>>8432015So, it's the Dark Multiverse, which is a bit tricky to explain, but let's just call them alternate realities where things always seem to take a turn for the worse. Drowned here is Bryce Wayne, Sylvester Kyle (Catman?) of her world was killed by metahumans, and she in turn went around killing all of them. Aquawoman shows up and Bryce doesn't trust her intentionsThe Atlanteans drowned Gotham, and Bryce got some surgery done and gained a bunch of powers akin to Aquaman and more.
They all basically had stories like this (Devastator was in a world where Superman turned bad and killed the JL, so he used the Doomsday virus on himself, etc, they each have a one-shot issue if you're interested in finding out more about them) and their worlds (which are unstable as a result of being a part of the Dark Multiverse (hence the Earths with negative values like -11 for Drowned and -52 for Red Death) were collapsing, and the Batman Who Laughs (working for Barbatos at the time, and he killed Joker in his universe but was infected by toxins in Joker's heart, turning him into what he is) ended up recruiting them as a sort of evil Bat JL.
It kind of is like Spider-Verse, especially in Death Metal where there are tons of different variants. They basically took the somewhat serious nature of Metal and just went nuts with it, a Bruce Wayne who is a living Gotham City, a Car, a T-Rex, but also some semi serious ones like a Martian Manhunter esque character (he's yet to do anything), Darkseid (easily beat), etc.
You'd definitely have to at least read a more proper synopsis if you want a better idea of this original team from Metal (they were on an upcoming cover, so I assume they'll be back for at least an issue), or on the story itself.
Side note, in the group shot the Merciless was around as tall as everyone else so I wondered why his figure was made so tall, but here he is from his one shot, he can evidently size change, like Ares. Too bad no unmasked head.
