Dark Matter, Dark Multiverse

Galaxies Spin Faster Than We Can Explain

One of the things making superheroes different from ancient myths is the use of modern science – of course, not real science, but a fictional or misconstrued version of it – to explain the source of superheroes and supervillains powers and weapons. The first page of the first superhero story devotes some space to "explain" how the facts of insect strength make it plausible that a super-man could exist. Batman and Robin, back in the Forties, had communication devices resembling modern cellphones. The "Many Worlds" interpretation of quantum physics likely helped inspire the Earth Two (and, later, Multiverse) concocted by Gardner Fox and other creators. Antimatter helped inspire Qward and the Anti-Monitor. Radium and heavy water were used to explain kryptonite, the Flash's super speed, and various other things. The various Flashes use Einstein's theory of special relativity. Final Crisis mentions a graviton superhighway. Comic book pseudoscience draws upon real science– frequently newer and more speculative science, the results that have not been explained or understood completely. Dark Nights: Metal is the latest to forge a new connection between cutting-edge science and the comics.

Way back in 1940, when Flash Comics #1 debuted some of the first science-based superheroes to follow Superman, Hawkman's power of flight was said to depend upon the use of "ninth metal." Presumably, the first eight were those metals known to the ancients, which did indeed number approximately, if not exactly, eight (copper, tin, lead, iron, gold, silver, antimony, and mercury). By the time 1940 rolled around, the periodic table had dozens of metals, but the ancient Egyptian setting of Hawkman's pre-reincarnation origin made eight a more plausible number, and so one could imagine that some unknown, undiscovered metal would have unique new properties. The fictional ninth metal in the Hawk-universe, with anti-gravity powers and various bio-enhancements, is considerably more interesting than whatever the actual ninth metal to be discovered was (possibly bismuth, platinum, or nickel, depending on the source). As comic book science caught up with the real world post-1940, someone realized that "ninth" metal was discovered a long time ago and so the number ought to be bumped to the vague, but similar-sounding "nth." This substance is due to play a starring role in Dark Nights: Metal, and its already-impressive list of properties is certain to grow.

The (pseudo)scientific surprise in Metal #1 was the notion of the dark multiverse being something based on the (seemingly) real scientific phenomenon known as dark matter. Dark matter is real, or at least it's a serious proposition that it may be real.

A realization that goes back to Isaac Newton is that the paths of bodies in space are predictable given their masses and initial positions and motion. If you watch bodies in space move for a while, you can figure out their masses. This was applied to the solar system and worked like a charm. But as soon as someone tried to apply it to galaxies, the results came out strange, seeming to indicate that galaxies were heavier than the number and size of stars in them would indicate. In the 1880s, this was noticed in our galaxy. In 1933, the same year that Jerry Siegel published his first character named Superman, it was noticed in other galaxies. At first, scientists figured that whatever they were missing would eventually be found, but 130 years later, there's still no answer. There have been plenty of ideas, but for one reason or another, none of them work. The stars we can see don't weigh enough. Clouds of dust and gas would glow softly in infrared. Scientists even came up with one idea if the dark matter came in big lumps heavier than the Sun (MACHOs = massive, compact halo objects) and another if they were tiny subatomic particles (WIMPs = weakly interactive massive particles). As of 2017, the explanations for dark matter fall into two categories: Disproven or Inconclusive. We still don't know what dark matter is. Along the way, there have been suggestions that dark matter may not exist at all, and maybe something else that we think is true is actually false. Maybe gravity works differently than we think. All speculative. Nobody knows.

But here's why dark matter is such a big mystery: If dark matter exists, there's a lot of it. Really a lot. It's not that we have a universe with regular matter and dark matter is a little something extra on the side. Dark matter outweighs regular matter considerably, by a ratio of 5.5 to 1. However much you weigh, there are five and a half yous worth of dark matter out there somewhere. The universe is mainly dark matter. Well, unless you count something else called dark energy, which adds up to even more than the dark matter. If you add up the mass-energy together, the dark stuff is 19.4 times as much as the regular matter we're made of. For every you, there are nineteen and a half dark yous. Granted, real science speculates that this is probably not grouped into things like you, but we really don't know how it's composed or arranged.

This little science lesson impacts the story as follows. Remember back in a little crossover called Crisison Infinite Earths when we had an infinite number of matter dimensions and one antimatter dimension? Well, there's a real physics tidbit behind that. In our universe, there really is a lot of matter and, so far as we know, only a tiny bit of antimatter. On paper, they are equal and in some ways opposite, but out there in space, matter is enormously more common.

So, Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo, in invoking a dark multiverse, aren't just paraphrasing a couple of sentences from a science magazine into their story. They're setting up this dark (and hostile) thing up to be something big, bigger than whatever our heroes and their multiverse have to throw against it. As Kendra Saunders explains briefly in Metal #1, "Dark matter and dark energy actually make up the great majority of our universe."

So, credit the Metal creators with this: They have followed a long tradition of drawing upon real science as the basis for comic book pseudoscience, and will probably educate readers at least a bit along the way. But for now, the more striking thing is the implication that Kendra's speech balloon introduced and this post explains in more detail – this promises to be the biggest threat that has been introduced yet. At least, if we measure threats in kilograms. Suffice it to read their intention: This thing is big and bigger than our heroes. Unlike the Injustice Gang, unlike the Joker, or Sinestro, Bizarro, the Antimonitor, or the Crime Syndicate, the bad guys in this story aren't going to be like our heroes' dark doubles, but as something much bigger, stronger, and more numerous. Wish them well.

Batman Zero Year

A year in story time and a year in publication time, Scott Snyder's Batman: Zero Year retells for the nth time, perhaps at greater length and in greater detail than ever before, the story of how Bruce Wayne became Batman. It is inevitable that it be compared to earlier stories; its greater scope leaves it with no true analogues, which is good because the similarly named Batman: Year One covering this topic in a third the length is virtually impossible to transcend in quality.

Snyder's story covers Batman's first year in three acts of four issues each. The first pits our (initially nameless) hero against the Red Hood gang, bringing about the origin of the Joker. In the second, Doctor Death is front and center as the agent of Edward Nygma. In the third, Nygma, as the Riddler, holds Gotham captive in a scenario clearly patterned on Bane's domination of the Gotham in The Dark Knight Rises.

Through an extraordinary number of flashbacks, the story visits earlier episodes of pivotal importance to Bruce Wayne and to his opponents. Some of these are shown as quick, cryptic impressions that can only be understood later. As a result, the story is much stronger when read in one sitting than over a period of thirteen months (issue #28 was not part of the story), with threads introduced in a panel or two left dangling for nine or more weeks before the reader sees where they lead.

Any story of this kind must revisit and modify existing mythology. Compared to previous canon, BZY reasserts the early importance of Doctor Death (the villain of Batman's third and fourth published stories, back in 1939) and the Joker (who debuted in Batman #1 and was tied to Batman's origin in the 1989 film). Meanwhile, it makes the changes of placing a larger-than-ever emphasis on the Riddler and the previously minor character of Uncle Philip (first introduced in 1986).

BZY also changes the tone of post-COIE continuity by placing the debut of the Red Hood Gang (and by extension, that of costumed villains in general) before the debut of Batman himself. This has the curious implication that the Joker, in his Red Hood identity, debuted before Batman and probably before Superman. This is a considerable alteration of the portrayal in Year One / Long Halloween and the Nolan films that Batman began his war on crime in order to fight real-world kinds of criminals (such as the Falcone crime family) and thereafter attracted a host of costumed villains inspired by his own theatrical qualities.

This changes, in particular, the vision from Year One that Bruce Wayne found himself not particularly effective fighting crime while dressed in street clothes, and so, while suffering in his study from injuries during one poor outing, came up with the idea of being Batman. The new, BZY account is that while in his regular identity as Bruce Wayne himself, he suffered a terrible beating at the hands of the Red Hood gang, and then, after receiving medical aid from Alfred, a virtual reality view of the Batcave helped inspire a similar realization. Thus, many of the original elements are maintains, with the details considerably changed.

One offbeat choice in the story is to make the Riddler the villain with the most impact in Batman’s first year. While the Riddler has occasionally risen near the top of the list of Batman’s most prominent villains, he has never been accorded true primacy besides being the villain in the two debut episodes of the 1966 TV show. This Riddler is homicidal and darkly egomaniacal like Jim Carrey’s rendition in Batman Forever. He is delighted with his own intellect, and constructs a world where he rules by torment. For nearly three issues the story covers the efforts of Batman, Lucius Fox, and Jim Gordon to search the maze that the Riddler has turned Gotham into for the vulnerable point in his electronic control structure. This search becomes torturous almost to excess, as one lead after another is a dead end that the Riddler anticipated someone to find until finally, he is face to face with Batman and even then has a few more surprises in store. The action is exciting, scene-by-scene, even as the Riddler’s defenses start to become as tiresome for the reader as they are for the story’s heroes.

The hallmarks of Snyder's writing include an impressive breadth of detail rooted in real world facts verging on trivia, a bit like the famous "Flash Facts" from Silver Age Flash issues. Snyder is an intelligent and knowledgeable man and this informs his Batman stories wonderfully. He writes scenes that make Bruce show his detective skills; many writers avoid this even though "the world's greatest detective" is the character's alternate moniker.

The use of flashbacks make this the tale of more than just one year, which the 12-issue length amply merits. We visit events from young Bruce discovering the cave to key incidents with his parents before their deaths, his early and bitter encounter with Jim Gordon, and a brief glimpse of his period of training. Some of these scenes are patterned on The Dark Knight Returns, others on The Dark Knight Rises, and still others are entirely new. The flashbacks often provide the background that explain the significance of some event taking place in the present, although one or two are handled so quickly that they lack impact, making the story more broad then deep. One, in particular, describes an incident of uncharacteristic tumult in which a young adult Bruce nearly uses electroshock to erase his mind and reboot himself as a new person, with no memory of the death of his parents. For him to consider this after years of training would imply a deep ambivalence carried around for years, perhaps a man straining and ready to crack. Snyder gives this enormous decision far too little attention and should have cut it from the story or delved into it more deeply.

What we do see into the character of Bruce Wayne comes, as often as not, during his conversations with Alfred. Alfred initially seeks to discourage Bruce’s war on crime, and then he tries to redirect it into more conventional efforts as the owner of Wayne Enterprises. In some tactical situations, he tries to get Bruce to shy away from risks. In none of these efforts is he successful. At last, when Alfred revives Bruce from a final victory that knocked him unconscious and Bruce asked how he did it, Alfred responds, “Because you’re Batman.” Unwilling to advocate the life his master has changed, Alfred nonetheless recognizes the greatness within him.

However, even at this point, Alfred makes one final effort to redirect Bruce from the life of Batman by arranging for Julie Madison (beautiful, as in past renditions; a sci fi fan in this one) to meet with him. Bruce is tempted by this prospect. In fact, the scene in which Bruce briefly considers a serene, happy life with Julie is patterned on The Last Temptation of Christ. But instead of choosing marriage and an ordinary life, Bruce chooses to be Batman, just as Christ chooses to die on the cross. It’s a powerful reference that might draw shouts of blasphemy, but it’s a defining coda for the story and the character.

Batman’s origin has been told many times, sometimes in small pieces covering his parents’ death, his training, or his adoption of the bat identity, but never before has the origin been packed into one super-length story of this scope. The prominence of Uncle Philip and Julie Madison suggest that the origin of the Golden Age Batman in Secret Origins #6 was on Snyder’s reading list. Many stories before and since are given a nod here and there. Only in small details does it contradict the more recent origin stories, as opposed to a radical redefinition like John Byrne’s Man of Steel. As my earlier comments have noted, this is probably a better work to hold in your hands and read in one sitting than with its many, lightly-sketched flashback threads dangling from month to month. And in that regard it can be enjoyed not as a retcon or erasure of Batman Year One but as another volume worth having and revisiting.