Week 52: Outside Time Without Extension
Or: Mr. Mind Eating Continuity is the New Superboy Punching the Universe.* Also in this week's post! An important message to you from the editor--about the NEW Pickup!Before I get to 52.52 itself, though, as a few people have suggested, I'm going to take this last opportunity to hype my book a little. It's called Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean, it's being published by Da Capo Press at the beginning of July, I'm really happy with how it turned out, and I encourage you to pre-order a copy here
. 52 is mentioned only in passing, but there's a 30-page chapter on Grant Morrison (and Seven Soldiers and The Invisibles in particular), as well as essays about Question creator Steve Ditko, Mogo co-creator Alan Moore, and Mystery In Space writer/artist Jim Starlin. It's also got chapters on David B., Chester Brown, Carla Speed McNeil, Dave Sim, Chris Ware, Alison Bechdel, Tomb of Dracula, superheroes, superreaders, bad comics, good comics, art comics, and much more. I suspect that people who've enjoyed 52 Pickup will get a charge out of it, or at least find stuff to argue with. You can also befriend it on MySpace--I'll probably be announcing tour dates and such there. Okay, plug over; thanks for your patience. So: we've got the multiple earths back, and this time they're not infinite but as finite as a deck of cards. The point of Crisis on Infinite Earths was slate-clearing: getting rid of the profusion of alternate realities that was supposedly confusing superhero-comics readers, and clearing the way for one true continuity. In retrospect, that was a mistake, and not just because continuity glitches started piling up within months, especially with the Superman reboot--not only were parallel earths a great springboard for stories, but I don't know that eliminating them made the DCU all that much clearer or more interesting a fictional setting. Since there wasn't the "hard reboot" that Marv Wolfman originally suggested, every fix has led to more fixes, and now it's a history that's permanently in flux, the elves of Superboy's universe-punching and Mr. Mind's continuity-eating going back and rewriting the archives of the Daily Planet again and again. And 20 years after COIE, virtually the only people still reading DCU comics are the people who care about the parallel earths, and would've been happier if they'd stuck around. (Infinite Crisis's payoff was a big old tease for what actually happens this issue.)
I'm one of the people who's delighted to see the parallel-earths concept back, not just because it's tied to so many stories I love, but because there's something intrinsically beautiful about it that extends beyond the content of superhero comics to their form. It gets to the heart of cartooning--the way that an artist can draw a world that's like the one its readers experience, but altered through perception and interpretation. The idea is that "default reality" is not the way things have to be; that not only might everything have turned out differently, but somewhere they did; and that we can approach that place through the bright metaphors of superheroes and their continuity, and the subtler metaphors by which hand-drawn ink lines stand in for what our eyes perceive in the world.
We'd been promised that 52 was a story with an actual resolution, and so it is--up to a point, although it was also intended from the outset as an incubator for new projects starring its former C-list characters. I think it's built up a couple of them successfully, but I don't know how many 52 spinoffs I'd want to read. This, I figure, is a good moment to take a long view of 52's more-or-less-surviving main characters:
ADAM STRANGE:
What Have We Learned?: He's awfully good at flying and shooting, even when he's blind. That's it; no other character development here.
Do I Want to Read More?: No. Like I've said before, the hook of the early Adam Strange stories was that they were basically romance stories--they were about what he had to do to overcome the distance between himself and his beloved--with some space opera thrown in for flavor. (Even that great Alan Moore two-parter in Swamp Thing was about the cultural distance between them.) Aside from the two-panel reunion with Alanna last week, this incarnation of Adam totally ignored that angle, and I have no evidence that any future Adam Strange stuff would be able to make the romance work.
ANIMAL MAN:
What Have We Learned?: The universe does indeed like him; he's still the one significant DC character with access to the world beyond the fourth wall.
Do I Want to Read More?: No more than I want to read The Further Adventures of Odysseus after The Odyssey is over. He's got his happy ending, and he deserves it; can we just leave him with that?
BATWOMAN:
What Have We Learned?: She kicks ass and kisses girls, and her family's got money and a menorah. That is, I believe, literally all we know about her.
Do I Want to Read More?: Now that I've spent a year wondering if there might be any more to her than ass-kicking and girl-kissing, I suspect there might not be anything that would make stories about her different from Generic Bat-Eared Action Hero stories.
BLACK ADAM:
What Have We Learned?: His sense of entitlement knows no bounds; he likes to dismember people even more than we thought he did.
Do I Want to Read More?: Oh Jesus no. Leaving Week 50 as the last appearance of Black Adam ever--undone by his pride, having shamed his country, wandering without his power, trying to recall a magic word that will never come back to him--would've been as good a ending to his story as I could've hoped for under the circumstances. But it's pretty clear that DC's decided to make him a major player for future projects too, and I can't think of any more one-dimensional character to deem "major."
BOOSTER GOLD:
What Have We Learned?: Even though he used to do the right thing for the wrong reasons, he can come through in the clutch; he's somehow key to the omni-multi time-travel megaverse setup we're going to be seeing a bunch more of.
Do I Want To Read More?: Well, I'm curious about the time-travel stuff, and Booster seems to be the character who's attached to that now. I also like the new angle Geoff Johns suggests here--that he's a hero who can never let on that he's doing the right thing. And the title of that first story arc is strangely appealing.
THE ELONGATED MAN:
What Have We Learned?: He's a detective, people; he now knows the Ways of Magic, or at least the fictitious version that Faust fed him (since nobody's done much with the "new rules for the Tenth Age" that Michael Moorcock apparently drafted); he got his wish to be with Sue again, the hard way.
Do I Want to Read More?: I'd be perfectly happy to let his story stop here, and as much mileage as The Thin Man and Topper both have in them as premises for ongoing storytelling, I think they lose a lot when you combine them. I somehow imagine it being a bit more like "The Dead Detective."
RENÉE MONTOYA:
What Have We Learned?: Her impulses--generally impulses to do good--keep leading her into damaging places; she doesn't understand herself, and is now making a career out of it.
Do I Want to Read More?: Yeah, actually; I think a superhero comic about introspection and self-discovery could be a mighty interesting thing if someone (Rucka!) could come up with a way to make it work. (The two closest approaches to that I can think of are Whisper and The Sentry, which are not exactly similar comics.)
STARFIRE:
What Have We Learned?: Nothing. Kory has been a device for moving the plot and basically nothing else in 52.
Do I Want to Read More?: Not until somebody thinks of something interesting to do with her.
STEEL:
What Have We Learned?: He's self-reliant. Really. He's all about self-reliance. That's his thing. Self-reliance. Yup. Admittedly, giving him powers that he neither chose nor earned could've led to an interesting angle on the character, but it didn't, and when they went away again, the effect was rather zero-sum.
Do I Want to Read More?: No. I still think the only writer who's written really good stories about Steel was Priest, and that was actually sort of sleight-of-hand--making his series about the relationship between him and Natasha.
As I feared, though, even though the character arcs are complete--and some of them in really satisfying ways!--there's a lot of the plot side of 52 that remains unresolved. Going back to that list of dangling plot threads I posted a couple of months ago, these are the big ones that still seem to be open:
1) Why was Intergang trying to do with their "invasion" of Gotham City/attempt to turn it into an Apokoliptic fire pit? Why did they need a beachhead in Kahndaq? Where are they getting their Kirbytech and beast-man tech?
2) What happened with Adam Strange and Alan Scott's eyes? (What's the one Alan has that's "not even his own"?)
3) What exactly did Adam, Buddy and Kory see in outer space (with the "giant hands" and all that--it seems to have been something other than the creation of parallel Earths, especially since they were nowhere near Earth), and how did they end up wherever they were thereafter?
4) What's the meaning of most of the stuff written all over Rip's lab--and why, for instance, did he write "52 is all his fault" a zillion times in a dirty corner if he's now cheerfully going on about how the existence of parallel whatevers is "the way things should be," and was caused by New Earth replicating itself "in a cosmic act of self-preservation"?
5) Why did Lady Styx want to capture and/or kill the space travelers, and if she sent the assassins that Starfire dispatched last week, shouldn't Buddy and his family be worried about future attacks?
6) What are the "two score and twelve walls of heaven" attached to the 52 realities, and what's beyond them?
7) How did Kate get to be Batwoman?
8) Where did Booster's future corpse come from?
9) Who gave Ralph "some help pulling himself together," and does it have anything to do with the unexpected intra-JLA hookup that the Wizard preview of 52 teased?
10) Did the Super-Chief business have any connection at all with the rest of the story? (It was supposed to tie in somewhere, right?)
11) Waverider appearing in Sivana's lab and saying "I know why": what was he doing there, and what did he mean by that?
12) Once again, most of the "between seconds" scene in Week 27 still needs some serious unpacking, although now we know what "the golden metal" is.
13) Why did the Chinese government commission the Four Horsemen?
14) What happened to the Plutonium Man that Dr. Magnus reconstructed?
15) Do all the multiple earths exist at different vibrational whosywhatsises in the same surrounding universe, or was the thing that was replicated 52 times actually the entire universe?
*I just noticed that Paul I beat me to this joke in the comments on last week's post. Oh well.
More notes:
Pg. 4: I love the idea that people in the DCU are constantly having strange adventures. And Mr. Mind ate the logo right off Conner Kent's shirt!
Pg. 5: But wouldn't it have been more fun if the Mr. Mind butterfly were still wearing his specs? The "vibrational plane" routine, incidentally, dates back as far as the DCU "parallel earths" concept.
Pg. 8: So the 52 seconds (which 52 seconds?) that Dr. Tyme stole somehow ended up as a loop in the possession of Rip Hunter? Then what was with the countdown Rip started the last time we saw him? And does this connect to the prophecy that "a few seconds will make all the difference", which was apparently not realized in IC?
Pp. 9-10: There are actually two different Earth-17s in DC continuity. One of them is the one that first appeared in this Morrison-written issue; the other one, as Michael Nicolai pointed out a few weeks ago, was the home of the rather Earth-1-like universe where all pre-Crisis New Gods stories that weren't actually written and drawn by Jack Kirby took place (it was named by Mark Evanier in a text piece here). I'm guessing this is the latter--and, with the retroactive disappearance of the Justice League, Detective Chimp, and various events I can't place (which all appear as comics panels, printed on paper and bent by the wind!), the atomic war that led to the existence of the original Atomic Knights seems to have happened.
Pg. 11: It appears that Earth-3--the Crime Syndicate's earth, in classical continuity, rather than the one they belong to in JLA: Earth 2--is the one that Talon from Week 32 came from.
Pg. 12: Mr. Mind's doing a pretty good job of reconstructing pre-Crisis Earths. Earth-10 is of course the former Earth-X, where the Nazis won World War II and the Quality characters/Freedom Fighters have finally made their appearance; Earth-5 is typographically close to its evident source Earth-S, where the Fawcett characters won World War II (and look! there's Tawky Tawny and Uncle Dudley!). And Earth-50--Man! Grant Morrison working on a comic that the WildCats appear in? Lightning does strike twice!
Pg. 13: Earth-22 is the Kingdom Come world, where Alex Ross's paintbox won World War II. Earth-2 is the circa-1979 version--Huntress even looks a bit like she's drawn by Joe Staton!--that Paul Levitz wrote in Adventure Comics and elsewhere. (And that's the world in which the Gotham Gazette is about Superman Superman rather than Batman, and has editors who can't spell "innocence" on front-page headlines. Superman's missing because he ended up in the Crises; Power Girl, I'm guessing, is the one who ended up on New Earth.) Earth-4 is the Lillian Charlton Home for Problem Children, where the Vic Sage Question is still alive and still an Objectivist.
Pg. 14: So the "garden" is just a figure of speech; somehow it seemed to signify more when it was mentioned earlier.
Pg. 16: Not sure how Booster's going to have "glory years" given the premise of the forthcoming series, but it's a nice thought, anyhow. And what's the difference between a multiverse and a megaverse?
Pg. 17: Is it just me, or does it seem like there should be some piece of exposition somewhere about what Booster's doing here, or what exactly the power source is? Is the thing he's holding on the next page the scarab? In any case, this last Blue and Gold moment (with a final bwahaha!) feels like a little bit of dramatic closure for the whole business that started with Countdown to Infinite Crisis. Too bad we don't get a Week Negative-Whatever dateline, though, but it's understandable that nobody wants to get too specific about how much time elapsed between COIE and IC. And was COIE really the "first crisis," or would that have been one of the several earlier crises?
Pg. 18: Can someone who knows Blue Beetle's history better than I do explain the "right under my nose" bit?
Pg. 19: One awkward bit of storytelling: we don't actually see the suspendium in this scene!
Pg. 25: The "Pulitzer"/"Howitzer" gag is a pretty cute callback to Week 1. But if the big cannon is what Rip's got in mind to fire Skeets off with, what was Booster swiping Steel's device for during WWIII?
Pg. 26: It's the 52 clip show! (Although my favorite variation on this business is still the one in this Waid-written issue.)
Pp. 28-30: I've read this sequence over and over, and I totally fail to understand what's happening. As far as I understand, Butterfly-Mind is attracted to the suspendium, and then physically trapped inside of Skeets' dying robot husk, which is reinforced with more suspendium. (Maybe we could just start calling it Plotdeviceum?) Then Booster hands off Skeets to Supernova, who throws the robot-with-butterfly-inside; it lands in an explosion I don't think we've seen before in Week 1, Day 1, where Sivana just happens to stumble upon Mr. Mind, who is now in caterpillar form again, and puts him in his lab in a jar, where he's exposed to more Plotdeviceum, and somehow ends up in Dr. Magnus's lab at the beginning of week 2 (because all mad scientists actually share the same lab), where he crawls into Skeets, and proceeds to repeat the entire sequence in an infinite loop, getting older each time. That cannot be right. Can someone explain what I'm missing?
Pg. 34: Who's that reaching for the amulet? It'll be interesting to see why we haven't heard of this task force in the OYL continuity...
Pg. 35: I wonder if this is just a generic fire-pit or a smaller version of the Gotham City/Apokolips fire-pits.
Pg. 36: One last use of a teddy bear as a symbol of innocence! Drink!
Pg. 37: From the pill bottles in the wastebasket in panel 4, it looks like Magnus is back on his meds in a big way. Is he in Haven, or some other gated subdivision? And both he andRip Hunter backed up Skeets? Clever of them--especially clever of Magnus to figure out how to convert Skeets's 25th-century consciousness to a DVD-R.
Pg. 38: Closure again--a callback to my favorite scene in the first issue. But, actually, it occurs to me now that Rucka also wrote the pre-OYL story in which the Bat-Signal is removed from the roof of Gotham Central and accidentally smashed in the process. Oh well. Chalk it up to Mr. Mind, as I'm sure we'll be doing so often in the near future.
***
Oh, that special message about the new Pickup? There isn't going to be one, I'm afraid--with the book coming out in two months, I can't really consecrate one workday a week to an unpaid gig any more. When I started doing 52 Pickup, it was meant as an act of fannish devotion, inspired by how excited everybody involved with 52 seemed to be, and I think after a year I've discharged the duty I had in mind. I'm still going to be doing a lot of comics reviews all over the place, though--there's one (on Free Comic Book Day) running in the next day or two at Salon, some stuff coming up in various print magazines and newspapers, and of course reviews and articles in PW Comics Week, which I encourage all of you to subscribe to--especially since it's free. I'm hoping to turn up in some form on as many comics blogs as possible the week the book comes out (want me to do something with your blog? drop me a line: blogtour [at-sign] douglaswolk [period] com). And I'll probably be doing semi-regular, very casual reviews of various periodical comics at my relatively-dormant-lately personal blog Lacunae.
There will, most likely, eventually be one or two more posts here as various 52-related things turn up. Meanwhile, Andrew Hickey's excellent new blog seems to have taken on the challenge of doing lengthy, discursive, analytical posts about Countdown; I'll be reading it.
Thanks so much to all the readers and commenters, both regulars and one-time-only chimer-inners, who made this blog such a joy to do, week after week--I've loved hearing what everybody has to say, and your observations and perspectives have made reading 52 a lot more fun for me. Special thanks to Ragnell for her fill-in in Week 17, and to the people who FedExed a copy of that week's issue to my camp at Burning Man, despite having an address not much clearer than "so there's this tent in the middle of the desert?"
And thanks most of all to Messrs. Giffen, Johns, Jones, Morrison, Rucka and Waid for the amazing ride, and to everyone else who helped make it possible. You've given me a year I won't forget.
posted by Douglas Wolk @ 5:22 PM
67 Comments:
Is the new Earth-2 on a slightly different "default" point in *time* as well as a different vibrational plane? I kinda hope so, for several reasons. One, the "extension of the Golden Age" concept kinda breaks down due to timeline issues (e.g., Huntress and Robin should be in their 60s or something in 2007.) Also, it's more fun if the Earths are a little different timewise - perhaps the new "Earth-1" is still in 1965, for instance?
Actually, it seems they must be doing something like this, since the Kingdom Come Earth is clearly "the future," and it's out there vibrating....
I really hope it's Adam picking up Isis' amulet. Because really, if there's one thing the DC universe needs, it's a cross dressing Isis hell bent on vengance against the world!
I think it was made rather apparent that the "52 Earths" was meant to represent 52 universes. If it were just Earths, how could, say, Superman be in more than one, when he came from the non-Earth planet Krypton?
What I'd like to know is are there any books running that take place on other Earths? CM seemed to be Billy on the new Earth S (whatever number it was), while in the Shazam book he is now the eponymous Wizard. Are we going to be seeing any books taking place on alternate worlds? Do JLA and JSA take place on the Kingdom Come world?
Buh?
As a follow-up to last week's post, I spent the week re-reading all 51 issues in anticipation of this week's finale. I have to say - I felt it held up pretty well (a real credit to the authors). Even the art is better and generally more consistent than I remember in-the-moment, with some obvious and glaring exceptions starting to emerge in the 40's that even a non-discerning critic such as myself could not ignore. In "trade" form, I think the story will read smoothly and sensibly, and many of the supposed mystery points we week-by-week readers kept tripping on will be less conspicuous (though I assume the magic and anticipation of where the story might head will necessarily disappear as well).
Overall, I give the series a solid A-. Not as good as I had reason to hope by the late 20's, and certainly way too many plot lines or major considerations that went abandoned by its conclusion (Doug did a great job covering them) ... but darn solid, and nowhere near the train wreck of House of M or Civil War, where I walked away from almost every issue wholly unsatisfied (far better ideas than execution).
Overall, I am very happy with my investment of $130, and thankful to DC for giving me what I got.
One more shout-out and thank you to Doug, and I am ... done! 52! 52! 52!
I'm gonna go back through Douglas's post and comment on stuff later, but:
1. Yeah, Mr. Mind is stuck in a time loop. Like most time-travel stuff, don't think about it too much.
2. David C> It seems to me that the different earths are running on different times, but honestly no oen will really know until it's directly addressed in a DC book.
3. mc> No, all currently printed books take place on New Earth. Unless otherwise specified, I guess. But yeah, JLA/JSA are on New Earth.
Though I do like to think that Jeff Smith's SHAZAM! takes place on Earth-5, though I have absoluetly no evidence to support this, obviously. It's fandom, what can I say?
Doug, I've never posted before, but I've read you since the beginning, and I've never considered my 52 reading experience complete until I sat down with my laptop open on this site and the latest 52 next to me. Thanks for the ride - you did a terrific, awe-inspiring job. Well done!
Sam
PS - my girlfriend is interested in getting into comics (for my sake). Is your book the kind of thing I can give her to read as a primer?
A giant post to end this great blog and great comic. *cracks knuckles* Let's get going!
Characters
Adam Strange: Needs a vacation?
Batwoman: Looks like Renee is targeting her for whatever she has planned. Who's the sidekick in that duo?
Black Adam: I think you don't give the man credit he deserves. We learned that he can see beyond his own ego when women of goddess-level attractiveness are involved. And family too... I suppose. We also learn that if you take away these things, Black Adam reverts back to his dismembery self. I think there's some message about humanity in there. I don't want to read more though. This is a great place to send his character into the sunset.
Booster Gold: Played hero, and now is one, dammit!
Ralph Dibny: I welcome more stories. I first heard of him in Identity Crisis so I missed out on his past exploits outside of Starman. He and Sue can now have a wacky road trip type story through life and death itself! That has to sound cool.
Starfire: We of course learned that she is ET with double DDs.
Plot points
1. Kahndaq was some important trade gateway for Intergang or something.
4. The sheer craziness of the chalkboard escaped explanation.
5. From Morrison's Animal Man series, Buddy's house is wired with JLA security devices. Maybe Ellen shouldn't open the door without looking through the peephole from now on.
6. English wasn't Devilance's first language?
8. I'm very glad that Booster didn't die as his future corpse suggested. He dies.. later?
13. The Chinese, with Intergang influence, wanted something to fight Black Adam. I don't think the Chinese knew what they were getting specifically.
Page Notes
8. It looks like Dr. Tyme stole the seconds, Skeets got it from Dr. Tyme (?), Skeets used it on Daniel, Rip came back to his lab and took the seconds and freed Daniel, lastly Rip used the seconds for his escape into the mulitversal past. Does that sound right? Not sure which 52 seconds though.
9.3 Grossest print ad ever.
12. Is there a precedent for a Nazi Green Lantern?
13. It would've been nice if Ross actually painted that frame. At least it doesn't look like The Kingdom....Maybe the Huntress is showing Fate the spelling error?... At least the male Question exists somewhere.
17. I do believe Booster swiped the Scarab. It was what he was looking for in Infinite Crisis as well.
18. That also explains why BB can't find something "under his knows." Booster meeting Blue Beetle is before my time: did their first meeting play out like this before?
28-30. It is odd how suspendium attracts Mr. Mind and binds him at the same time.... The thought of Mr. Mind impregnating Supernova is kinda gross...."time bomb!" Get it??.... I believe what is happening is that Booster hiked Skeets to himself and made a Hail Mary throw into the portal. Supernova follows to grab it and spike it for the bomb to detonate at the right place/time. While most signs point towards a time loop, Mr. Mind seems a bit too shocked. Maybe something different happens: Plotdevicium is taken out of the equation?
34. Crocodile boots? A reference to Sobek? I don't get it.
36. The Lazarus Pit rises. An appropriate mystery for ghost Ralph to start on? The fact that we can't see the kids' drawings drives me nuts.
37. Backwards compatibility technology's gift, it's curse.
38. I'm surprised no one fixed the Bat signal in a year. It is on police property after all.
Endnotes
Thank you for making this blog, Mr. Wolk. I found it around Week 15 and was really glad that there is a place to intelligently discuss 52 and read your analyses. I'm definitely interested in your book.
*You sly dog with your 5:22 posting time!
long time reader, first time commenter-- just wanted to thank you for a hell of a job, and a hell of a lot of dedication. bravo.
also, Earth-10 is Earth-X, and X is the Roman Numeral for 10. I just noticed this, and found it decidedly clever.
I've been reading since the mid 30s, but never commented. Just wanted to thank you for the amazing job.You, and really everyone else who commented here week after week, never ceased to amaze me. I'll definitely be looking for your new book!
two things I noticed:
- Rip is drawn with red eyes in some panels, and blue eyes and others
- Other than eyes, compare Rip and Daniel in some panels, particularly in the early panel where they're both looking out the window surprised. They look almost identical. Even more so than Daniel and Booster.
Earth-50 is the Wildstorm/Mr. Majestic universe.
Excellent write-ups.
First off thanks Doug. This has been fun.
Second, here's my take on the Mr. Mind thing, feel free to correct me:
1. Mind went into the cocoon in week 2 (I think it was week 2) and somehow got into Skeets on Week 11 in Magnus' lab.
2. He hung out there and played evil Skeets until week 51 when he hatched, revealing butterfly thing.
3. He ate a whole bunch of crap creating the finite earths. This is strange as this would mean the Captain Atom WS series took place during week 0 or so, considering he gets to a place where he can see all the earths.
4. They hit Mind with Super Supernova and he de-evolved somewhat but crawled into Skeets and the Suspendium comic book physics went down.
5. Supernova spiked Skeets and Skeets went boom. I'm assuming this big blast de-evolved Mind some more and/or weakened him so that when Sivana caught him and put him into what would be a massive amount of Suspendium, the Suspendium actually worked the way it traditionally has.
6. So Mind (or future Mind) has to go through the whole year and more in the Suspendium in Sivana's possession while all of this is happening and he can't interfere. It's strange, but it works. I hope that made sense.
In other words, the Mind we saw Sivana capture was the Mind we saw all along, but he's forced to relive the year in Suspendium. It may also be the time loop. Someone should ask one of the creators on one of those exit interview things on newsarama.
Anyway, it's been a blast. Good work. I had more fun reading this blog than any other one I've read.
Oh yeah, I forgot, could Earth-1 be the Earth we saw in Flash??? It looks like an Earth that had both a Golden & Silver Age of heroes, like New Earth and unlike the Earth-2 we saw (which obviously never had the Silver Age of heroes, much like the original Earth-Two). Could Earth-1 be a lot like the original Earth-One, but with a Golden age in it's continuity??? That would be rad.
Totally fascinating Mark Waid interview here, clearing up a couple of plot points.
Sam the Anonymous: yes, absolutely!
This comment has been removed by the author.
Congratulations, Douglas, on your year-long annotation effort. It's almost as impressive as the accomplishment of the 52 writers/staff!
I'll happily be picking up a copy of your book!
Douglas, thanks from the bottom of my fanboy heart for 52 Pickup. I think I actually discovered it via an interview with Steve Wacker or one of 'The Architects' very early on in the series. I read every installment and as many others have said, it became as important to my weekly 52 enjoyment as the series itself. As a small way of showing my appreciation, I've just preordered Reading Comics from Amazon. I encourage all your other fans to do the same.
I'm really quite sorry you won't be doing a Countdown blog as well. While I understand your reasoning and completely sympathize with your predicament, I just enjoyed this blog so damned much I want you to keep up the great work! A few weeks back I seem to remember one of the commenters suggesting you set up a tip jar on the blog to subsidize your efforts. I'd go one further and happily pay some sort of subscription fee for the privilege. If you change your mind in the next week, please do let us know.
Again, thanks for all the fun!
Obviously, Earth-2 is simply a planet on which "Simplified Spelling" reform took hold.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_spelling_reform
Thanks for your amazing effort. I bought the first 11 issues, then trade waited, but I always made sure I read your blog. it made me feel like I was in on the ground floor.
You can be very proud of your contribution to modern comic analysis.
Couple of things:
1. What are the "two score and twelve walls of heaven" attached to the 52 realities, and what's beyond them?
Well, given that "two score and twelve" = (2*20)+12 = 52, I'm guessing they are what keep the Earths apart. And beyond them? The Source, probably.
2. I believe the new Earth 2 is where Wally & Bart (and Barry!) held SBP for a while.
3. Is there any reason why Qward can't be in the Earth-3 universe?
4. I'm pretty sure Adam was the one wearing Sobek boots... which suggests someone else picked up the amulet.
5. My guess is that "megaverse" is what Mark Gruenwald called the "omniverse". The DC Multiverse, plus things like the Marvel U and the worlds of the Bleed.
Where does Morrison's Anti Matter Crime Syndicate universe fit in to all of this?
Is it gone? Replaced by Earth 3?
Thank you so much for the past year, DW. 52 has been a blast, and your weekly posts have added considerably to the pleasure.
I noted this on my blog, but it seems to me that 52 #52 is really the conclusion to the last four years' worth of storyline, from "Graduation Day" to Identity Crisis through DC Countdown and Infinite Crisis. Booster finally gets to say goodbye to Ted, Ralph and Sue are together again, and the Multiverse is back in its proper place.
A lot of people get upset that DC seems to be one crossover after another, each segueing into the next with no end. Well, this is it: The End. There are still plot points that can be expanded upon in future stories, but this chapter in the History of the DC Universe is closed.
My guess is that "megaverse" is what Mark Gruenwald called the "omniverse". The DC Multiverse, plus things like the Marvel U and the worlds of the Bleed.
That makes sense to me. The DC Multiverse makes up a specific "grouping" of worlds, whereas other universes, such as those explored by Planetary on Earth-50 as well as others not yet glimpsed, comprise the larger Megaverse, and there lies Infinity.
I'll add my voice to the chorus of thanks, Douglas. Will definitely buy your book, and hope to run into you in music-crit circles sometime to thank you in person.
One character left off your roundup list: Magnus! The premise of Magnus as a well-intentioned genius that needs psychiatric meds to keep his "mad scientist" tendencies suppressed is one of the coolest character angles 52 added, even though it was sort of under-utilized. With that unique internal conflict and Magnus' ability to be a guide to the DCU scientific community (I want to see mad scientist peer-review journals! And funding sources! And graduate programs!), he could definitely sustain a series. Here's hoping the mini capitalizes on even a fraction of that promise.
Overall, 52 was a fun ride for me, given that I've just been getting back into comics. Having read nothing for the last 15 years, and having never really read DC even back then, the "tour of the DCU" aspect was really exciting to me. The dense continuity of the series could only have worked in the internet age; part of the thrill for me was reading an issue, then searching Wikipedia and this blog for all the characters and storylines that were new to me, then reading the issue again with the new knowledge. Any loose ends that were left untied feel like a necessary trade-off for the immediacy of the storytelling...having it all perfectly laid out may have hurt the pace, in my opinion. Anyway, the knock on 52 seems to be that it wasn't at all accessible to new readers, so I wanted to hold myself up as an example of that not being really true.
Hey Douglas, just wanted to say how terrific this blog was -- it's a disappointment that you won't be doing Countdown, but very understandable. Looking forward to your book -- especially the chapter that touches on Seven Soldiers. Not to use your own tricks against you, but your promise of writing long about it back in the week Issue #1 was released was a dangling plot thread of your own...glad to see it resolved!
Thanks for the great ride!!!!
Jim
Hi--
I've never posted, but I've been following this blog since week 1, and I've grown to look forward to it as much as (if not more than) the comic itself. Just wanted to thank you for all the hard work and insight.
--Jason
This has to have been mentioned elsewhere 52 times by now, but it just occurred to me that the final issue was released on 5/2. Great coincidence (or not).
Thanks for the site, Douglas.
I'd just like to say I accidentally called (sorta) the ghost detective thing a few weeks back.
Otherwise, awesome work, Douglas! I'd just like to say, as other posters have, that reading this blog has immeasurably improved my 52 reading experience. Cheers! And if Mark Waid's reading: write more comics.
Douglas--
Thanks for a great 52 weeks of reading. I'm sure there were moments when you thought of tossing this project in (can't even imagine the time involved), but it was well worth it. And congrats on the book!
Dan Sinker
Lewis explained my understanding of the Mr. Mind plot for the most part: during the missing year, there are two Mr. Minds, one of whom is trapped by Sivana, the other becomes a beautiful butterfly.
Thanks a bunch for doing this blog, Mr. Wolk. Reading it every week has been one of the best parts of the 52 experience, and while I'm a little disappointed that you won't be doing Countdown, I am looking forward to the book.
Just wanted to add to the chorus saying how much I enjoyed reading your blog every week as well as all of the comments. Thanks a lot for the great work you put in throughout the year.
PS: I was the guy who sent you that Super-Chief reprint.
Damn you, I was going to try to avoid spoilers til I got my copy and read it, but you had to link to my blatant rip-off of your site, didn't you? I had to come and see what you said ;)
Thanks.
(BTW I've read but not commented every week, mostly because I get my comics a few days later than you and by the time I have anything to say the discussion's moved on. But your site has been an invaluable resource, and thank you...)
Douglas, I can only echo what so many have said, that my experience of "52" became intertwined with your weekly analysis of it, and the week wasn't complete without reading what you and your loyal Legion of Super-Blogreaders had to say about the latest issue. I easily took as much pleasure from your observations and commentary as from the book itself, and I especially appreciated your early attempts to identify the themes and metaphors running through the various storylines. They were literate and thoughtful and illuminating. It was through you that I came to see the thread of "identity" in the series, and that added to my enjoyment of it. Thank you for doing this and for doing it so well.
Haven't commented in months, and I'll make up for it with a lengthy post.
ADAM STRANGE: You hit on one of my pet peeves in the book.
Doug: "Like I've said before, the hook of the early Adam Strange stories was that they were basically romance stories--they were about what he had to do to overcome the distance between himself and his beloved--with some space opera thrown in for flavor." Yes! And you would have thought this set-up, with Adam halfway across the universe from his beloved (and child), was designed to tap that very aspect of Adam's appeal. But I felt less of that in 52 weeks of the space-plot here (okay, 51 weeks) than in one 8page story by Fox and Infantino. Sigh.
And as if that weren't enough, the business of the missing eyes served no real purpose in the long run. I kept waiting for it to pay off in SOME way, or for the mystery of his and Alan Scott's missing eyes to be addressed, but it was not to be. As it was, I found Adam's blindness distracting, not the least because of the way it so often yanked at my suspension of disbelief.
Adam, like Buddy, got home, for which I'm relieved, but I wish he'd been treated with the same degree of obvious affection that Buddy and Ralph received from the Architects.
Speaking of Animal Man: Before the Mr. Mind plot really came into focus, did anyone else think that the cosmic reset button would be pushed by Buddy, in connection with his panel-busting encounters with the yellow aliens? Since the series turned so much on issues of "identity," I really hoped that Buddy's arc would involve a greater understanding of who he is as part of not just one world but all the fantastic worlds that have been created at DC and elsewhere through the years. I had this vision of him liberating the multiverse in this great act of creation, which would have taken "52" to a level above and beyond the "Crisis" sagas we've seen before, where the expansion or compression of the multiple earths always comes about through an act of destruction. Yeah, the way "52" played into that was classic, so it should have pleased the Silver Ager in me, but with this song being written and played by the Beatles of the DCU, I was driven to hope for something beyond the norm.
Dangling plot threads: Can anyone illuminate for me what the whole "time is broken" thing was all about? Of all the stuff on Rip Hunter's chalkboard, that was the one that struck me as most significant, and I just don't see how that played out. Time being broken doesn't seem to relate to the 52 worlds, and I don't really see what evidence we had for it in the story, outside of the missing 52 seconds (though to me something that's stolen is different than something that's broken). Dangling thread, or am I just dense?
And in line with Douglas' question about these worlds' vibrational frequencies: How do the 52 worlds relate to the Bleed, which has shown up in the DCU now via Ion? Seems like this would have been an ideal spot to connect the new "megaverse" -- and do we really need ANOTHER term for multiverse? -- to this trans-universal device that's in current favor.
Question about Mr. Mind: How did a Venusian caterpillar get to read so many Silver and Bronze Age comics? Especially in the days before the direct market? Did Space Cabbie drop off a bundle of comics at a Venusian 7-Eleven every week while troling the inner solar system for fares? Ya know, 'cause only a fanboy -- fanworm? -- could have re-created all those earths in such detail.
This fanboy's alternate ending to 52? After Supernova's spike and the subsequent explosion, the de-evolved worm finds himself on a desk on Earth-Prime, atop a stack of DC comics set on the different multiple earths he's just re-created. Then in walks Julie Schwatz, who spots what looks like a worm on his desk, so he rolls up one of the books and uses it to swat Mr. Mind into oblivion.
Someone seems to have confused "criticism" with "being a whiny little bitch". Inexplicable that this 52 smarmy summary site gets so much press when so many other dudes do it far, far better.
Good riddance.
*rolls eyes* Go back to 4chan, ya dern troll.
Anyway, I don't know about anyone else, but that hot dog ad in the middle of the book creeped me the hell out.
Gonna miss this blog, Thursday afternoons won't be same. Good luck with the book, Douglas (though, um, yeah, I guess the heavy lifting's over).
Giffen layouts to issue 50 up at the 52 website!
"Good riddance," the only "whiny little bitch" here is the person who posted a rude comment anonymously. Oh, hey, that's you!
I also thought Buddy was going to have something to do with the multiverse coming back. I love that Earth-Prime ending!
Daniel T.
Great work, Doug. Many's the time your on-time-every-time posts have provided inspiration where previously there was none. I owe you a pint if we ever meet up.
Just wanted to say thanks and great work. It's been an enjoyable read since week 1. Best to you in the future (all 52 universes of it).
I've written a mini-essay explaining what I felt to be the theme of 52 on my blog if anyone is curious.
http://dantebk.blogspot.com/2007/05/52-look-back.html
Something about one of the questions...
1. The Apokoliptian tech's from the old New Gods series (they were regularly supplied, even started up, by Apokolips guys), and they wanted Kahndaq as an avenue between Africa and the Middle East (don't believe me? Reread #3).
I guess it was a time loop. That almost disappoints me.
I'm conflicted in that I thought it was a fun ending, with all kinds of cool things happening with the main characters but how they used time travel to explain things and deal with problems was the most flagrant example of a deus ex machina in recent memory. It's not like I expect every comic book writer to be as smart as Alan Moore but people have been producing super-hero comics for long enough that they should at least know when an idea stinks (and once upon a time one of the editor's responsibilities was to see flaws in the stories). The big solution here is akin to something you would have seen in an early silver age DC book (and there have been some horrible resolutions in those old Rip Hunter comics) -- the type of thing that I knew made no sense the second I read it, the type of bad plotting that ruins so many movies.
If you're going to do a mystery you have to have a good solution; if you put the heroes in a horrible situation you have resolve it a believable way or it just makes the story seem pointless. Instead here they take the lazy stupid route with a gimmick that makes Superboy's punch through time/ reality seem like the most inventive reasonable idea ever created.
If T.O. Morrow "created" most of his tech by breaking into the time stream what took Rip so long to catch him? It had obviously been going on for years. If the writers are going to leave plot holes like that that need to include some quick explanation -- perhaps Morrow's lab was shielded from Hunter -- but that the writers don't even address this just shows that someone (or I guess several someones) was asleep at the wheel. I'm thinking that only reason the Rip Hunter only recently broke into Morrow's lab instead of years ago is because that was convient for the story's plot.
Now as far as the big stupid time loop: the bug version of Mr. Mind is shown in a panel while Supernova shows up on Week 1, Day 6 with the bomb so perhaps this is not a strict time loop (where the character is trapped and continually lives the save events over and over. He can never leave the loop but then how did he enter it since his past self came from the future? ). Maybe Mr. Mind's future body is destroyed and his future mind "merely" merges with his past self. Even then, this is one of the hoariest cliches of science fiction, the shaggy dog that ate his own tail, and besides it's just plain dumbness it also prevents DC from using Mr. Mind in a future comic. Mr. Mind is stuck in this time loop and because of that in chronal terms he doesn't exist after week 52.
After merging with his past self (if that's even what they meant to suggest) the other problem becomes that wouldn't he act differently when he got powerful and free "this time" to prevent this from happening. Once again they could have thrown in some quick explanation since, oh I don't know, that's what writers are paid to do. Just since Wednesday I thought that since the suspendium is what jump started Mr. Mind's evolution and Rip said, "This stuff works like crack cocaine on a hyperfly" that perhaps it affected his memory, causing him to forget what was going to happen, or his perception of time.
I came up with that in a day or two. Why couldn't the paid writers have done as much? I'm particularly dissapointed that Grant Morrisson didn't point out that this was a horrible idea.
This has been a blast, Doug. One thing I didn't like about this issue was that the first half, everything is consistent art-wise, then it goes to the Sivana house and the art totally goes to shit and is completely inconsistent with anything that was established earlier in the issue. Rip's suit, the very similar appearances of "the three Brothers Carter", and just less tight artwork overall.
I'll miss this blog.
Wow, I wish I knew about this blog 52 weeks ago.
Wikipedia has a surprisingly in-depth dissection of Rip Hunter's board. Who knows how much of it is speculation, but hell, better than nothing.
I haven't read a single issue of '52' but I've read your blog multiple times. Loved it every time. Thanks so much.
The Mister Mind chronology just doesn't work, so you can stop trying. From the on-camera information we're given, Skeets was tinkered with by Dr. Magnus in Week 2, Mr. Mind was shown in his cocoon in Week 3, and Dr. Magnus tells Tomorrow he recieved the contents of Sivana's lab in Week 10, when he reveals the empty cocoon. So at best Magnus got the lab contents in Week 7, and never saw Booster after. (And since Waid mentions the idea of evil-Skeets didn't surface until the plotting of Week 11, well...)
As for the time loop, if it isn't a son-of-Mister-Mind sent into the past each time, it still doesn't matter, since the next time someone wants to use the character they'll either ignore 52, port or ship in an alternate universe version. Yawn.
Wow--thank you all so much for your comments and kind words! In response to a few of them (and I'll come back and respond to further comments later):
*The final 5.2 at Newsarama clears up some more of the opaque plot threads, including the scarab business, and a reference to the task force that I'd missed in Checkmate.
*MC: I think it's more like "if it looks like something is really, really out of continuity, it might still be in continuity anyway," which is reasonable.
*Wanyas: Thank you again! Very much appreciated.
*Matt: But why would Apokolips even need an avenue between Africa and the Middle East? They've got boom tubes! They don't need to rely on overland transport!
*I'm still trying to wrap my brain around the Mr. Mind time loop, since the butterfly version is the one who entered the loop, and lots of time travel is involved--it's entirely possible that there's still a caterpillar-style Mr. Mind out there who will grow still older as a caterpillar before he goes back to the 52 year and enters the chain of events that leads to the loop.
Good (and revealing) 52 wrap-up interview with Waid here.
Morrison's Newsarama interview is a must-read. Things addressed include Super-Chief, Most Excellent SuperBat, and other "deleted scenes." Also, he calls Earth 4 the Charlton/Watchmen earth. ??? Read his response to what the draw of Animal Man is to him. Hilarious!
Since you ended at 5:22, should the last numbered post be 52?-
Late to the Party Lad
I almost started crying after reading Countdown. It really made clear to me how special 52 was and how it will never be repeated.
Awesome! Comment 52!
Sorry, mrzazmore. I'm ruining your 52nd comment. But I will commemorate the event to make up for it.
Anyway, the Booster Gold series is sounding better and better to me. The idea of a hero playing the bumbling fool already appeals to me. Adding time travel just sweetens the pot.
And in regards to the x-treme-afacation of Mr. Mind, I think people would have bought the change much better if they played him closer to the caterpillar characterization.
Something along the lines of Mr. Mind launching the Phantom Zone energy at Supernova, but missing. Then he lets out an inhuman, bloodcurdling screem, and shouts, "No! I'm still near-sighted!"
Then he has to get another pair of custom glasses by his next appearance, before he can be a threat.
Regarding Earth-22: It looks like it was drawn by the artist for Trials of Shazam.
Also, I'm certain that the other (good) Shazam mini is in New Earth continuity.
The crocodile-booted thug is most likely an Intergang agent, and Rip called it "the dawn of something called the megaverse", which means it's probably new, so new he doesn't fully understand it.
Finally: Darn it, 52 is a person.
His true name is Immortal Bald Man in Armor.
This comment has been removed by the author.
This comment has been removed by the author.
Douglas, I'm actually kind of glad you aren't doing a Countdown blog because reading every week about what an awful series it is would just get redundant.
Have you seen the #50 preview on MySpace? Some points:
* Why isn't Superman stopping Jason Todd?
* There is NO precendent for Jimmy knowing Nightwing's (and by extension, Batman's) identity.
* Why would Jimmy be so deferential to a murderer? Mr. Todd?!?
* Why would Jason be so forthcoming with Jimmy?
* Why tell Mary to stay out of Gotham? Did Xanadu have any indication that Mary was planning to go to there? Telling her to stay away is just going to want to make her go (granted, that could be Xanadu's intention.)
* A LONGER version of a fight that was in another comic? If there's reason for it to be in here by all rights it should be a SHORTER version. This is just page filler.
Crap, crap, crap. DC has lost their way big time.
Sorry, I'll have to play super DC apologist here. I read the preview and thought it was good.
• There's a few reasons. Superman has bigger things to do like finish his own book. I know, then why help Jimmy at all? Well Superman is doing this errand from very far away. He was probably on the go between very important earth-saving things. Todd is also Batman's turf.
• Jimmy is Superman's pal. With the nature of comics, this can be explained in a mini called "How Jimmy Found Out Nightwing was Dick Grayson*"
• Jimmy is trying to get information out of Todd. How else would he address him than with his polite Jimmy mannerisms?
• Hrm. Hmm. Uh... There is still good in him? To be honest I didn't follow the Red Hood/Jason Todd thing because I thought it was bollocks to begin with.
• Well, mmm... magic... cost... flux... chaos... i don't know.
• I think you'll be more and more maddened by this as the series goes on. One of their gimmicks is that Countdown will cross plots with other DC comics. We didn't see this fight in JLA (and oh did the fans complain!) probably because we get it here. It fits in the the DC Universe interconnected thing that 52 also tried to do.
Remember this is part 2 of a 52 part series (1/2 of said part even!). I didn't like 52's issue 1, or some of the 30's and 40's but as a whole it was one heck of a comic.
*Takes place before Countdown #50!
hey! all the layouts are up on the 52 website
"I think a superhero comic about introspection and self-discovery could be a mighty interesting thing if someone (Rucka!) could come up with a way to make it work."
Have you ever read The Question series by Denny O'neil? Becasue that's exactly what you describe
Cover for the first trade is up on CBR and it is by far the weakest cover of the series from Jg Jones
Hi Gang,
Yr Friendly Neighborhood Warlock Mag here to let you know that we've picked up the baton with our brand new feature "Countdown Put-Down". We are approximately one week behind schedule right now because of daylight saving time. ROCKON.
I know the blog won't be continuing (thanks for the phenomenal effort, Douglas!) but how about a weekly posting to allow this to serve as a message board for Countdown?
This is starting to remind me of the comments for the last Fanboy Rampage entry.
Last Post!
Duh...
Screw that 'last post' BS.
So, issue 47 out (5th?) and Andrew H's dccountdown is already thinking about abandoning the book. Douglas may have chosen very wisely indeed to jump off the blogtrain before the... well, trainwreck, i guess.
Countdown... the disappointment is palpable.
Black Adam: I was done with him before they started, but they made him interesting for awhile, then ripped the rug out from under him. I'm done with him again.
Booster Gold: I was done with him before they started, but they made him interesting for awhile. He's a hero now and no one will ever know. If they can keep that up, I might continue to find him interesting.
Animal Man: I really like the guy, but DC can't seem to find anyone who can consistently make him fun. I think they should team him up with Ambush Bug, make his family less serious, and just have fun being silly with him. Maybe pit him up against Bat-mite and Myxlpltk. As he is tho, I'm done with him.
Starfire: I really like her, but DC doesn't know what to do with her. I'm an old Teen Titans fan from the Wolfman/Perez era. I guess that makes me a Nightwing/Starfire shipper. Seems like that ship has sailed tho, and without the titans, I'm done with her.
Ralph Dibny: I like the idea of a Vertigo-like title that deals with DC's after-life. Have the Dibnys be a ghost detective Thin-Man couple. Have Deadman be their whacky neighbor. It'd be a bit like Beetlejuice meets Macmillan & Wife. I'd buy it.
Renee Montoya: I'd buy that. Heck, if she weren't gay, I'd hit that.
Batwoman: only if she's hitting that.
John Henry Irons & Daughter: Not one of the stronger links in the 52 storyline, but there's storyline potential here. They'll have to dig a bit deeper than they have been tho to make it more interesting.
Adam Strange: Didn't he fade into obscurity once? Isn't it time he do that again?
Who'd I miss?
For a directory listing of 52 Pickup written by someone unfamiliar with recent DC offerings, would you kindly supply a summary of what your blog is about, and send it to me:
scratchinpost [at] g mail {DOT} com
and I will send you all the information about our project and your place in it if you wish to be included.
This is a non-profit venture, like Comixpedia.
Post a Comment
<< Home