Dark Nights: Death Metal: Future State: Infinite Horizon: A Final Ultimate Crisis Tie-In!!!

 I'm a DC comics fan, and I have no idea what's going on with DC right now.

A year or so ago, Scott Snyder was doing his epic Justice League plot - Justice vs Doom - and I was very much enjoying it! This story then left the JL comic to be its own thing, Dark Nights: Death Metal, and I kinda lost interest. Partly because it heavily featured Snyder's clunkily-named favourite character, The Batman Who Laughs, who is kind of What If Batman Was Also The Joker, but also somehow the most powerful force for evil in all the universes. I've been studiously ignoring all of his comics because I find him to be dumb. He wears a slab of metal over his eyes covered with spikes. I have no time for him. I was planning to pick the thing up in a collection, on sale, some time down the line. The Justice League comic went back to telling disconnected, stock JLA stories, and I felt somewhat vindicated in my decision, though also frustrated by not yet knowing *how* this status quo was restored following the big cliffhanger it left on.

But apparently this Death Metal series is integral to the metaplot of the DC Universe. After some months of filler the JL book launched into a Death Metal tie-in and - surprise - the cliffhanger hadn't actually been resolved at all! The earth was now a post-apocalyptic landscape themed after a metal album cover. (A running theme in Snyder's Dark Nights books.) I read it, it was cool, a bit jarring, but okay.

Now Death Metal's finished and the whole line is doing this "Future State" thing as some kind of fallout - which again I'm mostly ignoring because it seems to be some kind of possible future thing - and then there's going to be an "Infinite Horizon" special and, gosh, I don't know, what is even happening? It seems to be one of their periodic relaunches, which are honestly getting quite regular now (2011: New 52. 2016: Rebirth. 2021: Infinite Horizon). It sounds like it has spoilers for Death Metal? But also is maybe necessary for what comes after?

I guess this is the risk of THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING!! epic crossover events, you alienate anyone who didn't pick it up for whatever reason, and/or coerce them into buying something they didn't want to because "it's important to the plot".

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