Dark Nights: Death Metal: The Multiverse Who Laughs #1

Brandon Thomas takes an interesting premise and injects it with some hard, but relevant truth about the way some people have had to process fear. It's a great story with a couple of surprising twists. Tom Mandrake beautifully captures the dark tone and mood of the story with the art. Read Full Review

I am loving everything that is Death Metal and this really fits in perfectly. Read Full Review

Overall, a solid package with some intriguing stories, although I don't think any of them reach the highs of some past anthologies. Read Full Review

Overall, this is another good anthology in the Dark Nights: Death Metal event. It offers a variety of unique voices to tell twisted stories on familiar characters offering us a glimmer of darkness in a multiverse of infinite stories. Read Full Review

The Robin King has eclipsed anything that I ever thought he would be. I thought the first time I saw The Batman Who Laughs was incredible. The Robin King is a perfect narrator for your immersion into this anthology of stories. Read Full Review

There were a few hits in this one-off, like Scott Snyder, James Tynion IV and Joshua Williamson's "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark Multiverse." Snyder always does well with teasing twisted ideas. Some are better than others, but there's definitely enough for everyone. Read Full Review

This one, feels almost like it doesn't quite fit into the narrative of world gone wrong. Yes, horrifying and terrible things are happening, but there's a narrative of hope in it that just doesn't match what the rest of the anthology is trying to do, which is tell these stories of worlds twisted by the Darkest Knight, who's taken over and supposedly winning because things are terrible. The outlook is bleak here, but this reads like a story where good might ultimately prevail. Read Full Review

I know that many people love comics for the art, but they're meant to be team efforts. Comic-books are a visual medium, but a good story is essential; when what you read is of the same calibre as what you look at, that's when comics truly shine. For that reason Dark Nights: Death Metal: The Multiverse Who Laughs loses a few points. Read Full Review

There are some things to like about Dark Nights: Death Metal The Multiverse Who Laughs. The idea of an anthology telling stories in this twisted world has potential but few are given the space they're needed to really be interesting. Instead, they all fall short as teases for something far more entertaining. Both the Green Arrow and Steel stories are worthy of their own one-shots and an entire line could be done like the other Dark Multiverse one-shots releases. But, as is, there's not a lot here to get excited about. Read Full Review

I've enjoyed a lot of what Death Metal and the Dark Multiverse have to offer thus far, and there's even more original and interesting takes on classic characters in Dark Nights: Death Metal - The Mutliverse Who Laughs. That said, your mileage is going to vary a bit, as none of these stories really add anything significant to the core Death Metal story. Read Full Review

Dark Nights: Death Metal - The Multiverse Who Laughs #1 is a hodgepodge of great creative talent given free reign to create an anthology that should be a whirlwind of psychotic fun but instead just falls flat. Without a concrete reason to justify its existence, readers will be hard-pressed to care, especially at its steep price point. Read Full Review

Where the end of Death Metal #5 made it seem like the Darkest Knight's worlds would be not only interesting but also something to fear, we're given an anthology book about them that just comes off as thrown together and lacking in anything really entertaining. I do have to give it up to Connor and Palmiotti for showing us a messed-up Super-Pets story but beyond that, there isn't anything here that makes this feel more than just a writer's workshop. Read Full Review

Timmylovescomics

Nov 27, 2020

lukewarm

DDJamesB

Dec 01, 2020

It was readable and there were some ok parts but definitely not needed and Id probably never read it again.

Swift Planet

Feb 05, 2021

I got to level with you on this one... it's bad.

Onomatopoeia

Nov 25, 2020

I was excited to read Patton Oswalt's story, but honestly, it didn't stand out much. The narration for Zsasz was all over the place, and by the end, I was confused and bored. Everything else was pointless and forgettable.

Psycamorean

Nov 24, 2020

The first story in this anthology promises something different, and while Robin King's examples of different were very stupid, I was fool enough to believed we'd be getting weird stories. But we didn't, really. These stories were very akin to those Dark Multiverse one-shots, only thankfully shorter. None of these are really worth the time, but I will say that the final story is probably the best one, even if not much is done with the legitimately fun concept it presents.

Batman Jones

Nov 24, 2020

Review aggregates are problematic. The critic reviews include Weird Science that gives low scores as a rule and drags down the average score. The user reviews typically include so many 10s and 1s, the aggregate is hardly instructive at all. It tends to indicate, more than anything else, how many people gave extreme hit and run scores, in either extreme. There was one user reviewer here that used to post 1s, without explanation, before they could have even read an issue. And that reviewer would give the same score no matter which issue in a run they didn’t like in general. Others do the same with 10s, rendering the whole exercise meaningless. I say all that, way too many words, to say that 4 is a pretty low score for me and that to get a much lower score a comic book has to be among the worst I’ve read in my life. So it’s a pretty harsh score on my part. And reviews of any sort are often colored by preconceived notions or expectations, whether met, exceeded, or badly dashed. It’s unavoidable and of course it’s true of me as well. And that is the main basis of this review. Dashed expectations. I knew that Patton Oswalt was a big comic book fan and I knew going into this issue that he was also clever and imaginative. And that’s why I had been looking forward to his first attempt at writing a comic book. Wow. Was I disappointed. His story in this issue was, far and away, the very worst in a very bad anthology. I’ve found most of the tie-ins for this event to be mixed to surprisingly great. This one just stank all around. And you know what? Having just written that, 4 is too high. I’m knocking it down to a 3.5. more

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RKS - Nov 28, 2020

The Critic Reviews are never honest, if you want a genuine response go to the reader reviews. These people are not being paid to give an opinion. I agree just giving a 1 without explanation is pointless but sometimes a book has very little merit to justify a higher score.

Spacey Medicine

Feb 25, 2021

Honestly a lot of this was 2 edgy 4 me. The things that were interesting weren’t given time to breath because there were more, edgier stories that for some reason felt the need to be told.

Aussie Dad

Dec 05, 2020

Five stories and the only challenge is which is more forgettable than the others. Charging $5.99 for this is shameful.

REYNARD

Nov 24, 2020

It perplexes me as to how even with endless possibilities and potential for stories brought upon with the medium of the Dark Multiverse, DC can't seem to hire anyone with a single shred of imagination! These are the stories in this book: -"Scary Stories to tell in the Dark Multiverse" = More Snyder Robin King projection. -"Feeding the Beast" = DC gave Patton Oswald a Zsasz story; but who gives a shit because I fell asleep reading it. -"The Super-Threats!" = Just another zombie story, but this time it has the Super Pets. -"Hard Traveled" = Waste of pages #1; Hal and Oliver have a disagreement. Nothing story. -"The Fear Index" = Waste of pages #2; John Henry Irons and a kid talk about fear. Nothing story. This whole book is packed with the most uninspired shit I've ever seen. Grant Morrison could take a dump and it would be more interesting than this anthology. Burning money here DC, Jesus Christ. more

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Weird Science Jim - Nov 26, 2020

The Kid in the Fear Index is Jean-Paul Valley (Azreal), but that might make it even worse since they do nothing with it!

Afre

Nov 25, 2020

It has Robin King in it so it cannot be better than a 3/10. And it is not. Uninteresting, short storiers that nobody cares about that has no interesting twists on them or great artwork to make them better. A waste of money and time. And the whole Death Metal event starts to feel like that too.

KFuqua

Nov 24, 2020

Really...enough of the metal garbage!

RKS

Nov 28, 2020

Honestly who is buying this crap? It's 44 pages of garbage. I struggled to get past page 6. The art is what it is but the story is just "Edge Lord" garbage. Stop buying this stuff as the story just sucks.