of the most unique villains in any superhero story, a genuine existential nightmare that not even Superman can fully comprehend. But the modern era of DC Comics has tied him into the Great Darkness. Now revealed to be the cosmic force behind countless reboots and universal changes, the Great Darkness has manipulated countless villains to inch the multiverse closer to collapse. Fearing this outcome, Darkseid attacked the Empty Hand directly -- having spent Infinite Frontier and Justice League Incarnate hunting down the energy source capable of hurting the force.
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But the Empty Hand spends the issue taunting Darkseid for his efforts, revealing all of this played into their own plans. The energy source taken by Darkseid is revealed to be the final key to perfecting the Oblivion Machine, which will unleash the Great Darkness onto the multiverse and the greater Omniverse as a whole. He then grows giant, brags, to Darkseid about his minor role in their plan, and seemingly crushes him underfoot. While this does set up the Empty Hand as the ultimate threat to be confronted by the heroes of the multiverse, it also does a disservice to the concept. The Empty Hand was a genuinely unique figure in the DC Universe, someone operating on a meta-level that the heroes couldn't quite contend.
He had no emotion, he had no flaws or character -- he was a force, a dark connecting tissue between genuinely inventive and philosophical reflections on the genre. The Empty Hand's Gentry -- and the corruption spread to worlds like Earth-7 and Earth-33 from Ultra Comics -- had the requisite personality and menace. The Empty Hand was the true opposing force to the optimism and hope at the heart of the genre as a whole. The Empty Hand couldn't be fought, and would never stoop to such a base level. It made the concept a truely unique idea. And now, he's just a giant villain who laughs manically about his plans and will probably get punched out by Superman.
There are already so many figures like that in the DC Universe already, the recently empowered Darkseid among them. But now, instead of remaining a uniquely terrifying idea, the Empty Hand is on a more basic level. It's disappointing, as the Empty Hand's place as an avatar to the Great Darkness (which doesn't want good or evil, just oblivion) is an interesting idea. But by reducing the meta-textual and theoretical aspects of the concept down to a more basic "giant bad guy who needs to get punched a bunch," DC has removed a lot of what made the concept so interesting.