Warning: this post contains a preview of DC vs Vampires: All-Out War #6!The DC Universe has faced a nearly endless amount of apocalypses, but every time the heroes have managed to push it back - sadly, in the case of DC vs Vampires, one hero knows the world is doomed to fall to the undead.
Currently, in the pages of DC vs Vampires, the entire Earth has been taken over by a vicious army of vampires, with humans stuffed into blood camps to be farmed for food. The heroes of the DC universe have either all been killed, turned into vampires themselves, or are part of a rag-tag group fighting back. There is almost no-one left to fight back against the vampire overlords aside from a few surviving heroes and villains, which includes Deathstroke leading a superteam in All-Out War. For all intents and purposes, the vampires won, and they managed it for one dark reason.
Readers are able to see the Earth get entirely destroyed by vampires in Alex Paknadel, Matthew Rosenberg, Pasquale Qualano, and Francesco Mortarino's DC vs Vampires: All-Out War #6. The Vampires, led by a vampirized Dick Grayson, played the long game and picked heroes off one by one, staying in the shadows and infecting or killing those they couldn't control, eventually, the vampire army successfully took over Earth. With the death of the Flash by a vampirized Green Lantern, all the criminals in Central City went on a crime spree, stealing everything they possibly could. But they were attacked by vampires, with Captain Cold being infected. Rather than turn into a monster, he froze himself, hoping there'd be a cure by the time he woke up. Unfortunately, when he's awoken the Earth is worse off than ever, when Captain Cold states that he thought the heroes would save the world, Midnighter responds with why the heroes were never going to win.
DC's Vampires Hit the Justice League First
Midnighter explains that the heroes were unable to stop the vampire apocalypse because this time the apocalypse started with the heroes. This goes a long way to explain why the world was able to fall so fast. Every single time there has been an apocalypse in the DC Universe, regardless of the overwhelming odds, the heroes always rose up to fight it. The apocalypse in Tom Taylor and Trevor Hairsine's DCeased was immediate and indiscriminate. The heroes had enough time to react to the point Wonder Woman's island Themyscira changed its rules in order to take in refugees.
While the DCeased universe is certainly darker than DC vs Vampires in some ways, the apocalypse there did not specifically target heroes, it just happened. Eventually, the heroes found a cure and were able to save the majority of humanity. Despite the fact that DCeased's apocalypse was more violent and all-encompassing, the majority of humanity made it out alive. But with DC vs Vampires, the vampires specifically targeted the heroes before they revealed themselves. So while the initial apocalypse was much less violent, the overall result was far darker.
While the heroes in DCeased are currently preparing to fight back the undead armies, the heroes of the DC vs Vampires universe are all but wiped out - indeed, the only way for the world to be saved is for new heroes to step into the breach and help keep humanity kicking.
DC vs Vampires #6 releases December 19 from DC Comics.