Origin Of Batman The Dawnbreaker #1. DC Metal Tie In

Ok we got a lot to go over because this is another awesome story as part of the DC metal tie in line up. So let’s take a look at what worked and what didn’t.

Now if you are super still super hyped for DC’s 2017 event Dark nights metal then this is another awesome addition to the grand master plan. But on the other hand, we got 3 tie ins all highlighting the origin of Batman the Red Death, Batman the murder machine and now batman the dawnbreaker. So it is possible that we are suffering from a bit of tie in fatigue. This issue follows the same style of giving us an origin story of one of the dark knights brought to us in Dark Nights Metal issue 2. And we have seen the origin of Bruce’s parents die to Joe Chill many times. Very few times do we actually see Bruce getting a chance to actually do something about it.

In this case, he gets a green lantern ring and does what any boy would do out of rage. This is a morally ambiguous question that everyone would have to ask themselves. Yes we gotta be lawful and we know breaking the law is wrong especially from taking a life in cold blood but put yourself in Bruce Wayne the dawn breaker’s shoes right after his parents die. What would you do if you had the ring?

The other awesome thing about this issue is that it adds to the green lantern science. Bruce was chosen for his will power to overcome great fear right after his parents die. But then all he wanted to do when he got the ring was to kill Joe Chill. The ring stops him but his will power cracks the rings safety protocol. This was explored briefly before but in this issue, the ring seems to have been unlocked and gave him a new power we have never seen before – Blackout. Batman the dawn breaker seems to have sucked out all light around him and while he was perfecting this ability, he managed to create monstrous constructs to kill his victims.

After Simon Baz got his green lantern ring, he demonstrated a unique ability to heal. He was able to wake his brother in law from a coma through sheer will power. Then in Sam Humfries Green Lanterns run, Simon Baz got a second new ability from being a green lantern, the power of emerald sight, which basically allows him to peek into the future. Love it or hate it, the green lanterns seems to always be getting new abilities. So that brings me to Batman the Dawnbreaker. His ability of Black out then creating monstrous creature constructs is totally new. All green lanterns can create whatever construct they want but to create this many either shows an enormous amount of will power or that these constructs were bred during the darkness. A third reason for all these massive changes to the green lantern science could just be because he is from the dark multiverse where the quantum laws are much different than the main multiverse.

The one thing that I felt was missing is the sympathy card. We were sympathetic to Batman the red Death because he just lost everyone he ever loved and he did what he thought was right to save Gotham. Batman the Murder machine lost his Alfred. He did what he thought was right to bring back his butler without harming anyone else and besides, he is basically gone and a new AI took his body. This Batman the Dawnbreaker got a bit of sympathy from me following his parent’s death. But then when the Dawnbreaker killed Jim Gordon for no other reason than standing up for the law? That was it for me. Batman the Dawnbreaker became just another cookie cutter villain and another character with green lantern pants on for Hal Jordan to take down.

Speaking about Hal Jordan, another failed part of this story is the short fight scene. Batman the Dawnbreaker pulls a red death moment when he travels to coast city to wreak havoc but finds Hal Jordan in the way. Then the hero of the city gets pulled from the fight leaving the Dawnbreaker to continue his rampage. There was barely any fighting between the two so I’ll chalk it up to being a small preview and we gotta wait for the main pay per view event which I hope is coming soon.

BTW, if Batman the dawnbreaker can kill the entire green lantern corps on his planet, what chance does Jordan have?