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52*

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11:28 / 03.03.07

i agree with Evil-R, i really liked it. I didn't see it comming, but then it all fits into place, which is the best kind of reveal.

Shiny: Well Over Thirty

16:54 / 03.03.07

I’m not the biggest fan of Geoff John’s gore-fest tendencies, usually the casual splatterfest stuff leaves me cold – but the last two pages of week 43 worked for me, precisely because it wasn’t casual splatter – it was a very, very bad thing, but also very important thing, so it gets a pass from me. Also the death makes me wonder – was Ralph’s attempt at resurrecting Sue the disastrous attempt at resurrection we were promised way back when, or could Isis perhaps be the culprit, in the remaining issues?

Buddy the Sun-Eater is indeed supreme – but what I’m even more interested in is what ‘Reset personality parameters: Subset goals, Motivations, Fears, Desires’ really means. Is this guy more or less our Buddy, or have the yellow aliens rewired Buddy into a significantly different post 8C incarnation? And perhaps even more importantly when will we get more than three pages of Buddy in a month?

Haus of Mystery

18:35 / 03.03.07

I reckon Mozzer's gonna swing a whole Buddy issue soon. I think it'll probably the 'final' Animal Man story, as it were.

07:13 / 04.03.07

Interesting word choice. Reset tends to mean bringing things back to the beginning rather an an alteration in a different direction (except for, of course, a direction of 180). Could be that G-Missle is unretconning his Buddy?

15:51 / 04.03.07

And what if the reset of Animal man means he does not remember his wife and kids, because they never happened?

17:34 / 04.03.07

I liked the reveal, and while I'm continually a bit surprised by the occasional ultraviolence in the issues I have to say I quite like it at times. It was a beautiful bit of art too. The thing I'm a bit confused about is why he did it. Seems totally random. Why would you eat him, rather than ... say ... anyone else who didn't have to turn into a human to be eaten. You could, you know, eat a human.

I wondered a bit about the bug in the very first episodes. Was he turned into Sobek? Is he where the 52 seconds went? I know it's a bit of a stretch but they're both, you know, green. Still, don't understand why it happened. Why on earth eat him!? I'm assuming that Sobek is the reason why everything in Black Adam territory has gone pear-shaped? Am I right? Er...

Buddy's another matter. I've been a bit confused by his powers in 52. Sometimes it seems like he needs to be connected to a specific planet's morphogenetic field, or needs to be near an animal. This didn't seem like it was something that happened in his original series. Couldn't he take those powers whether or not he was near animals? Did I miss something? I haven't quite understood why he hasn't been doing that through the series.

Certainly post-reboot some things seem different - his hair looked different, but that could just be another artist. I think his costume looked different too. But the thing that makes me think something significant has happened is the relationship with his family. That they cried must mean something. And of course as a character, Buddy is unusually familiar with what happens when the continuity shifts, so keeping him aware of that is quite interesting.

22:06 / 04.03.07

Sobek is almost certainly the fourth Horseman, Hunger. Not sure what happened to Mr. Mind.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

05:08 / 05.03.07

I had a peek at the latest issue and I'm a little repulsed by Ethan Van Sciver doing a Plastic Man secret origin. His style just didn't really click with the character.

Shiny: Well Over Thirty

08:24 / 06.03.07

I wouldn't be surprised if Sobek had been eating people here and there in Kandaq when the others aren't watching anyway, but as far as I can tell he's the fourth horseman, and the horsemen have been tasked with destroying Black Adam for some reason that may be because Adam's pissed Intergang off, or might be something we're not meant to understand yet. So I'd imagine he just saw his chance to make a start on taking the Black Marvel family apart and to enjoy doing so at the same time.

16:46 / 07.03.07

(I asked that my last post be deleted, because I messed up the formating of the link, and the whole thing is a mess now. So, forget about that, and read this instead, please)

Ambush Bug's appearance in 52 #24 demonstrates that he is still aware that he's in a comic.

When Buddy "Animal Man" Baker was waxing philosophic with Starfire circa issue 20, he mentioned his awareness of the DCU being imbedded in a higher (Earth Prime-y) plane of reality.

Now, I write this having not read any issues of 52 in about 5 weeks (since the issue that ended with Buddy being visited by the Yellow Aliens again), but does anyone think that Buddy and AB will meet up in 52? Will AB confirm Buddy's suspicions? Will they meet up with a post-Seven Soldiers Zatanna and develop a further understanding of the DCU? Will Psycho Pirate reemerge from a Superboy-continuity-punch and join them?

Is any other member of the DCU share this level of awareness?

16:58 / 07.03.07

Psycho Pirate knows I think.

17:13 / 07.03.07

I was gutted when the Sobek reveal came, I really was. I loved that character, he was teh awesomeness. A cowardly, friendly croc with an amusing love of food and a fear of heights. He was Osiris's best friend. Now, I may be a gullible sucker, but I fell for the routine hook line and sinker, I enjoyed the friendship of the two unlikely, lonely characters. I wanted to believe. Osiris was an innocent boy and then CHOMP, he's dead, Sobek is evil and I'm left holding a comic and shouting like a fool, so suckered was I by the story. Yeah, I'd heard the rumours and read the foreshadowing, but fanboys can be so negative and pessimistic that I forgot all about it and dismissed the clues in the book as anti-croc propaganda. I loved Sobek, now he is an extinction-level menace and he's destroying the family that Geoff! Johns! worked so hard to create for Black Adam. Johns may be a hack, but I think he's done a bang-up job on these sequences, and has genuinely made me care about a character like Black Adam, a second-stringer I hadn't even heard of prior to last year.

As we reach the end of 52, I'm often reminded of how good this book has been. It gets a lot a flack across the internets (some deserved, some typical nerd-sniping), but I've really enjoyed the story, and 90% of the issues have had me gripped and enormously entertained. Sobek is, so far, the icing on the cake, I'm very impressed at how it made me feel the betrayal and senselessness of the killing(?), instead of making me feel betrayed at the hack-iness of the writing and a nonsensical character moment. The moment made sense, I just didn't want to believe it.

I'm really looking forward to the rest of the series if the pace is kept up like it has been for the past couple of weeks, it's a very satisfying payoff so far.

17:15 / 07.03.07

I also don't think we'll be seeing Ambush Bug again in the pages of 52, shame as it is. I think he was there for the yuks, not necessarily the universe-shattering consequences of the way he and Buddy perceive their universe.

17:19 / 07.03.07

it's possible Psycho Pirate will show up. he was killed by Black Adam in Infinite Crisis but in the first issue of the new JLA series he was mentioned as being alive. i'm not sure if they are going to use 52 to address the inconsistancy or leave it for later.

Shiny: Well Over Thirty

18:12 / 07.03.07

Psycho-Pirates apparent death was so Itchy & Scratchy style cartoony I'd assumed it was just an illusion he'd created so he could slink away and be assumed dead. To assume otherwise would be to assume that Johns and Jiminez were entirely serious with that scene, and a world in which that is the case is just not the world I want to be in.

Phex: Dorset Doom

18:31 / 07.03.07

Well, it didn't have the profound emotional resonance of seeing a humanoid crocodile eat somebody's guts.

Shiny: Well Over Thirty

18:45 / 07.03.07

Hmmm, whilst not particularly wanting to be the cheerleader for the crocodile bite, I would say there is a big difference between the two, most importantly the significience of the crocodile bite. It probably could have been less brutal and graphic without damaging the story - but at least it was supposed to be a big dramatic story point. The headsplatter-eyepunching moment, with the pyscho-pirate on the other hand was just a kind of offhanded bit of violence that was just there and lacking in any kind of real drama or importance. That for me is the big difference between story based and therefore at least acceptable if not 100% welcome splatter, and pointless there for the sake of it splatter.

01:16 / 08.03.07

I just assumed the mask kinda chose somebody else, or someone would find it somewhere and become the new psycho pirate. Like a DC historian that always has to be around.

01:26 / 08.03.07

If this was the Nineties they would have already started a new ongoing series called 'Facejacker' in which some kind of leathern jacketed street-punk finds the mask in an alleyway while running from rival gang members. Ron Marz illustrates.

rabideyemovement

01:54 / 08.03.07

Yeah... "FaceJacker" if it were in the '90s.
In 2007, they'd call it "The Helmet of FATE"

Haus of Mystery

09:35 / 09.03.07

This was a surprisingly satisfying, if bog-standard slugfest issue. I don't particularly know why it fared better than other similar issues of 52, but i quite liked seeing the Four Horsemen in action, and their subsequent kicking at the hands of Black Adam. The lame Death Wish style rastionale for Black Adam's forthcoming war on humanity reeked of GEOFF! JOHNS! - remember his introduction of the new Professor Zoom in Flash? Worst ever - and I'm finding the political subtext of Kandahq dubious to say the least. But gripes aside, i enjoyed seeing the nice people hitting each other.

A thought: Considering how over-designed the three Horsemen were, Sobek was a little underwhelming. Was he perchance a Friday afternoon job on Evil Scientist Island?

09:44 / 09.03.07

He had more stuff, but he ate it

15:53 / 09.03.07

This may have been discussed before, but do we know which writers are writing which parts of 52?

I know, ostensibly, it's all a team effort with huge pre-production braindrain idea-riffing planning sessions taking place. I also know, though-- although I couldn't tell you the source off hand-- that Grant has been writing the Animal Man/Lobo sessions, and that the Montoya/Question sections have the taint of Rucka on them, so it seems that although everybody gets to play in the sandbox, there are certainly corners reserved for some solo play.

I'm guessing that the fun on Oolong Island is being delivered courtesy of Mr. Morrison, with some Waidian knowledge of the DCU thrown in for good measure.

Any other thoughts or facts?

17:35 / 09.03.07

If a section is either a)bad or b)features gouts of blood, it should immediately be chalked up to Johns. This covers the majority of the Black Adam and Steel storylines.

Haus of Mystery

18:00 / 09.03.07

i think there is a blurring between who writes what (for example although the Gothamites have been handled mostly by Rucka, I'm pretty sure La Moz did the solo Batman issue), but for the most part they stick to their respective corners. I'm unsure what Waid's done - I'm thinking maybe some of the 'Ralph and floaty-Head of Fate' and possibly some of the Irons family feud. I fucking hope not, because for the most part the Luthor everyman storyline fucking stank. Some of the Ralph bits have been OK, but it's all a bit below par.
Der Falke is correct though - any 3rd rate Superhero banter and splatteration is the handiwork of Johns.
The writing on 52 has by and large been pretty poor - I'm guessing editorial constraints and whimsy, a frantic schedule, and the disparity of talent is to blame - but it's crazy freewheeling tour of the DCU has kept me mostly entertained. I think I really like the idea of a 'continuity' book. One that deals with fallout from major events, or that can focus on someone as random as the fucking Superchief.

One question: what in the mname of jumping fuckity is going on with the Red Tornado storyline?

Shiny: Well Over Thirty

18:13 / 09.03.07

I was thinking Supernova was probably mostly Waid, Ralph was about 50% Waid, with Johns and Morrison mucking a fair bit. Oolong Island I think is team effort - Morrison's probably written more of the dialogue, but as I understand it one of the scientists on the island is a Rucka character from Wonder Woman, so he probably put her in and would have something to do with it. Black Adam definitely mostly Johns, but Moz probably helped out with crazy Billy Batson, and Waid and Moz have probably both had a hand in keeping the splatter limited to occasions when it actually has some meaning. Still I reckon with the exception of the odd sequence most of it is genuinely a team effort, I'm fairly familiar with Morrison, Johns and Waid's work, and most of the book doesn't really feel like any of them's stuff - even Buddy and co have scenes that feel pretty badly written, and even the least interesting characters have some great moments.

Haus of Mystery

19:13 / 09.03.07

But logistically how would a 'team effort' work? They're not sat in the same office. They must be writing chunks, and the editor's are chopping it up. Which goes some way to explaining the wild inconsistencies and temporal spasms of 52.

Shiny: Well Over Thirty

19:32 / 09.03.07

Well there were plenty of meetings, and while I don’t know how much they’d bother to email and phone each other (I’m guessing in the case of Johns, Rucka and probably Waid a lot, and in the case of George a good deal less, but that’s a guess), I doubt it would have been that hard for them to stay in touch. But still, yeah someone had to have written the dialogue for each page – but what I guess I mean by team effort is that most of the plot decisions would have been made by committee, as would the decisions as to who would write what. What I envisage happening would be something along the lines of Johns would suggest using say Beefeater, and Morrison would suggest hey why not put him in issue X as part of plot Y, and then Waid or Rucka might have ended up writing the actual pages. For me that would start to explain why the thing only rarely feels like any of it has actually been written by any of those involved.

19:42 / 09.03.07

Black Adam definitely mostly Johns

Hmmm. Since I've been away from my comics shop for about 4 weeks, I've been re-reading 52 in anticipation of my impending visit, and have been reminded how much I enjoyed the formation and evolution of the Black Marvel Family.

The thought that their adventures have been scripted, largely, by Geoff "Let's Tear People in Half and Fuck with the Superman Mythos All in the Name of Realism 'Cause, You Know, Superheroes Are Really Fucking Realistic" Johns, has me a bit… less annoyed.

I haven't yet read the issue where the Crocodile eats somebody, so maybe that will sully what has otherwise been an enjoyable bit of work by Mr. Johns.

Haus of Mystery

20:04 / 09.03.07

See, the weird thing about Geoffjohns is that people credit him with the ability to write 'good, solid superhero action', but I've yet to see any evidence of that whatsoever. I bought a cheapo JSA volume recently, to see if I was being harsh on him, and by thunder was it dreary! Unlike Morrison's better JLA issues wherein he found a fairly fresh way to utilise a team in 'battle' as it were, Johns' preferred method is to have everyone charge at the baddies at once. So we have Dr Fate, and Hourman (the weird robot 1000,000 one) leaping at generic-baddie-X alongside Wildcat. It's comic scripting for seven year olds, it really is. Dull, dull, fucking dull. Likewise with the Black Adam segments - everyone leaps around loudly proclaiming exactly what their up to. And Isis' 180 turnaround at her moment of death was one of the most clunky plot mechanics in recent memory.

Rant, rant, rant....

02:11 / 10.03.07

so the 4 horsemen are really out of commission now? I thought it would be a much bigger deal/battle/challenge to take them all down...

12:18 / 10.03.07

The thing that's interesting to me is that the whole thing seems to be building towards a few large reveals, with new Question going to figure out the big thing that's going on behind the scenes in Khandaq (more!? there's more?). All the surrounding stuff seems to indicate there's something coming.

In this month's Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters, by the way, Father Time talks to Gonzo and says something about Apokolips being 'afraid of fifty two', without actually going into any detail about what that might mean. And we keep getting these weird interstitial pages through DC comics at the moment done by Jiminez with lots of people wearing older costumes looking sad and/or dead.

So what the fuck actually is going on here already?

12:35 / 10.03.07

So what the fuck actually is going on here already?

Reading this thread has prompted me to go back and start re-reading all of 52 from the beginning (I'm at Week 17 now), and I've gotta say that while I agree that the writing has been sort of mish-mosh and the art is usually pretty standard superhero fare, the above question is really keeping me interested. Despite the massive clusterfuck of continuity (or maybe because of that?), the mystery of 52 has me hooked. It's for that reason that the Steel/Luthor story bores me, since it seems to have no connection to the mystery, but everything else seems to have little bits and pieces. Intergang's "Religion of Crime," all of Rip Hunter's abandoned notes, these little clues are really keeping me going.

-What is "52", and what did the Red Tornado see out there in space?
-Skeets' true nature
-World War III
-The Monitors
-Where where WHERE is the post-cocoon Mr. Mind?

Is the mystery intriguing to anyone else? It's been a little light in recent issues, what with the big Marvel/Horsemen slugfest and the conclusion to the Ralph/Fate storyline, but as we get within ten weeks from the end, I expect to see a lot of clues from Weeks 1-4 or so popping up in a big way.

Oh and also anything that has Adam Strange with no eyes is an instant glee-fest for the 12-year-old fanboy in me.

13:17 / 10.03.07

SPOILERS!!!!

so the 4 horsemen are really out of commission now? I thought it would be a much bigger deal/battle/challenge to take them all down...

I'm wondering the same thing. I would be disappointed if that single battle was the primary consequence of the otherwise excellent mad scientist island vacation storyline (the secondary consequence presumably being the invention of those mini Metal Men).

So, let's see...

Death fled, so there's a decent chance it'll be back.

War had its big gun ripped off and stopped fighting. Can it be repaired?

Pestilence got shot up by that big gun, so I assume it's dead.

And "talking crocodile man" is definitely dead in classic Black Adam/Geoff Johns style.

16:42 / 10.03.07

In the "trailer" at the end of the issue (the "next time in 52" bit) there is a picture of Death and Black Adam fighting.

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