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52 (comics)

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 This article or section contains information about a scheduled or expected comic book release, or a series already in progress. It is likely to contain tentative information and the content may change dramatically as the product release approaches and more information becomes available.

52 is the title of a comic book limited series published by DC Comics, which debuted on May 10, 2006, one week after the conclusion of the seven-issue Infinite Crisis. The series is written by Geoff Johns, Grant Morrison, Greg Rucka, Mark Waid and Keith Giffen. Each issue of the series costs $2.50 USD.

Contents

Concept

52 is comprised of 52 issues, published weekly for one year, chronicling the events that take place during the missing year after the end of Infinite Crisis. The comic focuses on every character in the DC Universe through six characters whose stories are told exclusively in the book and occasionally cross over with each other.

Story as of Week Ten

[Spoiler warningSpoiler warning]: Plot and/or ending details follow.
In the aftermath of Infinite Crisis, Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman have temporarily retired their costumed identities. The remaining heroes attend a memorial for Superboy in Metropolis. Booster Gold, once more a corporate-sponsored superhero who prevents crimes using knowledge of the future, attends the memorial. When Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman do not arrive as Booster expects, the unexpected change in history appears to make his robot sidekick Skeets malfunction. Skeets later reports other incorrect historical data despite the repairs of Will Magnus's, creator of the Metal Men. Seeking answers, Booster and Skeets search time traveler Rip Hunter's desert bunker, which is littered with scrawled notes about recent and future events (See "Rip Hunter's lab" below). Booster finds his own photo, surrounded by multiple scribblings of the words "his fault" .

Ralph Dibny, the retired Elongated Man, finds out that his late wife Sue's tombstone has been vandalized, the news coming in time to interrupt his suicide attempt. Dibny confronts Cassandra Sandsmark at Titans Tower, accusing her of leaving a message on the tombstone: an inverted version of Superman's S-symbol, which in Kryptonian means "resurrection." Sandsmark and other members of the Kryptonian-based Cult of Conner submerge Dibny underwater, telling him that he will see visions of the afterlife. Dibny bursts out of the water to find himself alone and his wedding ring gone. Dibny tries to get Booster to help him investigate the Cult of Conner. Angered by Booster's shallowness, and realizing that Booster knows the future and perhaps could have saved his wife, Dibny attacks him. When Booster disperses a mob, an actor he hired for a staged battle over Metropolis comes forward, telling Lois Lane and the assembled press the truth. Dibny calls Booster a fraud and tells him that he let his friends down. Later in Star City, Dibny and Green Arrow find a Cult of Conner hideout, which has a cloning tank similar to those owned by Robin and the Brotherhood of Evil in the "One Year Later" stories.

A mysterious new superhero saves many lives, appearing in a blinding light and disappearing, making Booster, whose reputation is ruined, jealous and angry. The Daily Star gets an exclusive on the new hero, giving him the name of Supernova. Perry White later gives Clark Kent a notice of termination. Perry says that Clark has lost his edge and has no need for a burned out reporter working on his paper. In an attempt to redeem himself, Clark spots Supernova flying near the Daily Planet and hurls himself out of the window, forcing the hero to save him. At home, Clark explains to a worried Lois Lane that Supernova seems to be a fine hero, caring and expert on the field. The same stunt that started Lois' career as the Superman reporter has reignited Clark's career, although Supernova still refuses to divulge any information about himself to Clark.

Booster Gold, having been outed as arranging the catastrophes he has been flying in and stopping because now he can no longer rely upon the information from the future given to him by his sidekick Skeets. As the present continues to deviate from the timeline chronicled in Booster Gold's future, Booster can no longer rely on his friend's data, and now that a new superhero has arrived as the champion of Metropolis, the hero named Supernova, he has begun to lose his endorsements and sponsorships, Booster ends up angry and, again, flat broke. He asks Skeets to perform a cross-checking in his own historical records to sort out the mysteries of Supernova. But Skeets, arguing that Supernova was never recorded by history, claims that the current past has now totally diverged from the one Booster knew, and they must live in the present, planning out the next move for the immediate future. Booster can think only of vengeance, and takes off searching for the new hero.

The Question hires alcoholic ex-cop Renee Montoya to surveil an abandoned storefront at 520 Kane Street in Gotham. Inside, Montoya and the Question are attacked by a hulking humanoid. In the scuffle, Montoya uncovers futuristic guns. Montoya visits her former lover Kate Kane, heiress to a wealthy Gotham family and questions her about her family's connection to Kane Street. Kate agrees to help. The Question later reveals to Montoya that Intergang is targeting Gotham and stockpiling the weapons for an invasion. Batwoman watches from a rooftop.

Black Adam pledges to be an ambassador of justice to the world. Protecting his nation's border, he forbids Power Girl free entry into Kahndaq airspace and kills Intergang representatives who make an offer to transport their weapons through his country. Black Adam creates the Freedom of Power Treaty, forging a coalition with North Korea, Myanmar, and China against the United States' metahuman supremacy. While arresting Evil Star, Hal Jordan and John Stewart fight the new Chinese superhero team Great Ten in Chinese airspace. As the Green Lanterns escape with their captive, Black Adam arrives and forces them to retreat.

Several weeks later, Black Adam, no longer able to revert to his persona of Theo Adam, invities ambassadors for all the countries who signed the Freddom of Power Treaty, including a Rocket Red operative from Russia, to Khandaq. Adrianna Tomaz, who was offered to Black Adam as a slave from Intergang several weeks earlier, escapes from the guards inside the palace. She calls Adam a terrorist and spits in his face. Adam allows her to be held in a luxorius holding cell and later claims that she would have been sent home back to Cairo, if her parents weren't already dead and her brother sold into slavery. He apoligizes and sets her free. Adrianna convices Adam to reconsider the treaty, which she views as an act of revenge against the American metahumans, and points out Adam's own loneliness before leaving.

Steel (John Henry Irons) argues with his niece Natasha about responsibility and deactivates her armor. Gotham City police discover what appears to be ex-president Lex Luthor's dead body. During the autopsy, Irons finds colored contact lenses that appear to have been put in post-mortem. Luthor storms into the autopsy with a group of reporters, declaring the impostor to be at fault for crimes with which he has been charged. Retiring from his hero career, Irons later disassembles his own Steel armor; he discovers, however, that his body is changing, and he is now able to change his skin to stainless steel. He suspects that Lex Luthor, who is offering metagene therapy for regular people, is responsible. Natasha, frustrated with the trouble she is having rebuilding her armor, finds out about Irons' new powers, and she accuses him of being a hypocrite. Natasha goes to LexCorp, where Luthor selects her as the first official subject for the metagene therapy. An enraged Irons, now fully a man of steel, attacks Luthor at a party and threatens him to return Natasha. Natasha and a squad of metahumans save Luthor from Irons. Irons tries to convince Natasha to come home, but she refuses and beats him.

The Challengers of the Unknown redirect a Zeta Beam signal toward Earth. The Zeta Beam strikes, revealing six injured heroes: a gigantic Hawkgirl, Alan Scott bleeding from his left eye, Mal Duncan with metal shards protruding from his body, a shrunken Bumblebee, and Cyborg and Firestorm fused together. Doctor Mid-Nite attends to the wounded heroes with the help of Irons. During a medical crisis, a message plays from a part of the Red Tornado that is embedded in Duncan: "It's coming! 52! 52!".

Animal Man, Starfire, and Adam Strange are marooned on an alien planet. Strange, blind from the loss of his eyes, struggles to repair a damaged Thanagarian spaceship. Shaking off the effects of an addictive fruit, Starfire explores the planet and is discovered by a giant humanoid. Strange and Animal Man find Starfire, but the giant, Devilance the Pursuer, captures them. Devilance was sent to capture the heroes, who are guilty of having seen something during the battle in space that some consider humans unfit to see. The three steal Devilance's lance for use as a power source for their ship.

Dr. Magnus visits T. O. Morrow at the Haven confinement center. Morrow reads an article reporting the abduction of Dr. Sivana and comes to the conclusion that someone has been "rounding up" mad scientists, including Ira Quimby, Dr. Death, Dr. Tyme and Dr. Cyclops. The two are being observed by a mysterious "Great One". Some time later, during another meeting, Magnus tells Morrow that authorities gave him access to Sivana's labs. While Morrow keeps making cryptic allusions at his role in the future histories, a worried Magnus shows him a cocoon of a creature whose evolution was forced by radiation therapy, apparently a Mister Mind cocoon, fully hatched.

Back-up stories

History of the DC Universe

As well, a back-up storyline entitled History of the DC Universe will run in ten parts in the back of Weeks 2-11, just as DC Comics published a similar history in a two-issue limited series at the conclusion of Crisis on Infinite Earths in 1985. The story of the universe's history is seen through the eyes of Donna Troy as she explores it through the late Harbinger's recording device. Dan Jurgens and Art Thibert are the creative team for History. [link]

Secret Origins

From Week 12 to 52, the back-up feature will be Secret Origins. [link] The origins are scheduled to be:

One Year Later

Publishing simultaneously with 52 is the One Year Later event throughout the DC Universe, set a year after Infinite Crisis. 52 depicts events that during the year in between.

Notes

References to the number \"52\"

Reinforcing the title, the number 52 appears, in the background of panels within the 52 series; as the series continues, however, the number 52 features more prominently, appearing in the foreground or in dialogue. The number is even mentioned by Dominators in Legion of Super-Heroes. It should also be noted that the way the 52 logo appears is like the Greek symbol of omega.

*The atomic time lock is set to open on midnight, January 1, 52 B.C.
*A list of numbered papers 51.53.54.56, with the conspicuously missing 52.
*A sheet with 520 Kane St., the address the Question meets Renee Montoya.
*The chalkboard is headlined with "Time is Broken" and peppered randomly with "52."
*Te versus (Au +Pb) Te is the symbol for Tellurium, element 52
*All the clocks are set at 12:52 am, or 00:52(52)
  • Steel watches WLII, a news channel. In Roman numerals, LII means 52.
  • When Renee is looking at the baseball game between the Gotham Knights and the Stars from Star City, the Stars are winning 5-2.
  • Devilance refers to the "two score and twelve walls of heaven" - two score and twelve being 52.

    • Rip Hunter's lab

    When Booster enters Rip Hunter's bunker, he finds it in disarray. Among the details of Hunter's lab, a giant globe is marked with red X's and the words "World War III Why? How?” A time machine sits broken. Notes scrawled everywhere indicate that there is a problem with the time stream, and as noted above, the number 52 figures prominently in these writings. Many of the writings foreshadow and refer to DC Universe events and characters, some of which are not yet introduced by the time of Booster's discovery.[link] A multitude of clocks are all stopped at 11:52. Monitors show images of Rosa Parks, Abraham Lincoln, a sailing ship with the flag of the Knights Templar, Elvis Presley, the Boston Tea Party, and a dinosaur.

    Papers on the floor bear the titles of canceled DC series, including superhero comic Infinity Inc., 1940s humor title Casey the Cop, and Silverblade, a 1980s limited series about an actor-turned vigilante. Also on the floor is a book titled Who's Who, using the logo for the DC series of the same name, and two notes: "FIND THE SUN DEVILS" and "What is spanner's galaxy?"

    Booster Gold enters Rip Hunter's bunker. 52 Week Six. Breakdowns by Keith Giffen. Pencils by Joe Bennett. Inks by Ruy Jose.
    Enlarge
    Booster Gold enters Rip Hunter's bunker. 52 Week Six. Breakdowns by Keith Giffen. Pencils by Joe Bennett. Inks by Ruy Jose.

    A set of blackboards is covered with more clues:

    References

    External links

     

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