Spoiler Alert: This article has major Dark Knights Rising: The Wild Hunt #1 (by Scott Snyder, Grant Morrison, James Tynion IV, Joshua Williamson, Jorge Jimenez, Douge Mahnke, Jaime Mendoza, Hi-Fi, Alejandro Sanchez, Wil Quintana and Clayton Cowles) spoilers. The comic book is on sale now.
With the Dark Nights: Metal approaching its end, everything is becoming clearer. Although there are still some unsolved mysteries, one of which is related to the unknown bandaged prisoner from The Batman Who Laughs.
No matter who it is, but, it has been kept in place by The Dark Knights to be a witness to the destruction of the Multiverse, however, this week’s related Dark Knights Rising: The Wild Hunt has provided some clues to identify the mystery prisoner. If our guess is right then, he is the mightiest person in the DC Multiverse.
Monitor Duty
This one-shot hops around the DC Multiverse while the Dark Knights prey on Cyborg, Raven and The Flash on board the Ultima Thule, a shiftship initially seen in Final Crisis: Superman Beyond. The Ultimate Thule has been shown to be looking for its pilot, Nix Uotan aka The Superjudge, the last Monitor and the guy who put together Operation: Justice Incarnate to protect the Multiverse from The Gentry. Among those heroes, Intellectron even appeared for a cameo when the Ultimate Thule dodges The Dark Knights’ Carrier.
Later, at the time when the Dark Knights are ecstatic about their imminent victory, The Batman Who Laughs forces his prisoner to watch, calling him as “the most powerful being in The Multiverse, perhaps.” His face is still not shown, but, his eyes are, and they seem to be familiar as if he is somebody who has been in a similar crisis previously. The last hint towards this prisoner’s identity is the simian allies who land on the last page, including Mister Stubbs, the sidekick, and team-mate of Nix Uotan.
With all these clues suggesting the same thing, it is not difficult to figure out that the mysterious prisoner is Nix Uotan, the guardian of the Multiverse, defeated by the Dark Knights, and compelled to see his life’s labor being laid to waste by beings from the other dimension.
Superjudge!
Nix Uotan had debuted in the build-up to the Final Crisis. Therefore, it is logical that Grant Morrison worked on this one-shot, focusing on some of his more powerful multiversal ideas. After his Earth – Earth 51, gets destroyed, Nix Uotan was sent into exile by The Monitors and subjected to live as a human being, trying to return to a life he doesn’t really remember. Darkseid imprisoned him and put him in The Evil Factory beside Batman and Metron, however, he regained his good side and beat Mandrakk, The Dark Monitor who used to be his father Rox Ogama earlier and restored stability to the Multiverse.
Nix Uotan went on to become the only protector of The Multiverse, based at the House of Heroes, where he employed superheroes from various worlds to prevent a danger mightier than anything anyone had ever faced, in the form of The Gentry and their leader The Empty Hand. After being poisoned by the Anti-Death Equation, Uotan was distorted and became a new Dark Monitor until the Multiverse heroes saved him and beat back the invaders. However, it seems that the new Dark Multiverse invaders have prevailed over him.
In case, Barbatos really wanted to replace the Multiverse with the Dark Multiverse; then it would be logical that the very first thing that he would want his stooges to do is to abduct Nix Uotan. Therefore, it won’t be a surprise if you find out that the mysterious prisoner is none other than the Superjudge when Metal concludes in March.
