52 #52: a respectable ending to a grand experiment
So 52 finally comes to an end, and impressively every issue of this weekly series shipped on time. Now if only DC could do that with such minor titles as Wonder Woman and Action Comics (the original Superman book). Anyway...
The final and most central plot is wrapped up this week, bringing the series to a satisfactory, but not perfect, conclusion. I was slightly worried that they'd just pull the sort of "and now this just sets up the next twelve tie-in books" sort of thing that's getting all too common. But 52 has remained as self-contained as it can possibly be given its dependency on the fall-out of Infinite Crisis.
So what's the conclusion, and what's the verdict? Well, the "secret", as the editors announced ages ago (much to the annoyance of at least one of the writers) was of course that the Multiverse exists. More-or-less. There are now 52 parallel universes, many of which seem to line directly up with the pre-crisis Multiverse, possibly with just some updates (see the end of the post for commentary on the various earths). There was some satisfying material with Booster Gold, following through with his character development. We also get to find out what happens to Skeets. Mr. Mind gets defeated and turned back into his regular little worm form. And there's lots of stuff about time loops and the like. A brief appearance by Ted Kord (the deceased 2nd Blue Beetle and Booster Gold's long-time best friend) was well-done, and eminently suitable.
We also see quick follow-ups on Renee Montoya (Question II) and Kate Kane (Batwoman). It looks like they will be spending a good bit more time together. Kate's wound (stabbed through the chest with a sword) is said to be severe enough that it will be some time before she recovers, which explains why there's no Batwoman running around in the One Year Later storylines. Hopefully, now that 52 is done, we can get a "Batwoman and the Question" series. Batwoman's still a barely sketched out character despite all of the initial fanfare, and I'm really hoping they follow up on her potential. And keep Montoya in the spotlight somewhere as well.
And we get a quick look at the spirits of Ralph and Sue Dibney, hovering over the site of some very mysterious explosion, with Ralph's "I smell a mystery!" nose-twitch going. Whether this means we'll see more of them as some sort of ghost detectives or it's just finally a proper send-off to put the events of Sue's murder in "Identity Crisis" behind us, I don't know. I'm happy either way.
So, the good: There several major storylines (Booster Gold's, Renee Montoya's, Black Adam's, the Everyman project, the team that was lost in space, Ralph's quest to bring Sue back, and Doc Magnus on Oolong Island), and all of them were well-developed with satisfying conclusions and lots of great character development. In general, I'd say the biggest strength of the series was the depth of character development given to characters who've frequently been supporting characters, or at best leads in less-prominent titles. If you ignore the regrettable tie-ins, World War III was a good "big bang" conlusion, and the return of the multiverse was the truly satisfying real end and purpose of the series.
And then there are some aspects that I'm less certain of. Normally in a novel (which is the closest prose form to a series like this), all of the storylines converge into the conclusion. That was not the case here. Did the end of the space team's story come out well? Absolutely- Kory showing up on Ellen Baker's doorstep like that was fantastic. Although the wrap-up for Adam Strange was rather perfunctory. But did it have anything to do with anything else? Not really. Other people who tried to kill them in space thought they had more knowledge about the returned multiverse than they did, but that was about all of the connection there was. I kept waiting for them to find some key peice of the puzzle and take it back to Earth, and it never really happened. Similarly, as interesting as the Everyman project was, and as awesome as the Steel and Natasha vs Luthor fight was, it didn't add anything to the final conclusion. Really, the only two stories that came together were Black Adam's and the mad scientists of Oolong Island. As much as Booster's storyline was the true climactic revelation of 52, it was really one that took relatively little on-panel time, and had only glancing intersections with other stories.
On the one hand, this is actually quite reasonable. The point was to tell stories of what happened during that year, and this was done well. It would be artificial to have everything turn out to be related, and we only expect that because that's how fiction generally works. 52 never claimed to be a novel, so perhaps holding it to that expectation is a little unfairl. It did do a great job of juggling seven major stories in a way that they felt connected by virtue of happening in the same world, affecting many of the same people in a relatively small group (i.e. super-heroes and super-villains). And with better character development than we usually get.
Of course, if we bring up the point of what 52 promised to be, it originally promised to reveal the changes leading to the "One Year Later" storylines, and it completely failed to do that. To their credit, DC saw that this wasn't going to happen, and that the stories they were getting were better left to take their natural courses. I'm happier with this result than if they'd awkwardly shoehorned random plot points in. I'm sad that they chose to randomly shoehorn all of them into one week associated with "World War III", even when said points really had nothing to do with that event, but that's the fault of DC editorial in general, not the writers of 52.
And then there's the one unambiguously negative thing I have to say about the series: Having there be exactly 52 universes in the new multiverse is both limiting and contrived. We all know that there are 52 earths because it lined up with the gimmick of the series, not because the story demanded it somehow. And the beauty of the Multiverse was that it contained infinite variations. Wikipedia lists somewhere between 30 and 40 (depending on how you count) universes in the Multiverse. Presumably a number of those from before the first Crisis are not being carried into the 52, and quite a few made little more than cameos anyway. But that gives a good idea of how fast 52 universes can be filled up. The beauty of the Multiverse was that it was limitless, with room for any and every story. This appeals to me far more than a rigidly mapped set of 52 realities, even if most of the map still remains unwritten.
There is one thing that suggest an out, though- at one point Rip Hunter states that the fight to preserve the Multiverse will (should they succeed, as they did) one day be remembered as the "dawn of something called the Megaverse". So perhaps this state of 52 worlds is only temporary. We shall see.
But all in all, I have to say that 52 made for a great read, and I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to see what can be done with world as rich in characters and background as the DCU.
And now, a few comments on Earths revealed in 52 #52.
In the following list, just plain "Crisis" refers to 1985's "Crisis on Infinite Earths":
Earth-2: The pre-Crisis golden age earth, including the original Huntress! Their Superman and Power Girl are missing, apparently, which makes sense because they are in "New Earth", a.k.a. the main DC universe. We see some combination of the pre-Crisis Justice Society and junior team Infinity Incorporated (although it seems plausible that the kids have graduated to the JSA by now, as some of them have in DC's main Earth.
Earth-3: The "backwards" earth, where the evil Crime Syndicate of America is the analogue of the Justice League. This is also the same as pre-Crisis, although the character designs have been updated a bit. How this squares with the post-Crisis but pre-Infinite Crisis state of those characters inhabiting the "negative matter" universe along with the Qwardians is not at all clear. Nor is it clear if there is a negative-matter universe (in the pre-Crisis world, it was separate from all of the positive-matter Multiverse).
Earth-4: The Charlton Comics heroes, in their pre-Crisis location. They only appeared there in DC comics during Crisis on Infinite Earths, as that was their first DC appearance. Most importantly here, they are shown in their early costumes and the Blue Beetle shown is Dan Garrett, meaning that Earth-4's Ted Kord hasn't even become the Blue Beetle yet, much less died as he has on New Earth (in "Countdown to Infinite Crisis").
Earth-5: The Fawcett heroes, most notably the "Shazam!" Captain Marvel family. This appears to replace the pre-crisis Earth-S, presumably because "S" and "5" have a similar shape :-) The actual pre-Crisis Earth-5 was very obscure and used in only one or two stories of little multiversal importance.
Earth-10: The Quality Comics heroes, fighting the Nazis who won World War II in that universe, and appear now to have a Nazi version of the Justice League working for them. The replaces the pre-Crisis Earth-X, again presumably because X is a roman numeral 10. Earth-X didn't have the Nazi JLA, though, so there are some differences. No Earth-10 was ever identified pre-Crisis.
Earth-17: I don't know enough of how this earth was used before to tell how significant its appearance was here. It had something to do with the Fourth World stories not written by original Fourth World creator Jack Kirby, and given the appearance of Darkseid in ads for Countdown, it may become important soon. I can't think of any other reason for its inclusion. Although there was also another earth identified as Earth-17 by Grant Morrison in Animal Man- this was a mistake as neither Morrison nor the editors remembered that the number 17 had already been used. But it was a world devastated by a Superman-like hero gone mad, and panel here ceratinly shows devastation. We'll see I guess. Or we won't.
Earth-22: The timeline of "Kingdom Come". Previously identified as Earth-96 (now outside of the numerical range), although this story appeared under the post-Crisis "Elseworlds" and Hypertime concepts.
Earth-50: Characters published on DC's Wildstorm imprint (which was previously a separate company). Additionally, since the concept of the Bleed as the inter-reality space has been imported to the new DC multiverse from the Wildstorm multiverse, its not clear how its concept of a much larger number of realities fits in.
"New Earth", the main DC universe that was the result of Infinite Crisis one year ago, would presumably be numbered either Earth-0 or Earth-52, as Rip Hunter talks about saving "New Earth and Earths 1-51". I guess there's no Bizzaro Earth-0 anymore ;-P (or was it Earth-O?) One thing that's not shown is whether Earth-1 is like the pre-Crisis Earth-1, i.e. the Silver/Bronze-age DC universe, without the Golden Age characters or most characters from Fawcett, Quality or Charlton (except Plastic Man, I think). Since Earth-1 was the primary basis for the post-Crisis (and the post-Zero Hour and post-Infinite Crisis) earth, I've never much mourned it.
I have to say that I'm thrilled to see Earth-2 return. Although I'm not entirely surprised given some comments in Justice Society of America #4 and the sudden appearance of numerous trade paperbacks collecting the Bronze-age Earth-2 material. Right after I bought it all in individual issues, of course. I love the Justice Society and the Golden age characters in any incarnation, and Infinity Inc. is one of my favorite books of its era. Hopefully, we'll soon see a reunion of the Earth-2 Huntress (who is awesome, and rather different than the modern one) and Power Girl, who were close friends before Crisis. Given those hints in the current Justice Society book, I'm guessing we'll see that soon.
The final and most central plot is wrapped up this week, bringing the series to a satisfactory, but not perfect, conclusion. I was slightly worried that they'd just pull the sort of "and now this just sets up the next twelve tie-in books" sort of thing that's getting all too common. But 52 has remained as self-contained as it can possibly be given its dependency on the fall-out of Infinite Crisis.
So what's the conclusion, and what's the verdict? Well, the "secret", as the editors announced ages ago (much to the annoyance of at least one of the writers) was of course that the Multiverse exists. More-or-less. There are now 52 parallel universes, many of which seem to line directly up with the pre-crisis Multiverse, possibly with just some updates (see the end of the post for commentary on the various earths). There was some satisfying material with Booster Gold, following through with his character development. We also get to find out what happens to Skeets. Mr. Mind gets defeated and turned back into his regular little worm form. And there's lots of stuff about time loops and the like. A brief appearance by Ted Kord (the deceased 2nd Blue Beetle and Booster Gold's long-time best friend) was well-done, and eminently suitable.
We also see quick follow-ups on Renee Montoya (Question II) and Kate Kane (Batwoman). It looks like they will be spending a good bit more time together. Kate's wound (stabbed through the chest with a sword) is said to be severe enough that it will be some time before she recovers, which explains why there's no Batwoman running around in the One Year Later storylines. Hopefully, now that 52 is done, we can get a "Batwoman and the Question" series. Batwoman's still a barely sketched out character despite all of the initial fanfare, and I'm really hoping they follow up on her potential. And keep Montoya in the spotlight somewhere as well.
And we get a quick look at the spirits of Ralph and Sue Dibney, hovering over the site of some very mysterious explosion, with Ralph's "I smell a mystery!" nose-twitch going. Whether this means we'll see more of them as some sort of ghost detectives or it's just finally a proper send-off to put the events of Sue's murder in "Identity Crisis" behind us, I don't know. I'm happy either way.
So, the good: There several major storylines (Booster Gold's, Renee Montoya's, Black Adam's, the Everyman project, the team that was lost in space, Ralph's quest to bring Sue back, and Doc Magnus on Oolong Island), and all of them were well-developed with satisfying conclusions and lots of great character development. In general, I'd say the biggest strength of the series was the depth of character development given to characters who've frequently been supporting characters, or at best leads in less-prominent titles. If you ignore the regrettable tie-ins, World War III was a good "big bang" conlusion, and the return of the multiverse was the truly satisfying real end and purpose of the series.
And then there are some aspects that I'm less certain of. Normally in a novel (which is the closest prose form to a series like this), all of the storylines converge into the conclusion. That was not the case here. Did the end of the space team's story come out well? Absolutely- Kory showing up on Ellen Baker's doorstep like that was fantastic. Although the wrap-up for Adam Strange was rather perfunctory. But did it have anything to do with anything else? Not really. Other people who tried to kill them in space thought they had more knowledge about the returned multiverse than they did, but that was about all of the connection there was. I kept waiting for them to find some key peice of the puzzle and take it back to Earth, and it never really happened. Similarly, as interesting as the Everyman project was, and as awesome as the Steel and Natasha vs Luthor fight was, it didn't add anything to the final conclusion. Really, the only two stories that came together were Black Adam's and the mad scientists of Oolong Island. As much as Booster's storyline was the true climactic revelation of 52, it was really one that took relatively little on-panel time, and had only glancing intersections with other stories.
On the one hand, this is actually quite reasonable. The point was to tell stories of what happened during that year, and this was done well. It would be artificial to have everything turn out to be related, and we only expect that because that's how fiction generally works. 52 never claimed to be a novel, so perhaps holding it to that expectation is a little unfairl. It did do a great job of juggling seven major stories in a way that they felt connected by virtue of happening in the same world, affecting many of the same people in a relatively small group (i.e. super-heroes and super-villains). And with better character development than we usually get.
Of course, if we bring up the point of what 52 promised to be, it originally promised to reveal the changes leading to the "One Year Later" storylines, and it completely failed to do that. To their credit, DC saw that this wasn't going to happen, and that the stories they were getting were better left to take their natural courses. I'm happier with this result than if they'd awkwardly shoehorned random plot points in. I'm sad that they chose to randomly shoehorn all of them into one week associated with "World War III", even when said points really had nothing to do with that event, but that's the fault of DC editorial in general, not the writers of 52.
And then there's the one unambiguously negative thing I have to say about the series: Having there be exactly 52 universes in the new multiverse is both limiting and contrived. We all know that there are 52 earths because it lined up with the gimmick of the series, not because the story demanded it somehow. And the beauty of the Multiverse was that it contained infinite variations. Wikipedia lists somewhere between 30 and 40 (depending on how you count) universes in the Multiverse. Presumably a number of those from before the first Crisis are not being carried into the 52, and quite a few made little more than cameos anyway. But that gives a good idea of how fast 52 universes can be filled up. The beauty of the Multiverse was that it was limitless, with room for any and every story. This appeals to me far more than a rigidly mapped set of 52 realities, even if most of the map still remains unwritten.
There is one thing that suggest an out, though- at one point Rip Hunter states that the fight to preserve the Multiverse will (should they succeed, as they did) one day be remembered as the "dawn of something called the Megaverse". So perhaps this state of 52 worlds is only temporary. We shall see.
But all in all, I have to say that 52 made for a great read, and I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to see what can be done with world as rich in characters and background as the DCU.
And now, a few comments on Earths revealed in 52 #52.
In the following list, just plain "Crisis" refers to 1985's "Crisis on Infinite Earths":
Earth-2: The pre-Crisis golden age earth, including the original Huntress! Their Superman and Power Girl are missing, apparently, which makes sense because they are in "New Earth", a.k.a. the main DC universe. We see some combination of the pre-Crisis Justice Society and junior team Infinity Incorporated (although it seems plausible that the kids have graduated to the JSA by now, as some of them have in DC's main Earth.
Earth-3: The "backwards" earth, where the evil Crime Syndicate of America is the analogue of the Justice League. This is also the same as pre-Crisis, although the character designs have been updated a bit. How this squares with the post-Crisis but pre-Infinite Crisis state of those characters inhabiting the "negative matter" universe along with the Qwardians is not at all clear. Nor is it clear if there is a negative-matter universe (in the pre-Crisis world, it was separate from all of the positive-matter Multiverse).
Earth-4: The Charlton Comics heroes, in their pre-Crisis location. They only appeared there in DC comics during Crisis on Infinite Earths, as that was their first DC appearance. Most importantly here, they are shown in their early costumes and the Blue Beetle shown is Dan Garrett, meaning that Earth-4's Ted Kord hasn't even become the Blue Beetle yet, much less died as he has on New Earth (in "Countdown to Infinite Crisis").
Earth-5: The Fawcett heroes, most notably the "Shazam!" Captain Marvel family. This appears to replace the pre-crisis Earth-S, presumably because "S" and "5" have a similar shape :-) The actual pre-Crisis Earth-5 was very obscure and used in only one or two stories of little multiversal importance.
Earth-10: The Quality Comics heroes, fighting the Nazis who won World War II in that universe, and appear now to have a Nazi version of the Justice League working for them. The replaces the pre-Crisis Earth-X, again presumably because X is a roman numeral 10. Earth-X didn't have the Nazi JLA, though, so there are some differences. No Earth-10 was ever identified pre-Crisis.
Earth-17: I don't know enough of how this earth was used before to tell how significant its appearance was here. It had something to do with the Fourth World stories not written by original Fourth World creator Jack Kirby, and given the appearance of Darkseid in ads for Countdown, it may become important soon. I can't think of any other reason for its inclusion. Although there was also another earth identified as Earth-17 by Grant Morrison in Animal Man- this was a mistake as neither Morrison nor the editors remembered that the number 17 had already been used. But it was a world devastated by a Superman-like hero gone mad, and panel here ceratinly shows devastation. We'll see I guess. Or we won't.
Earth-22: The timeline of "Kingdom Come". Previously identified as Earth-96 (now outside of the numerical range), although this story appeared under the post-Crisis "Elseworlds" and Hypertime concepts.
Earth-50: Characters published on DC's Wildstorm imprint (which was previously a separate company). Additionally, since the concept of the Bleed as the inter-reality space has been imported to the new DC multiverse from the Wildstorm multiverse, its not clear how its concept of a much larger number of realities fits in.
"New Earth", the main DC universe that was the result of Infinite Crisis one year ago, would presumably be numbered either Earth-0 or Earth-52, as Rip Hunter talks about saving "New Earth and Earths 1-51". I guess there's no Bizzaro Earth-0 anymore ;-P (or was it Earth-O?) One thing that's not shown is whether Earth-1 is like the pre-Crisis Earth-1, i.e. the Silver/Bronze-age DC universe, without the Golden Age characters or most characters from Fawcett, Quality or Charlton (except Plastic Man, I think). Since Earth-1 was the primary basis for the post-Crisis (and the post-Zero Hour and post-Infinite Crisis) earth, I've never much mourned it.
I have to say that I'm thrilled to see Earth-2 return. Although I'm not entirely surprised given some comments in Justice Society of America #4 and the sudden appearance of numerous trade paperbacks collecting the Bronze-age Earth-2 material. Right after I bought it all in individual issues, of course. I love the Justice Society and the Golden age characters in any incarnation, and Infinity Inc. is one of my favorite books of its era. Hopefully, we'll soon see a reunion of the Earth-2 Huntress (who is awesome, and rather different than the modern one) and Power Girl, who were close friends before Crisis. Given those hints in the current Justice Society book, I'm guessing we'll see that soon.