WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Dark Nights: Death Metal #1 by Scott Snyder, Greg Capullo, Jonathan Glapion, FCO Plascencia and Tom Napolitano, available now.
Dark Nights: Death Metal has been gearing up for the Robin King to take the crown as the most horrifying character. His leader, the Batman Who Laughs, has been the reigning champ, but writer Scott Snyder explains why it’s the younger villain that the heroes really need to look out for.
"I don't want to give away his origin," said Snyder, "but if I took the Batman Who Laughs and made him just...he's almost the maximum amount of horror I can stuff into a character and get away with at DC. But the Robin King is the real maximum!"
The Batman Who Laughs is a version of Batman from Earth-22 that’s been tortured by the Joker and exposed to Joker toxin, turning him into a Joker/Batman hybrid. He employs his legion of corrupted Robins to do his bidding, but what makes the Robin King so different is that he isn’t a mindless servant. He has maniacal ideas of his own and the Batman Who Laughs respects him on a level that’s deeper than the others.
Snyder said, "If you took the Batman Who Laughs and took out the elements that made there be kind of a kernel of hope, in some way, and made that character young also so they're doubly frightening. They come across as this kind of innocence -- this innocent, sort of heroic-looking figure -- and they're just as evil, if not more evil."
The Robin King: What We Know About the Batman Who Laughs' Ghastly Successor
The difference between the Robin King and The Batman Who Laughs is quite significant. While the latter is someone who was once more like the Batman we know and love, the Robin King started his evildoing at a much earlier age. His whole personality is based on horror.
Snyder briefly discussed how the origins of the Robin King and how that plays into those differences. "He's got something to kill every hero; it's all he thinks about as a child, how to destroy the heroes. So he's got all these means of torturing them emotionally and then killing them. Issue #2, you see his inception where the Darkest Knight -- which is what the Batman Who Laughs becomes -- kind of invites him in to be his sidekick and then issue #3, you see him step out in his costume and get his first moment on stage when he confronts the Flash."
Dark Nights: Death Metal #2, from Snyder, Greg Capullo, Jonathan Glapion and FCO Plascencia, is currently on sale from DC.