mysteriousmre's Reviews (1.22k)

Origin stories for all the evil versions of Batman featured in DC's Dark Nights: Metal event. Each origin digs into one of Batman's major flaws as a character (example: his loneliness, his guilt, his paranoia) and tells a story about how those individual flaws send that world's Batman careening over the deep end into villainy. They're not necessary to understand the main plot of Metal. Some are really well done elseworld stories (Murder Machine, Merciless, and The Batman Who Laughs to name a few), but not all of them are winners. Some are either a bit too on the nose or just don’t do anything interesting with their concept (Dawnbreaker has great art but is throughly disappointing).

So here's my recommendation...don’t buy the book. Just look up the individual stories that you're interested in on Comixology and buy them for a buck a piece. Even if you buy all the individual issues, it'll still be cheaper than buying this volume and you can skip over the Dark Knights you aren’t interested in.

3.5/5 Past iterations of the franchise have always struggled to incorporate the science fiction and fantasy elements together in a way that makes sense, but this story does that so seamlessly! The characters are very much the same, but the plot alone I think makes this a very distinct original take on the franchise.

The reason why this isn't a 4.5 is because 1) there is some cringey dialogue here and there, and 2) even though the issues collected from the main series are penciled by the same artist, the way he draws the characters changes pretty dramatically half way through. It's not a style change, the characters just look VERY off-model compared to how he initially drew them in the early issues (case in point, watch the turtles' heads grow taller and taller as this collection goes on). Also, I'm not an expert on fighting techniques, but there were a lot of times later on in the book where the fight scenes weren't choreographed very well, with characters jumping from one pose or action to the next in ways that either didn't seem physically possible or ignored their pose/position from the previous panel.

If you're fan of the old TMNT or interested in Ninja Turtle comics, this is probably the best Ninja Turtle comic you could buy. HOWEVER. If you're new and uncertain about whether you'd like this book, maybe buy Vol 1: Things Change before spending massive amounts of money on this big omnibus.

The only reason this book gets 2 stars instead of 1 is because the art team on this book knocked it out of the freaking ballpark. The plot itself is an overstuffed mess though. It starts out simple enough, the Justice League is hunting down a thing called The Totality which they think they can use to fix the universe and keep it from collapsing in on itself after they accidentally broke it. The Legion of Doom however has other plans, using world-ending forces to take the Totality for themselves to use for...something?? There's a lot of verbose speech about the nature of living beings, hidden emotions and the like, but the message Snyder's trying to get across here is vague and indecipherable. I think that's why a lot of reviewers' favorite moment in the book is the issue written by Tynion IV, explaining how Lex Luthor went from good to bad. It's a more focused character piece that's SIGNIFICANTLY easier to digest than the rest of book, and feels like a breath of fresh air from all the other garbly-goop. There's a few charming/witty moments of banter between team members throughout the rest of the story, but the book doesn't delve into who these people are as characters. So when the Legion starts using things that supposedly fly in the face of everything the know/believe...it rings hollow. Because we don't know what the big deal is. Heck, I KNOW who these characters are and even I don't know what the big deal is! The new cosmic forces on display here (the Invisible Spectrum and the Still Force) sound cool, but no explanation is given about how they function in the universe other than that they're evil I guess. Lots of wasted potential here. I don't know what the next few volumes are gonna be like, but one thing is clear: Snyder needs to channel the Still Force when he's writing this book and slooooooooooooooooowww dooooooooooowwwwwwwn.

A pretty quick read that functions as a way to see the fallout of Wally West's return as The Flash and get a better look at the teams relationships with each other. The main story focuses on The Titans investigating Meta Solutions, and it's nice to see the Duncans again, since married couples are rare in superhero comics, but I enjoyed the single issue stories more with Wally speaking with Superman, Roy talking about his struggles with addiction, and the revelation of Donna Troy's history with Wonder Woman. Loved the flirty banter back and forth with Donna and Roy. I wish we saw The Titans interact more with their respective mentors (it was really interesting to see the different ways they approach each other), but this was still a fun read.

YEESH, I remembered the series got bad after volume 1, but I forgot HOW bad. Bad/Inconsistent art and character writing, with a bonkers plot that forgets what made Calvin Rose so interesting to begin with. Not worth the money.

A blockbuster that's a tad short on dialogue, but a fun read nonetheless! There's way more focus on action in this volume. The raid on Angel Island itself is a little simplistic, but the addition of Burning Blaze and Neo Metal Sonic going all out against the resistance is fun to watch and answers some fun power-scaling questions the fanbase has had for years. A fun bombastic read that absolutely gets a recommendation from me.

The Court of Owls haven't been terribly compelling or threatening since their debut, but I think this book did a great job expanding on the history of the Court and fleshing out the histories of its various assassins. The plot is kinda predictable, but has a fun Mission Impossible vibe with Calvin Rose breaking into a new place each issue to cripple The Court's operations. Calvin's background as an escape artist on the run really sets him apart from other non-powered superheroes. This volume was wise to take a note from Batman: Night of the Owls and expand the Talons into actual people with characters and backstories (the O'Malley's were particularly interesting to me). The series goes downhill fast after this volume, but this first volume is a fun read.