Who is Perpetua? The Road to Death Metal
Perpetua is an incredibly powerful DC Comics character and a key villain in several different DC events. She was responsible for creating the entire DC Multiverse and her actions have a massive impact on DC’s cosmic history. Within this article, we’re diving into that history and explaining how it leads into the Dark Nights: Death Metal event.
Origin
In the DC Omniverse, multiverses are created by Super Celestials, cosmic beings of immense power. The Super Celestials imbue a multiverse with fundamental positive energies and then die, giving themselves to the new multiverse. Then, once an individual multiverse has matured, it returns to its shores of creation to be judged by the enigmatic Judges of the Source.
However, the mainstream DC Multiverse was created differently. This Multiverse was created by Perpetua, a Super Celestial who refused to die for her creation. Instead, she decided to turn her Multiverse into a self-sustaining engine of power and destruction, breaking the cycle of the Omniverse and allowing her to live forever. To do this, she imbued her Multiverse with fundamental negative energies and began creating an army. This created a Multiverse where Doom was the prevailing force, where the strong would eternally rule over and feed upon the weak, and where she could launch an attack on other Super Celestials if they ever threatened her.
This would have continued but Perpetua’s three cosmic children, the Monitor, Anti-Monitor, and World Forger, discovered her plan and alerted the Judges of the Source. The Judges used their power to lock Perpetua and her army away, creating the Source Wall in the process. Then, they recreated her Multiverse with fundamental positive energies, sealed away the negative energies, and set the Multiverse back on the right track.
However, upon being caged, Perpetua was able to distribute clues about the her legacy and current condition. Some of these clues made their way to Lex Luthor, who believed freeing Perpetua would make him a heroic figure in a new multiversal order.
Road to Death Metal
When the Source Wall was cracked at the conclusion of the Dark Nights: Metal (Review) (Reading Order) event, it offered an opportunity to reawaken Perpetua. Lex Luthor jumped at this chance and assembled the Legion of Doom to help him achieve his goals. Despite opposition from the Justice League, eventually, Lex was able to awaken Perpetua and become her chief general.
Together, this group of villains were able to unseal the Multiverse’s fundamental negative energies and restore Perpetua to her full power. Upon reaching this stage, Perpetua began judging entire universes within her Multiverse, destroying them if they rejected her message and turning them into savage predators if they accepted it. The Justice League tried to stop Lex Luthor and Perpetua but were, seemingly, destroyed in the attempt.
After the League’s defeat, an unexpected element entered the picture and began opposing Perpetua’s plan. The Batman Who Laughs raised an army, with energy from the Dark Multiverse, and attacked Lex Luthor. However, Luthor was able to stop them and brought the Batman Who Laughs before Perpetua for judgement.
At this point, the Batman Who Laughs revealed that he simply wanted to talk to Perpetua. He explained that he was impressed with her work and wanted to partner with her. He offered up the information that the Justice League was still alive and even offered to help deal with them. Lex Luthor opposed the partnership but Perpetua accepted it, dismissing Lex and stripping him of his powers in the process.
This put Perpetua back in her position as head of her own Multiverse. Her plan to craft this Multiverse to her own destructive and self-serving interests could continue. The only thing that appeared to pose a threat was the continued existence of the Justice League, which would become a factor in the Dark Nights: Death Metal event.
Recommended Reading
If you’re interested in reading these comic adventures for yourself, we recommend picking up the following titles:
- Check out ComicBookWire’s “Perpetua Reading Order” to see how her actions progress from the moment she was introduced.
- Justice League Vol. 4 #1-39 and Annual #1, collected across Justice League Vol. 1: The Totality (Review) to Justice League Vol. 5: Justice/Doom War (Review). These issues show the Legion of Doom’s quest to harness the fundamental negative energies of the universe and awaken Perpetua, while the Justice League tries to stop them.
- Year of the Villain: Hell Arisen #1-4, collected in Year of the Villain: Hell Arisen (Review). This miniseries reveals hidden truths about Perpetua and directly sets up the Dark Nights: Death Metal event.
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