DCU Comic Book Reviews

52:  Week Fifty-Two (2-May-2007)

A Year In The Life

Written by Geoff Johns, Grant Morrison, Greg Rucka, Mark Waid

Breakdowns by Keith Giffen

Pencils by Mike McKone, Justiniano, Eddy Barrows, Chris Batista, Pat Olliffe, and Darick Robertson

Inks by Andy Lanning, Walden Wong, Rodney Ramos, Drew Geraci, and Darick Robertson

Cover by J. G. Jones

Synopsis

Rip Hunter and Booster Gold race through the creation of the new multiverse with 52 identical Earths that occurred at the end of the last Crisis to stop Mr. Mind from eating them all.  Mr. Mind finds them and regurgitates the Phantom Zone, hoping to trap them, but Supernova appears and is able to use the Phantom Zone technology in his suit to deflect it back to where it belongs.  Supernova is revealed to be Daniel Carter, one of Booster’s ancestors and the one who Skeets/Mind lured to Rip Hunter’s laboratory.  Undaunted, Mr. Mind begins to eat years and events (history) from various Earths, altering the timeline of each.  Rip and Hunter must stop him.  First, Booster Gold travels back to the time when he first met Ted Kord (aka Blue Beetle) to retrieve the scarab and Rip Hutner travels to Dr. Sivana’s laboratory to retrieve Suspendium.  They then travel back to Rip Hunter’s laboratory where they once more trap Mr. Mind within Skeets.  Booster than tosses Skeets back into time, to the first week after the second Crisis.  At that time, Sivana finds Mr. Mind as a worm and traps, ensuring he will never evolve.  They then visit Dr. Magnus, who is able to restore Skeets back to the way he was before the year began.  In Gotham, Kate Kane (aka Batwoman) is give a clean bill of slate and returns home.  Meanwhile, Renee Montoya (aka the Question) turns on the batsignal and asks:  “Are you ready?”

Review by Binkley (e-mail)

Despite the fact that the ending was given away in the DC Nation column weeks ago, the final installment to the 52 series was extremely satisfying both in terms of the plot and its resolution and in terms of what the writers have set up for the future.  Like the Steel and Dibny issues, this one contained moments of exposition to explain how the writers got from Point A to the this issue, but with the extended page count, the exposition doesn’t feel as forced as the Steel and Dibny issues.  The entire trip through time and the multiverse was fun stuff, including the scene with Ted Kord and the strangeness that is the Sivana family. 

Strangely, even though 52 is over, it doesn’t really feel like it is over.  I think this is attributable to the fact that next week I will be heading down to the store and will be picking up the new weekly series Countdown.  I also think that even though the writers provided an ending and wrapped up a lot of storylines, the reality is that the creation of the multiverse (or the megaverse as they seem to call it) is actually a beginning as it sets up the possibility of future stories.  Ultimately, the idea of the megaverse is not intrinsically bad or good.  It is what the writers and editors at DC decide to do with it.  Time will tell whether the megaverse was a good idea or not.

While the idea of the megaverse leads to a possibility of new stories to be told, it can (and does) also lead to some headaches.  There are a lot of people who simply adore the idea of the megaverse, probably because this is the type of universe they remember when they were reading comics back in the Silver Age.  The problem with that is they remember the time when the JSA and JLA were on different earths and Jay Garrick and Barry Allen would occasionally meet each other or we get those infamous team ups.  The problem is that right now, all of the DCU heroes are on the same Earth.  So, when and how will these crossovers occur?  Will Bart Allen, the current Flash, race across the multiverse and find a new Flash, one we’ve never met or will he find Wally West or Barry Allen.  What about the Freedom Fighters or the Huntress?  We have two sets of a lot of characters.  Will readers care about the  Freedom Fighters on Earth-10 or the new Freedom Fighters that were feature recently in their own mini-series?  As I said, time will tell and provide the answers to some of these questions.   

On the one hand it was nice to see some closure with Ralph and Sue Dibny as it looks as if they are both really dead, but still solving crimes as Ghosts.  It manages to convey a happy ending to Ralph’s story without altering (or retconning) any bits of their story.  However, it feels out of place in this issue, almost as an afterthought.  It really should’ve gone into the previous issue since that one providing the endings to most of the stories.  The same is also true of the Question/Batowman moment at the end, although it did not seem to be too out of place like the Dibny scene.  Part of that is because it is at the end of the story and the other part is that it has a symmetry to the ending of the first issue of 52. 

Is that Black Adam picking up Isis’ amulet?  And in the panel below that, is that him wearing crocodile boots?  Poor Sobek.

The various Earths:

EARTH-1: The DCU as we know and love

EARTH-2: The Golden Age Earth with Superman and Batman as part of the Justice Society and the sons and daughters (Huntress) carrying on their legacy.  Note the newspaper headline (Kryptonians Missing) which I assume would be Power Girl (now on Earth-1) and Superman (who died in Infinite Crisis).  The Gotham Gazette also needs a spell checker. 

EARTH-3: Crime Syndicate of Amerika, the evil version of Earth 1

EARTH-4: Charlton Comics
EARTH-5: The original Earth-S featuring the Marvel family from Fawcett Comics

EARTH-10: The Original Earth X (get it, X = 10) with the Freedom Fighters and the Nazis winning World War II.

EARTH-17: A post-apocalyptic world with the Atomic Knights (and possibly Kamandi?).

EARTH-22: Kingdom Come

EARTH-50: WildStorm (Mr. Majestic and WildCATS are shown). 

At the moment, DC has announced that there will be Booster Gold series and an Infinity Inc. series featuring John Henry Irons and Natasha.  Both of these will be ongoing series.  There will also be a Black Adam mini-series with events picking up at the end of 52.  No word on whether or not there will be a Question series, although this seems to be a given as Greg Rucka has stated he will be writing another ongoing series in the near future.  There is no word on what will happen to the Lost In Space heroes or even the Dibnys.

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