Dark Nights Metal is the most turgid comic I have yet read. Reading it was like wading through mud, with a small hint of sweet treacle here and there. The first four issues are just plainly bad, there are no real scenes, just characters explaining what's happening to one another with very little actually, well... *happening*. I don't want to make the lazy and unknowable claim of 'laziness' but there's a very first draft kind of vibe to the density of this story, I thought when all the evil Batman came through the Dark Multiverse we'd get a bit more space and some actual character development, or something, but no. The only breathing space is found in the last two issues that wrap in a silly, contrived, but at least vaguely enjoyable way. I forced myself through the last half just to move onto the next thing, which I will happily do, with very little chance of ever returning to this mess.

I'm not completely sure how to feel about Bug. I felt fairly frequently lost in the plot and all it's related lingo, but that may well be because I have read none of the New Gods stuff this is following on from, there's no doubt plenty of other stuff that lack of knowledge is making me miss out on, even if it doesn't make the plot more coherent. There's this cutesy lightness to everything, which can be fun, but some of the jokes are pretty hack-y, like something Mike would say ironically on RLM. I know there's some level detachedness and irony to the whole thing, but the line is not very easy to draw for me. Maybe I'll give it another shot once I get through all the New Gods stuff... or maybe not.

Meh. I like the idea of the next arc, Strange having to pay for his abuse of the magic system. But as a character, Strange feels frustratingly cyclical in these 10 short issues, learning the same lessons over and over again, only to forget them just in time for the next arc.

Fun, but insubstantial. These probably read better by the month because their lightness morphs into emptiness when you read them all straight through. But still enjoyable none the less.

Bachalo's stunning art just about salvages an awkwardly paced and written in-between issue.

Um... Okay then? I hope this seemingly random jump to a completely different story (taking place decades later I believe) comes to something, because in and off itself it's kind of a silly cheap trick. That aside, the story itself is... pretty good. It still has that super strong narrative voice that Brubaker does so well, and Phillips are is, of course stunning, but there's something insubstantial and indulgent about this story and how long it takes to actually go anyway. There's a pretty absurd amount of trivia about fictional comic book history, mixed in with some real stuff, that's, like, cool, but not really interesting or that informing to the characters nor narrative. I also feel like I've seen Jacob's story in Bad Night and this doesn't add anything more to him than that fantastic story already did. Maybe I've gone crazy and this will all make sense eventually, but from where I'm sitting right now, this issue was a pretty big disappointment.

There's an awful lot to like here, it's clear Zdarsky has thought an awful lot about Daredevil and has come to some quite brilliant conclusions. Mainly, that Matt identifies himself as the 'Devil' because he knowingly turns his back on God, he sins, sacrificing his soul for what he feels is the greater good, though how deep that belief goes is not made fully clear. However all of this is held together by some stiff dialogue, occasionally empty, weak narration, and an awkward page structure. As good as the content is, the act of reading it is not so much. Hopefully Zdarsky and Checchetto will get in their grove as the series goes along, because at it's very core, there is a masterpiece living within Daredevil 2019.

God, I wish Westerns were more populaur.

I'm not sure if read Dark Nights: Metal and not liking it just made me more suspicious and critical of Snyder's writing here, or this issue is genuinely worse than the previous two. I'll probably have to come back to it later to be sure. But I feel like the tightness of the original, more metaphorical conflict is being stretched out by a more and more complicated plot.