In the DC Comics event series Dark Nights: Metal, Batman finds himself going up against seven evil versions of himself known as the Dark Nights that serve as dark takes on his fellow Justice League members. The Dawnbreaker, for example, is Bruce Wayne if he acquired a Green Lantern ring the moment his parents were killed, while the Red Death is what happens when the Caped Crusader siphons the Speed Force from the Flash.Over on Twitter, writer Scott Snyder had a brief question and answer session with fans, and was asked about dark multiverse characters that got cut from the finished product. Snyder revealed that there were originally nine Dark Nights that would've been in the story: the two that were cut were one in the vein of Marvel Comics antihero the Punisher, and another that would've delved into the dark arts. Unfortunately, Snyder says, they just didn't have the room for them, and the Punisher-style Batman specifically just lacked enough darkness in him, surprisingly.

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Given how each Night is a reflection of a character close to Batman, it's likely who both of these scrapped Nights would've been based on. The Punisher-style one sounds as though it would've been modeled off of Red Hood, a former Robin and frequent ally of Batman who has no problem executing criminals in order to bring peace to Gotham. The dark arts Night possibly could've been based on magician Zatanna Zatara; her backstory was retconned so that she and Batman were friends as children, and the two of them briefly considered the possibility of something more before acknowledging that Bruce's devotion to his night job would be too much for them.

In addition to those two, Snyder later said that he went all out with the Dark Night concepts. Not only was there going to be a Night who just grew up in Arkham after being accused of killing his parents himself, there would've been one merged with all his villains, and another merged with the actual Gotham City. Despite their being cut, Snyder insists he had a fun time coming up with the concepts.

With Dark Nights: Metal wrapping up in March, it seems fairly unlikely that we'll ever see these characters show up, but hey, that's what fan art is for, right?