SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains major spoilers for Batman: The Red Death #1 by Joshua Williamson and Carmine Di Giandomenico, on sale now.
A decade or so after DC Comics reinstated the concept of its multiverse back into continuity, Dark Nights: Metalhas expanded its scope even further than once imagined. The limitations of containing alternate possibilities within 52 realities has been instantly extended with the addition of the Dark Multiverse, potentially doubling, or more, the number of alternative dimensions ripe with storytelling possibilities.
In the 20+ years that the events of DC continuity took place within a single universe, though, the company had another solution for addressing variant scenarios or variations on its heroes, and one ironically without limitations. That solution was its line of “Elseworlds” comics, focusing on concepts that, according to the publishing line’s credo, “can’t, couldn’t, or shouldn’t exist,” and over that time, freely explored a wide expanse of realities, unencumbered by any kind of continuity restrictions.
Some Stories Just Belong On The Dark Side
Demonstrating further irony, the realities of some of the those better-remembered stories, such as Batman: Gotham by Gaslight and Superman: Red Son, have been folded into the new multiverse, each given one of the available 52 worlds as their very own (Earth-19 and Earth-30 respectively, for those wondering). Other stories, though, have been forgotten, either by readers, by DC, or both, and remain as “imaginary” stories with no Earth in the multiverse to call home. These orphaned “Elseworlds” stories include Batman: Holy Terror, Superman: The Dark Side, and James Robinson and Paul Smith’s classic The Golden Age featuring an alternate Justice Society.
Since the youngest of these stories is going on 20 years of age, and not all readers might immediately recollect some of these, a recap of each might be in order. Alan Brennert and Norm Breyfogle’s Batman: Holy Terror was set in a world where America was run by a corrupt theocracy, and whose government conducted horrific experiments on incarnations of various DC heroes. Superman: The Dark Side, by John Francis Moore and Kieron Dwyer, explored the idea of a Superman raised by Darkseid, after baby Kal-El’s rocket crashed on Apokolips instead of Earth. And The Golden Age featured the postwar saga of members from the Justice Society, many of whom faced tragic ends after being regarded as heroes during World War II.
There’s No Reason An Imaginary Story Has To Be Happy
While the bulk of the stories featuring these heroes in the conventional DC Universe (that would be Earth-0) are largely ones of triumph over adversity replete with happy endings, such is often not the case in “what-if” or “imaginary” stories. With a wide-open yet finite canvas to work with, writers are free to kill, maim, and destroy their characters, with no repercussions on their mainstream counterparts. This leads to a disproportionate number of alternate-reality stories, “Elseworlds” included, that are decidedly dark and gloomy, full of despair, often taking place in a dystopic setting that sometimes itself doesn’t survive beyond the scope of the story.
Among the unpleasant fates that befell some of the characters featured in the aforementioned examples, Superman is murdered as a child via a fatal dose of Kryptonite, Hawkman’s wings are severed from his body, and Lex Luthor is forced to become a sex slave to Granny Goodness. These circumstances are hardly the stuff of bedtime stories – even supervillains don’t deserve what happened to poor Lex. Apparently, darker stories like these haven’t been deemed worthy of inclusion in the new DC Multiverse.
But maybe they’d be right at home in the Dark Multiverse.
Elseworlds: Our Parents’ Dark Multiverse Comics
After all, the Dark Multiverse is called “dark” for a reason – what’s been seen of it so far includes several incarnations of Batman that clearly aren’t patterned after the Adam West TV show. In Batman: The Red Death, Batman even sacrifices The Flash to physically join forms with him solely to have access to the powers of the Speedforce. And even before that, the supposedly heroic Batman is noticeably unhinged – The Dark Knight has clearly been consumed by darkness, rather than merely cloaking himself in it. 20 years ago, in fact, Batman: The Red Death would have looked right at home with the “Elseworlds” logo slapped on its cover.
Conversely, had the Dark Multiverse been a thing back in the day, these “Elseworlds” stories, and many others, would have seemed right at home there. Just as Gotham by Gaslight and Red Son have been retroactively given a home in the DC Multiverse, why can’t, couldn’t, or shouldn’t the same treatment be given to some of these other, darker stories, and given a formal place at the table of DC continuity? At worst, what harm is there in doing so? Surely there’s room in the Dark Multiverse for an incarnation of Lex Luthor enduring some S&M at the hands of Granny Goodness – it’s not like such a scenario has been an enduring plotline anywhere else.
Stories That Shouldn’t Exist Belong In A Multiverse That Shouldn’t, Either
Whether these stories ever get assigned their own numbered Earth (negatively numbered, mind you), these and other stories walk, talk, and breathe just like a Dark Multiverse story. In Batman: The Red Death, the Batman Who Laughs references worlds “that shouldn’t exist” and describes the Dark Multiverse as a “home to stories that should never be” – which certainly evokes the whole can’t/couldn’t/shouldn’t motto. One altered decision, one twist of fate, one nail in the road – all are the stuff that “Elseworlds” tales have been made of, and are now the same elements that are laying the foundation for the Dark Multiverse.
For years, the whole “Elseworlds” concept worked just fine as laid out, as independently created stories intended to explore unfamiliar realities for familiar characters. But now again armed with a multiverse and eager to use it, DC couldn’t resist the temptation to compartmentalize some of these stories into a larger whole, and there they sit, should there ever be a need for Steampunk Batman to have a plausible face-to-face with Communist Superman, outside of an action figure display. If these prominent and beloved alternate stories can stand to be shoehorned into a bigger reality, then there’s no reason to stop with the “Light” Multiverse.
Because we’ve all been reading Dark Multiverse stories for years – we just didn’t realize it.
