Image: DC Comics. Dark Nights Metal art by Greg Capullo.

This Wednesday, Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo will finally begin their utterly bizarre-sounding new comics event, Dark Nights: Metal. It’s already promised crazy armor and even crazier Batmen, but now DC has revealed that the series is going to plunge into the deep depths of the publisher’s own back catalogue.




Seriously, if you want to preserve the surprise for this Wednesday, turn back now.


This morning The Washington Post has revealed that Batman will gain a key ally in his quest to discover the secrets of the ‘Dark Multiverse’ that will drive the new event—and although unfamiliar to Batman himself, it’s a figure Vertigo readers will be more than aware of: Dream of the Endless, from Neil Gaiman’s seminal dark fantasy series Sandman.

When Sandman first began, it was an established part of the DC comics universe—and this isn’t even the first time Dream has teamed up with the Justice League—but since the New 52 reboot its characters have remained unseen, with a tenuous-at-best connection to the events of DC’s multiverse. Now, at least one of the Endless is back, and it’s in a big way—Dream’s role in Metal will be more than just a cameo, according to series writer Scott Snyder:

[Dream] has some very key moments that spin the story in its essential directions. At the same time, [Metal] really is a Justice League story focused on their discovery of the Dark Multiverse and the invasion with these evil Batmen [now] here and the desperate attempt to stop that using Nth Metal.


As if we thought this series couldn’t get any weirder than evil Batmen from an alternate hell-dimension. We’ll have more on the wild events of Dark Nights: Metal #1 on Wednesday.