52 Volume 1 for $13.59 currently at Amazon
I’d heard a few good things about this run, but I hadn’t so much as read a single issue before now. The gist of it is 52 issues that detail what happened in the missing year of the One Year Later event that resulted in some pretty huge changes for the heroes of the DC universe.
It primarily focuses on side characters like Booster Gold, The Question, Black Adam, etc… and their adventures. At the end of quite a few issues, they explore the history of the DC universe with Donna Troy, then later on they start exploring the origins of various DC heroes and teams. It’s quite handy!
It turns out all those little side stories start building together into two massive events. One that threatens the entire Earth and leads into the short side-event World War III, and another event that threatens the whole multiverse. But it’s so well written and the characters are all so fascinating, it doesn’t feel like some contrived attempt to make a huge deal out of a weekly comic, it feels natural. Similar to how I find Dark Reign, while it’s considered an event, it’s more about changing the Marvel universe week by week over a longer period of time.
This event made me care for the characters involved. It helped flesh out a massive part of the DC universe for me while rarely trotting out the big guns. If DC was looking to help readers get into their universe, Infinite Crisis and this follow-up were a fantastic idea and a success.
4.5/5.
52 Volume 2
52 Volume 3
52 Volume 4
World War 3 for $10.18 currently available from Amazon’s third party sellers.
World War 3 - At some point it was decided that this event was too big for 52 and it got it’s own 4 issue spinoff. It takes place over roughly one week and there’s a few continuity errors between this and 52 that I noticed, but no big deal.
Black Adam had some serious shit happen to him in 52. I don’t want to spoil it, but let’s say it enrages him to the point where he declares war on pretty much the rest of the planet. He wants revenge and nothing’s going to stop him.
It’s a great setup, it simply lacks any depth. Keep that in mind. These 4 issues have soul-searching by the Martian Manhunter, but the primary thrust of the comics is Black Adam destroying everything he possibly can and every hero around banding together to try to stop him. That’s it’s primary goal and it certainly makes for an exciting read for a character that was given plenty of time to develop in 52.
4/5
