comics It’s rare that a project changes an industry, but that’s exactly what happened with 52 and comics. During the past 10 months, DC managed to publish a weekly series without missing a single deadline, even as mainstream titles went three to four months between issues. Sales for the book have been impressive, and DC reportedly plans to follow it up with another weekly series. Meanwhile, Marvel poached the series’ original editor to launch a weekly book of its own. It’s an exciting time to be reading comic books.
Perhaps the most astonishing thing about 52’s success is that it features mostly C-list characters. Set between recent company-wide events Infinite Crisis and One Year Later, 52 documents in real time a year in the DC Universe in which the Big Three—Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman—are out of commission.
 Like “24,” but for comic book fans! 52 delivers year ’round action from unlikely heroes. Maybe Batman had more important things to do. |
A variety of heroes step in, but the series primarily focuses on five: Renee Montoya, a former Gotham police officer who gets tangled up with mysterious detective “The Question” and the new Batwoman (with whom she shares a romantic past); the hero formerly known as Steel, who tries to stop his headstrong niece from making a deal with the devil by signing up with Lex Luthor; Ralph Dibny, formerly the Elongated Man, whose quest to bring his wife back from death leads him on a tour of the DCU’s dark and daunting mystical realms; antihero Black Adam, who has shared his considerable powers with his new “family” but watches in horror as his country and personal life are boundlessly attacked; and Booster Gold, a hero from the far future who is wrapped up in a complicated threat to the timestream.
As a result of its schedule and the panel of top-notch writers, 52 comes off soapier than most comics—many storylines take months to fully form, and others seem completely forgotten. The book also largely fails in one of its core missions: to explain some of the major changes that happened off-panel prior to One Year Later. To me, however, the story remains secondary. DC deserves kudos for trying something this ambitious, and for pulling it off so impressively.