Dark Knights Rising: Wild Hunt is many things. It's the first Metal tie-in to not focus on the origin on one of the evil Batmen. It's the return of comics legend (and definitive Batman writer) Grant Morrison, who joins series writer Scott Snyder alongside Flash writer Joshua Williamson and Detective Comics writer James Tynion IV. It's the most I've enjoyed any of these tie-ins. But most importantly, it's part of Metal's ongoing love affair with all the complicated and insane aspects of the DC multiverse. It honestly reminded me most of Mad Max: Fury Road, as an escalating;y bonkers chase scene stretched over an entire issue.
Wild Hunt is focused primarily on the trio of the Flash, Cyborg, and Raven as their ship is pursued across the multiverse by the much larger dreadnought of the Dark Knights, who intend to stop them from reaching the Hall of Heroes and stopping the slow corruption of the multiverse. Meanwhile, on Challengers Island, Detective Chimp (no, really) reflects on his origins as he works with the world's greatest minds to try and keep the multiverse portal open. It all builds to a gut-punch of an ending and one of the most surprising comic final pages I've read in years. (And given that this event also gave us the reveal that Batman was working with Neil Gaiman's Dream in it's first issue, that really says something.)
Unlike Mad Max, Wild Hunt struggles from the inconsistency of multiple writers. Morrison's surrealism and ambition, Snyder's grimness, Williamson's quippiness, and Tynion's skill with team dynamics are all great on their own, but it fully clicks here, with the same applying to the art teams of Ivan Reis, Doug Mahnke, and Howard Porter, whose styles are each so distinctive that it sticks out when they try to mix. (Interestingly, all three artists are frequent collaborators of Morrison, with his and Porter's 5-year tenure on JLA being one of the greatest comic runs of all time.)
While it doesn't come together all the time, it's still incredibly entertaining, with the sheer scope and intensity of the story overcoming any massive weaknesses. At it's best moments, it (and the entire Metal event in general) reminds me of Final Crisis, Morrison's final event before the end of his contract with DC. All the pieces are there: hopeless situation that threatens the multiverse, leaving a ragtag group of heroes to save the day. It should be so cliched, but it throws so much at you that you're on board pretty much from the get-go. I mean, it gives real pathos to Detective Chimp. What's not to love?
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