The lead-up to DC's "Metal" event series, Dark Days: The Road to Metal, is very good. The Forge" is a fun story. Even though "The Casting" had several issues, I still ended up enjoying it. The so-called classics, such as Final Crisis #6-7, Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #1, Batman #38–39, and Nightwing #17, however, were more enjoyable to read. ╌★★★★✰

While the art of this series is amazing, the story is just okay. There are times where it's difficult to follow. It's easy to get lost or confused as to what's going on. It's one of those series you need to take your time and possibly read again to fully get the story.

A good collection of prior DC issues that lead up to DC's Metal event. I'd like a little more consistency in terms of art/writing, but you can't get everything with collections like this one.

I don't often read comics, and this series reminds me of why. Hard to follow, and very chaotic. I didn't get much out of the story, though I'm sure fans who are used to this format would enjoy it more.

The art in this book is amazing! I would have enjoyed the stories better if I had read more of the prior stories. Therefore it felt like a lot of incomplete tales. But what was there was thrilling! Batman searching for a cure to a poison the Joker infected Gotham with. Batman searching for an immortality something. Batman doing a lot of searching and almost EVERYONE from the Multiverse. So many different Superman’s.

Every good event needs a prologue. That's what The Road to Metal is. The collection begins with a pair of issues that set the ground for the events to come. Then it is rounded out with historical stories that fill in holes and tee up the event. Mandatory read for the event.

This volume starts with Dark Days, “the gripping prelude to Dark Metal.” I don’t know that I would call it gripping, but the story has entertainment value.

We begin with Batman cheesing off Aquaman (as usual) by keeping secrets about the Bat’s undersea operations. Batman, in turn, is cheesed off by what’s beneath Atlantis. Then the Guardians send Green Lantern to the Batcave to investigate a new threat to the universe. Duke Thomas tries to keep him out but, hey, it’s Green Lantern, good luck with that. Sadly for GL, Batman is visiting the Lunar Batcave. I didn’t even know he had a Lunar Batcave. Learn something new every time I pick up a comic book.

Batman takes a meeting with Mister Terrific, then he goes to the Fortress of Solitude to take a meeting with Mister Miracle. All of this ties into that special “off the books” league that Batman assembled, the one he controls on his own since he can’t trust the quarrelsome Justice League, which somehow ties into the Immortal Men, and it even ties into Hawkman thanks to his association with the Nth metal.

Are we done assembling the cast? Not even close. Batman takes a meeting with Wonder Woman, thinking the gods might help, but the gods want nothing to do with whatever perilous thing is coming to Earth. WW gives Batman a sword made from some really good metal, but it isn’t Nth metal. In this universe (whichever universe this happens to be set in), you take what you can get.

And then there’s the Joker, because what would an epic Batman story be without the Joker? And Ra’s al Ghul, because why not? And al Ghul’s daughter, Batman’s occasional squeeze, because every epic Batman story needs a good squeeze. Well, actually, squeezing is kind of a recent addition to Batman’s repertoire.

Did I mention that Batman takes a meeting with Shazam?

The art, as has become customary at DC, is wildly inconsistent. Some pages benefit from attractive art. Others (presumably commissioned as deadlines loomed) seems to have been drawn by untalented preschoolers.

After the “gripping prelude,” we get “classic DC stories” that “all tie in to the mythos of METAL in some way.” To wit:

Final Crisis #6 & 7. The God Machine turns up here, but without issues 1 to 5 to give the story context, the story lacks, well, context. The highlight Supergirl saying “You? Calling me a slut?” as she blasts the name-caller with heat vision. Well, Supergirl, if you’re going to dress like one …. A close runner-up has Captain Marvel saying “We’re here to recruit the Supermen of the multiverse on a life-or-death mission of cosmic proportions!” Sounds serious. Actually, any story with the word “crisis” in the title is destined to be over-the-top and pretty much a bad idea. This one was no exception. Anyway, superheroes build a cellphone to the gods, sometimes calling it a Miracle Machine, and Superman uses it to pull off a miracle. Ho hum.

The Return of Bruce Wayne Part One. Bruce Wayne crawls out of a cave. Cavemen call him Man of Bats. He makes himself a primitive Bat costume. Eventually some JLA members show up, fretting about how the world will end if he pops back into his own time, but they are too late to stop him from popping into some other time. Nice story if you like cavemen and grunting. The Metal connection is obscure.

Batman #38 & 39 (Endgame Parts Four and Five), which means you don’t get parts 1 to 3 for context. Fortunately, I vaguely remember the first three parts, the stupid Joker virus story and the silly Court of Owls. It didn’t get better on a second reading, and some of the art just sucks, except for Penguin, who looks pretty cool. There are occasional references to some sort of mysterious element, so I guess the story is marginally relevant, but it ends pretty abruptly, and with no beginning or end, sticking the middle part of Endgame into this volume is just weird.

Nightwing #17. Grayson is fretting about his possibly pregnant gf, Damien is being annoying (as usual), and then Nightwing meets Deathwing, who is sort of like a Bizarro Nightwing created by Professor Pyg. Not a bad story, but what it has to do with metal I didn’t quite catch.

Detective #950 has the best art in a volume that otherwise collects undistinguished art. Otherwise, it’s all Red Robin saying yada yada and asking why Batman is preparing for war, which I guess circles around to the beginning. The story is only about 5 pages, and I suppose it’s included to introduce the question.

Finally, there’s a multiverse map that would make a nice cellphone app for people who need to navigate the multiverse. For the rest of us, I'm not sure it adds anything.

Apart from the original content, I really don’t see the point of mashing all of these stories together, most of which only have tangential importance to the Metal theme, and many of which make little sense when taken out of context. Oh wait, I do see the point. Making some extra cash by recycling old stories instead of writing new ones. Fine, I get it. Four stars for the original content, minus a star for stuffing the volume with filler.

Unfortunately this was almost as confusing as I thought it would be. I guess it’s sort of the Blackhawks (and Hawkman?) against Batman, or maybe Ra’s al Ghul? As I said, even after 128 pages I was still pretty confused.

After those main stories there were a couple that I’d read in Batman, Vol. 5 or 6 I think. And then there were a couple with Nightwing and Robin going after Shawn to save her ang going up against something called Deathwing.

And, yeesh, the ending. And those last two stories had the added thing of making sense too.

So, onto Metal proper I think.

I received this book via Netgalley thanks to DC Entertainment.

I found that I am not a fan of the Metal Batman series. It is not something that I enjoyed and felt that the characters were not as developed as they are in other series such as those by Frank Miller

A couple of short tales to lead into a string of previous issues stitched together to try and make a coherent whole. Will have to see if the tale is worth the telling.

The prequel to the Dark Nights: Metal series is short. Unless you buy the 256 paged hardcover or Kindle copy then it's still short you just have a bunch of other comics that they used as a road to this road; unfortunately the digital advanced readers copy was just that. Since I haven't read Final Crisis all the individual, taken from the middle and the end of other series had me completely lost, I can't do that jump into a story part way and only a small part drives me nuts so I skipped all that. The four issues that are Road to Metal were well done I enjoyed the story and the art but it was a short tease and that was really short and that a bit of a disappointment. I saw how many pages were in it and I got all excited and then to find out it was less than half that size, no bueno.

Or "Dead End: The Road to Nowhere".


I'll preface this review of DARK DAYS: THE ROAD TO METAL by saying that I'm not much of a fan of Scott Snyder's writing. From AMERICAN VAMPIRE to BATMAN to ALL-STAR BATMAN, with many other projects in-between, I have never read anything that made me think that this man is deserving of the hype that surrounds him. I had already decided to spare myself any further pain and opt out of reading anything else by Snyder in the future, but then DC came-a'callin' with an offer of review copies of the entire METAL event. Which was spearheaded by Snyder.....





I had heard a lot about METAL, before, during, and after it was released, and, after all of the hype and attention and reviews....I still had no idea what it was about, save that in involved Nth Metal, tied up Snyder's BATMAN run, and involved a lot of characters. Having read this prelude book, I still have no idea what METAL is about.


This prelude volume collects DARK DAYS: THE FORGE #1, DARK DAYS: THE CASTING #1, FINAL CRISIS #'s 6-7, BATMAN: THE RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE #1, BATMAN #'s 38-39, and NIGHTWING #17, plus a short story from who-knows-where, and a map of The Multiverse.


THE FORGE and THE CASTING one-shots are typical Scott Snyder nonsense. Something terrible is going to happen, but he doesn't share exactly what that something terrible is with the reader. Flashbacks, flash-forwards, weird continuity implants, and lots of other weird shit that makes no sense (Batman has The Joker imprisoned in an impenetrable vault in The Batcave? The Joker can kick Green Lantern's ass? More of this fucking useless Duke Thomas character???), and a cliffhanger that means nothing......In all honesty, these issues should have been included in the hardcover that collects the METAL event, as they seem to be essential reading for that story, even though I just read them and have no...fucking...clue what they mean or how they tie-in. This whole volume is basically a shameless cash-grab by DC, since these prelude issues don't tell anything near a complete story, and the remainder of the book is a jumble of random issues, most of which make no sense out of their respective larger story arcs, which are ostensibly connected to METAL, but....since you don't know HOW they're connected, and you don't even know what METAL is about....none of them make any sense. The entirety of FINAL CRISIS made no sense to me at all, and I read all seven issues and all of the necessary crossovers and one-shots. What chance does a new reader have when all they get are the final two issues in this collection. And the other issues....Why is The Joker immortal? What happened to Alfred's hand? What are The Court of Owls? Why do Nightwing and Robin have mutant doppelgangers? Why was Bruce Wayne around in caveman days? You'll find no answers, or context, here. Shame on DC for not providing any editorial content whatsoever...a text page or two could have made this a good jumping-on point for new readers, which DC courted heavily with their multimedia ads for METAL's collected editions. This is just a hot mess of nonsense, and I pity any new reader trying to tackle this book.


DC Comics provided a review copy.


DARK DAYS: THE ROAD TO METAL earns a head-shaking four out of ten confused readers:

😕😕😕😕

This collection is a tie-in to the six-issue series Dark Nights: Metal. The main story has Batman discovering a dark multiverse beneath the known multiverse, which are connected through a mysterious metal. The first part of this book shows the far flung history of the metal (a story that involves Hawkman), but mainly focuses on Batman’s investigation into the mysterious Nth metal and looking into “the darkness”. Members of the Justice League are involved in the plot (Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and more), plus the Joker plays a key role.

The collection then moves into earlier, already published stories that tie in to the mythos of Metal in some way. There are issues of Final Crisis, The Return of Bruce Wayne, Batman, Nightwing and more. At more than 250 pages, there’s a lot of content here. The story is interesting if you’re into the DC multiverse and it definitely helps to know some of the characters and their stories. The art in the new stories is not as traditional, so not all fans are going to like it. But if you got into the Metal event at all, you’ll find this worth a look.

This was ok. There's not actually a lot of metal content - it's actually only like the first 70 or so pages. This part is good and interesting. The rest is ok - but doesn't really give any insight into the metal timeline.

Save your cash and go buy Dark Days: The Forge and The Casting instead. That's the only new content in a book that will run you $30 (That's 70 new pages out of 258. Grr!). The rest is just issues from Final Crisis and beyond that touch on what Scott Snyder is putting together. If you really want to read those, go get the full trades they are in and read them in context. You will be very confused reading them here. I don't know why DC just didn't collect these with Metal instead of going for the cash grab.

If I was just reviewing the two Dark Days books, I would have given it 4 stars. Snyder's setup is pretty cool. Batman appears to be preparing for some kind of multi-dimensional war. I am looking forward to reading Metal next.

This is a collection of various DC Comic issues that lays the foundation for a big DC Comics event called “Metal.” The first section collects a story called “Dark Days” while what follows after that is a collection of various other stories in the DC universe that the editors felt was important and foundational for “Metal.”
“Dark Days” feature over 66 pages of suspense building up in anticipation of “Metal” and the writer was able to do that without making it feel it was overdone or having the readers want to drop out from the story. However I don’t think one can say that for the rest of the book. As we mentioned above after “Dark Days” this volume collect other classic DC stories that built the foundation for the epic event of “Metal.” But it appears to be rather disjointed; sometimes you jumped into the stories with no previous context; and if you knew what was going on chances are you already read the issues elsewhere. So the additional pages after “Dark Days” left me as a reader feeling somewhat dazed.
Get this work for “Dark Days.” I enjoyed the anticipation it built! I also enjoyed the two stories of Batman towards the end of the book. Also I thought it was neat to see reference to Legion of Super-Heroes in one of the collection. I give this work a four out of five.
NOTE: This book was provided to me free by DC Comics and Net Galley without any obligation for a positive review. All opinions offered above are mine unless otherwise stated or implied.

Dark Days: The Road to Metal introduces the reader to the huge multiverse-shattering world of the Metal crisis crossover. A hard world, made harder and more difficult for Our Heroes lay between the covers of this volume. Things can get worse, as they can only in comic books, then then they do get worse. Then they get worse than that. It's fun, but a long way from joyous. Tread carefully, but do tread. A powerful introduction to a compelling story which shakes the foundations of the DC Universe, and pokes the soft spots in some of the most important relationships among the characters.

I got this as an ARC since I enjoy Batman and Justice League vintage stories. Unfortunately, I was completely lost with where this fits in.
What I could comprehend – there has been a massive, behind the scenes war that has been going on from the beginning of time. The focal point is a super-secret, super powerful metal. Batman knows about this metal and is searching for more information on this metal.
To me, the whole story is convoluted / confusing. I won’t be continuing with any future “Metal” stories.
This book both a section of new story and compilation of DC stories that build the background of the Metal series.
Thank you NetGalley and publisher, DC Comics, for the opportunity to read this ARC.

Great Story. A little confusing because of the build up issues but very well put together. Probably one of the best starts to a DC world arc in a long time.

The first couple of issues were okay, perfectly good issues that let you preview the blockbuster event to come. But the remainder of the book (nearly 200 pages!) reprints parts of other storylines, leaving you with an incomplete look at what's behind the exposition from the actual "Dark Days" issues. You probably could have done better to reference the full TPB, and just have a few pages of the issues. Instead you've just got a ton of unfulfilling filler.