SPOILER WARNING: This article contains major spoilers for DC’s Dark Nights: Metal #6, available now.
As Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo’s Dark Nights: Metal wraps up its six-issue main story arc with a very literal bang, some major things are sitting on the horizon for Snyder. Between his June-debuting Justice League run and the prelude miniseries Justice League: No Justice he’s writing with collaborators Joshua Williamson and James Tynion, Snyder has found himself in the driver’s seat of some of the biggest stories in the DC Universe — and by the looks of it, he has no intention of taking his foot off the gas.
CBR caught up with Snyder this past weekend at WonderCon in Anaheim to get some of the nitty-gritty details about Metal #6’s major developments, along with some hints as to the future of the Justice League as they set out in this brave new world.
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Dark Nights: Metal #6 cover by Greg Capullo, Jonathan Glapion and FCO Plascencia
CBR: Let’s just jump right into this, no beating around the bush: how do you pitch a story that ends with “and then, I want to break the Source Wall?”
Scott Snyder: Everything about Metal is essentially about stepping out of your comfort zone, exploring a mystery that takes you further than you thought possible, and then finding yourself in this reality where you’re like, “I don’t know what I was doing, every road I take is failure, every version of myself I see is horrible,” until your friends pull you out. So, what do you do after that? You have to reach further. So, the only logical end in this for me was to have the DCU itself go further than we’ve ever gone, literally and figuratively.
So I said to Dan [DiDio], “I really want to break the Source Wall,” and he was like “…Are you serious?” And I was like “Yes!” Then he was like, “Well, what’s on the other side?” I had to say that I don’t know yet! [Laughs] But that was over a year ago, so now we know what’s out there, but the point isn’t to break the Source Wall and say what the Source is, or any of that, the point is to use it as an expansive, exploratory mechanism for creators to be able to push their imaginations. That means new sectors for the Green Lanterns, new rules of physics for magic, new cosmic wonder for characters like Starfire who are exploratory in space. It’s a shattering of limitations.
There are things that are very big, and like the actual things that made the Source Wall, coming to Earth in Justice League, so you’ll get answers, it’s not going to just be amorphous, but for other books we wanted it to blow the doors of for 2018. It’s why we re-labeled the books the DC Universe.
All of this is going to kick of with No Justice, which you’re co-writing alongside Joshua Williamson and James Tynion IV. I spoke with them about that project a little at Emerald City Comic Con this year, but I’d like to get your take on something — specifically with the team composition. What’s your side of the story about why Beast Boy is on the team he’s with?
You’re going to have to read it! [Laughs] We had the longest meeting about the teams and one of the longest parts of that long meeting was why Beast Boy was on Team Entropy — it was that, why Starro, and what happens to Lex Luthor at the end. Those three things were the biggest discussions. Beast Boy’s position on Entropy has a very big reason, it carries over to what Dan Abnett is doing over in Titans.
It’s Team Entropy, right? And Entropy to us is this idea that there’s this self-destructive, pathological impulse in you — all of us have that to some degree. Beast Boy’s connected to all this Red Energy, all this life, and at the same time, he’s limiting himself in a way that might need to be corrected. That’s something that plays into his relationship with Raven, which is going to be a part of the Titans story with Abnett.
Huh! Well I’m excited to read it — and I’m even more excited with all the recent Justice League announcements. You’ve got a lot going on there.
Yeah! Man, I’m approaching it like — I was telling Dan that if I retire after this, that’s okay. I’m approaching this like it’s my swan song. It’s everything I love about superheroes. It has every element of comics crazy that I’ve loved for so long.
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You spoke a little at your spotlight panel about your interest in Martian Manhunter which made me think — one thing the Justice League represents to me is this idea of a trinity at the core, right? Does J’onn have that dynamic with anyone on your team?
Yeah, very much! On our team, that dynamic is Kendra, J’onn and John Stewart. All of them are facing mysteries about their own nature. Kendra starts to realize that her origin, who she is, what she’s capable of, is different than what she thought — she’s missing memories. John Stewart starts to realize that the Guardians have hidden things from him because of his skill set, what he’s supposed to do, he might have been a soldier for them in ways he didn’t realize. Then Martian Manhunter realizes that after the end of the Source Wall, and the mysteries that are unfolding before him, might be saying something about him, too.
J’onn believes that Mars died because it closed itself off from answers, but he starts to realize that maybe it died because it opened itself up to the things he’s exploring.
So the three of them, in arc one and arc two, are really bound together — they’re a really interesting unit.
On top of that, Wonder Woman and Aquaman have a great relationship, Batman and Superman have one too — those two are so much fun. Flash and Cyborg are another good one. The relationships between these characters are a blast.
Justice League #1 cover by Jim Cheung
Let’s switch gears back to Metal for a second. I have to say I really, really appreciated that little coda at the end with everyone in their fancy party wear.
Oh man! Yeah! I had to fight for that, actually. They were like, “We don’t want this to end too happy,” and I was like “they all just learned that everything they know is coming to an end, so, yeah, they’re going to have a party, and Swamp Thing is gonna have a little bow made of plants, and that’s all there is to it.
Justice League: No Justice starts on May 9 and runs for four weekly issues. Scot Snyder and Jim Cheung’s Justice League #1 is scheduled for release on June 6.