![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
This Week's Comics: 52
The end of the great weekly experiment is upon us, and it gets its own entry...
52, Week Fifty-Two - It's down to this: Mister Mind wants to destroy the multiverse, which was reborn in the aftermath of Infinite Crisis. And only Rip Hunter, the head of Red Tornado, and Booster Gold can stop him. Well, they and Supernova(?), and Skeets. By the time the tale is done, the multiverse has been damaged, turned into something resembling the multiverse of Silver Age DC, but the good guys win; Skeets has his finest hour, as does Booster; a new hero is born; and there are 51 new worlds to explore. Though for the time being, only Rip Hunter and his allies know.
Oh, and there is an epilogue that shows, among other things, that Renee and Batwoman are ready to start their new careers, and that Ralph and Sue Dibny are reunited as ghosts but still solving mysteries. Which seems a strangely satisfying fate, and leaves the door open for their return.
And thus it ends. We all thought DC would miss a week. They didn't. We wondered if they would really tell all those stories about all those C-list heroes and keep an audience. For the most part, that happened, too. There were some rough spots, especially with the space heroes and Black Adam, and the Steel plot was rather bland in the end. But every week, I came back for more. Every week, I read this comic first. I watched as Ralph Dibny had one final adventure of a lifetime, as Renee Montoya found her path, as Buddy Baker found his way home, as John Henry Irons stayed the course of a hero and bought down Lex Luthor once and for, as Vic Sage asked the questions one last time, as new heroes emerged and old ones grew. And let's not forget the wacky mad scientists of Oolong Island!!
Was this a perfect comic? No. Some weeks it was padded, or badly illustrated. Some arcs got lost. Some characters got lost. But as I have said, 52 had an immediacy that is sorely missing in most DC comics, even the few remaining good ones. And it was fun. Yes, it got dark sometimes, but I was always sure that the heroes would win, that the sacrifices were never in vain, that this time, the DCU would be someplace I would want to visit. Only during the one week billed "World War III" did it revert to the nasty nightmarish realm it was during Infinite Crisis. And with the return of a multiverse, there is a good chance that the wonder Rip Hunter feels at seeing 51 new worlds will be my wonder as well.
Hats off to Morrison, Waid, Rucka and Johns for the words, to Giffen for the breakdowns, to the many artists who made this happen for the pictures, to JG Jones for 52 amazing covers, to Michael Siglan for taking over the editorial reins and to Stephen Wacker for making it possible to do weekly comics, and to Paul Levitz for asking "why not fill in that missing year...in a weekly comic?"
Next week...Countdown!
52, Week Fifty-Two - It's down to this: Mister Mind wants to destroy the multiverse, which was reborn in the aftermath of Infinite Crisis. And only Rip Hunter, the head of Red Tornado, and Booster Gold can stop him. Well, they and Supernova(?), and Skeets. By the time the tale is done, the multiverse has been damaged, turned into something resembling the multiverse of Silver Age DC, but the good guys win; Skeets has his finest hour, as does Booster; a new hero is born; and there are 51 new worlds to explore. Though for the time being, only Rip Hunter and his allies know.
Oh, and there is an epilogue that shows, among other things, that Renee and Batwoman are ready to start their new careers, and that Ralph and Sue Dibny are reunited as ghosts but still solving mysteries. Which seems a strangely satisfying fate, and leaves the door open for their return.
And thus it ends. We all thought DC would miss a week. They didn't. We wondered if they would really tell all those stories about all those C-list heroes and keep an audience. For the most part, that happened, too. There were some rough spots, especially with the space heroes and Black Adam, and the Steel plot was rather bland in the end. But every week, I came back for more. Every week, I read this comic first. I watched as Ralph Dibny had one final adventure of a lifetime, as Renee Montoya found her path, as Buddy Baker found his way home, as John Henry Irons stayed the course of a hero and bought down Lex Luthor once and for, as Vic Sage asked the questions one last time, as new heroes emerged and old ones grew. And let's not forget the wacky mad scientists of Oolong Island!!
Was this a perfect comic? No. Some weeks it was padded, or badly illustrated. Some arcs got lost. Some characters got lost. But as I have said, 52 had an immediacy that is sorely missing in most DC comics, even the few remaining good ones. And it was fun. Yes, it got dark sometimes, but I was always sure that the heroes would win, that the sacrifices were never in vain, that this time, the DCU would be someplace I would want to visit. Only during the one week billed "World War III" did it revert to the nasty nightmarish realm it was during Infinite Crisis. And with the return of a multiverse, there is a good chance that the wonder Rip Hunter feels at seeing 51 new worlds will be my wonder as well.
Hats off to Morrison, Waid, Rucka and Johns for the words, to Giffen for the breakdowns, to the many artists who made this happen for the pictures, to JG Jones for 52 amazing covers, to Michael Siglan for taking over the editorial reins and to Stephen Wacker for making it possible to do weekly comics, and to Paul Levitz for asking "why not fill in that missing year...in a weekly comic?"
Next week...Countdown!