In Dark Nights: Death Metal, the DC heroes just gained a surprising Crisis-level threat as a teammate in their battle against the Darkest Knight.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers Dark Nights: Death Metal #4 by Scott Snyder, Greg Capullo, Jonathan Glapion, & FCO Plascencia, on sale now.
The threats of Dark Nights: Death Metal has pushed the heroes to work with some unexpected villains, such as Lex Luthor, but now one of DC’s biggest and most powerful villains ever just threw in his lot with the heroes.
Superboy-Prime just turned against the Darkest Knight and seems to have joined the heroes, giving them another major powerhouse going into the final battles against the monstrous Darkest Knight.
Created by Elliot S. Maggin and Curt Swan in DC Comics Presents #87, this version of Clark Kent existed in a world where he was the only superhero. After helping bring down the Anti-Monitor during “Crisis on Infinite Earths”, Superboy-Prime ventured into the space between universes. But he returned as a villain during “Infinite Crisis”, having grown disgusted with the state of the DC Universe he’d sacrificed so much for. Superboy-Prime survived the events of that storyline and went on to be a massive threat in other events such as “The Sinestro Corps War”, “Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds”, and recently in the pages of Shazam!, where the character has targeted the teen-hero and his family. It was revealed that he was a key part of the Darkest Knight’s plans in Dark Nights: Death Metal as a source of Crisis-energy.
The Darkest Knight has helped Superboy-Prime (along with Anti-Monitor and Darkseid) be victors in their respective Crisis events, at least in self-contained worlds. For Superboy-Prime, that means a Silver and Bronze-Age inspired superhero universe with no overt and destructive threats. Venturing into the false realities created by the villains winning the Crisis events, it becomes apparent that the three aren’t prepared for the dangers present in these three worlds. Emboldened and empowered by the Batman Who Laughs, the villains easily capture the heroes and subject them to grim potential fates. While both Batman and Superman succumb to their targets — broken down into basic matter and corrupted into Darkseid’s final son, respectively — Wonder Woman escapes from hers.