Writer: Scott Snyder
Artists: Greg Capullo, Mikel Janin, Alvaro Martinez
Inks: Jonathan Glapion
Letters by: Steve Wands
Colours: PCO Plascencia, Jung Chung
Cover by: Greg Capullo
Publisher: DC Comics
Spoilers
Here we are at the end of the DCU event that we’ve all been on the edge of our seats for. Honestly, I’m going to talk a bit about the series as a whole, but try to mostly focus on this issue, so forgive me if I lapse a bit into the entirety of the series too much.
The League has fallen. Only Wonder Woman and Hawkgirl remain. They find themselves standing at the base of Challengers Mountain, with a horde of evil versions of the League between them and their goal- the summit where Barbatos is about to sink the entire universe into the Dark Multiverse. So they fight and save their allies along the way.
There’s a LOT here that works so well. Wonder Woman is far and away the star of this story, and Snyder uses her to great effect. Not a lot of writers can effectively shift Diana between hero and warrior, and that’s what Snyder does. He shows us quickly that he has a great grip on her as a character, and still gives us the icon of hope as she tears through Barbatos’ army, which is an extremely difficult balance to strike. On the downside, some of the moments are a little disjointed, but overall it’s a fun, intense action story with bigger cosmic consequences.
Metal has been a Trinity story all along (even though it was teased as a Batman heavy event). The first two issues were focused on Batman, the next two on Superman and these last two on Wonder Woman. Wonderfully (pardon the pun), it has worked for each act of the story. Snyder also gave some characters a great makeover as well, really setting up Kendra Saunders for some great things in particular. The most exciting bit of writing though was the epilogue, with Snyder making it clear that the universe is much bigger thanks to this story.
The art teams (Greg Capullo, Jon Glapion and PCO Plascencia on the main story, Mikel Janin, Alvaro Martinez and more on the epilogue) just blow things away. Capullo and Glapion’s work in the main fight is just outstanding. It’s energetic, and really carries the weight of what’s going on perfectly. The fights just land right, and the multiple splash pages are each great. Another highlight are the designs Capullo fills the page with. I would LOVE to see Snyder and Capullo eventually follow up on Metal with a romp through the multiverse. The art on the epilogue is done perfectly to allow us as the reader to take a breath, and see that everything is better, for the moment. Yes, there are some dark portents, but for the moment the day is won.
Overall, this has been a lot better event than we’ve seen in a long time. A little bit of it was rushed, it had moments of jumping around, but as an overall product, I really enjoyed it. It was a lot of fun and really just solid story.
Overall: 7.5 out of 10
Tony Thornley is a Mormon geek dad, blogger, Spider-Man and Superman aficionado, amateur novelist and all around awesome guy. He was born and raised in Utah and has been reading comics since age five. His first comic series was GI Joe and he was doomed from there. You can follow him on Twitter @brawl2099.
