Originally published on Patreon
So this might be the best issue of this series yet. As the two armies come together on the field of battle outside the cast of the El's things come to a dramatic breaking point when Lara uses her heat vision to cut Queen Hippolyta down, murdering her in front of her family and army.
This issue picks up where the last issue ended, with the two armies having watched one of the queens die. As you can imagine, this sparks the battle that has been brewing for the entire series. The battle begins even as Kal-El arrives, hoping to prevent disaster, as super powered beings and regular humans clash.
Whilst all of this is happening Lara flies off to the castle and begins killing the powered prisoners in the dungeons. This allows Oliver and Dinah a chance to break free, but raises questions as to why Lara is doing all of this. Indeed, this issue makes you question a lot of what we've seen before. Characters realise that they've been manipulated and lied to, it appears that Kal-El has no idea about the betrayal that Bruce is talking about, and double crosses seem to be coming out of nowhere.
Well, we finally get an answer to it all. The White Martians are here. The reveal that Lara is actually a White Martian was a genuine surprise, as even when I was going through all of the possible reasons and explanations in my head they didn't pop up. It's a dramatic moment, but it didn't have the same impact as the final moments of the issue, where Alfred reveals why he knows about the White Martians. I was losing my mind before the final page, having realised it was coming, but still yelled out loud when it happened. Alfred is Martian Manhunter!
This kind of thing is why I absolutely love these kinds of Elseworld stories. They're able to do things that the regular comics could never do in a million years. They can throw wild ideas out there and do the unexpected because there are no rules. And to be fair, the book had already set up this kind of idea, as it had combined Joker, Lex, and GL into one character; so why not these two too?
The art on the book is really fantastic too, with the huge battle scenes filling large panels on the pages. They're packed with people, full of action and movement. It really sells the scale and the chaos of the war that has just broken out. The art team on this series has always managed to deliver some fantastic things, and this issue might be some of the best.
With the disappointment that was the final issue of DC Vs Vampires I'm really hoping that Dark Knights of Steel manages to stick the landing, and was worried going into this issue that it might start to lose its way; but now I'm so hyped for the next issue. This is my first comic read of 2023 and it had me yelling out loud and left me with a huge smile. Hopefully more like this will come in the future.
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