I picked up Metal #1 last week because of the crossovers in my monthly titles. Haven't read it yet.

 

The 2nd issue did feel like filler for the most part, but I did like the last part, the thing in the bag being a hilarious reveal. For the most part, it really feels like Snyder is channeling a lot of Grant Morrison (not just the story points) with his callbacks and tying up of continuity. While this issue was a bit light, I honestly feel this event isn't bad, definitely much better than anything Marvel has done the last couple of years, and probably the best DC event in the last couple of years as well.

 

So it's just Forever Evil?

 

There are a lot of similarities - but the main storyline of Forever Evil was Lex Luthor leading a group of villains to help overthrow an evil Justice League. In this case the main storyline seems to be about Batman and the JL finally confronting Barbatos from Grant Morrison's Batman run (and his evil Bat JL) and finding out the connections to the super metals in the DCU.

 

Yeah, and let's make Hawkman unusable for years again by making Nth metal evil. It's been a while since we've completely wrecked the Hawkman concept from top to bottom, right?

 

Is that what they implied? From
What I read it seems Barbatos is after its power but it's not that it's intrinsically evil.

 

They gave Tim Drake his real origin back
Revisit TIM DRAKE's Origin in DETECTIVE COMICS #965 Preview

 

That's what I got from The Forge. Or maybe The Casting? They're already all blending together. Whichever one it was that had Carter Hall narrating everything.

That's the best news I've heard all month.

 

Very nice, but I'm wondering if that includes what eventually happened in Identity Crisis...

 

Likely yes as in his back story he's not an orphan and they talk about how normal he was plus the flash back scenes are directly from a lonely place of dying and the lead up to the Robin mini series. Unless, they just left him in a coma all this time, but doing so would negate much of Tims own adventures in the Robin comic and cause confusion. They are slowly restoring most of the previous continuity, Batman had the least changes of all the other DC characters during the new 52 most of which focused on Tim, Cassandra, and Stephanie. We will see if they restore the Spoiler and Cassie as a former Batgirls next.

Now if we can just bring back the classic JSA like they hinted at way back when.

 

Yeah, they need to fix Cass's background too, and while they are at it, find her a better codename than "Orphan".

 

DETECTIVE COMICS #965's Retcon & Return Explained By TYNION - SPOILERS
Tim was indeed the third Robin again.

 

What was interesting to me about this issue was that not only did they take Tim back to a very slight variation on his 1989 origin, but they took the Robin concept all the way back to the Golden Age... by saying Batman first took on a partner about one year into his career -- as was originally the case -- not the "Year Three" retcon from post-Crisis.

 

Yeah, that stood out to me too. Though I wondered if it was an intentional retcon of Year Three, or just someone looking at the original appearance dates, and seeing 1939 for Batman and 1940 for Robin, and just going with that.

And with Tim's origin restored, they also restored (at least in part) the Titans Tomorrow Tim.

 

I think it works better that way anyway. When you have to condense a bazillion years worth of adventures into a limited span of time -- saying he started being Batman at a certain age and not wanting him to be too old in the present day -- you can't afford to waste the extra two years on solo stories he never had. It's hard enough already without doing that. Also, as much as I love Mike Barr's Batman work in general, Year Two sucked and was not worth taking up a year of the character's life.

 

No, I agree -- it does make sense, for exactly the reason you specified.

I must confess, Year Two will always have a special place in my heart, but it doesn't really belong in this continuity, taking up valuable time.

 

What I want to know is - will they fix the New Teen Titans? Especially since Johns as architect seems to prefer Cyborg on the JL despite him being a key member of the Titans.

 

Oh, good point. I didn't even think of Vic's place in all of this...

I always liked the idea that he could have started in the Titans, and graduated to the League. I know that requires a retcon, but most New 52 origins seem like they are being erased anyways, so...

 

Yeah, hope so, but consider the JL movie is on the horizon, maybe not. I really miss J'onn on the League, part of me hopes he'll make his grand return in Doomsday Clock along with the JSA.

 

Another good point. I feel like DC was trying to "grunge-up" Aquaman (again?) recently, to make him more Momoa-ish, but have since given up, so hopefully that desire to have the comic JL roster match the movie has diminished a bit...

I really think they need to give up on this 7 (core) Leaguers thing -- there's no reason they can't keep Vic and bring J'onn back in too, and of course, expand as needed. I mean, my fav JLA of all time was the Kelly/Mahnke run -- specifically when Faith, Manitou Raven, and Major Disaster joined, so I'm all for adding new character dynamics to the team.