So basically I've decided to devote my blog solely to reviews for Anime, DVD's, Movies, Comics, Books and posts detailing The Adventures of Albert and Chives(a forty part serial beginning in August!*). This time I'm reviewing comics! To be specific I'm reviewing an entire comic series, one that lasted for fifty-two issues and was published weekly for an entire year. The series in question is 52.
Name: 52
Publisher: DC
Produced: Mid 2006 - Mid 2007
Number of issues: Fifty-two
Availabilty: DC's currently releasing the series in a four volume trade-paperback format. This is your best(legal) option for reading the series as the books are rather inexspensive. The other method is to buy all fifty-two issues seperately. Be nice to your wallet, just buy the trades.
Review:
From 2005 to 2006 DC puplished a massive cross-over between all their titles known as Infinite Crisis. During this cross-over, heroes fell, trust was lost, bonds were broken, and millions of innocent civillians lost their lives. When all was over and done with DC titles all skipped a year forward in-continuity in an event known as One Year Later. During the skipped year Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman, the three heroes at the heart of Infinite Crisis, dissapeared, leaving the world to be defended by others. This is were 52 begins, chronicling the lost year from the point of view of DC's B-list superheroes(Booster Gold and Skeets, Adam Strange, Animal Man, Steel, The Question, Renee Montoya, the new Batwoman, Will Magnus, Natasha Irons, and Ralph Dibny, to name just a few of the characters this series spotlights). The reader is strung through quite a large number of storylines such as Question, Renee, and Batwoman's attempts to save Gotham(and the rest of the world) from the hands of Intergang and their hellish cult of crime. There's also the story of Lex Luthor's Everyman Project, Black Adam's rise and fall, World War III, and Ralph Dibny's quest to bring back his wife. There's something for everyone in this series really. Problem is, if you don't know quite a bit about the history of DC you're probably gonna be lost for quite a while.
When it comes straight down to it though, this is a pretty damn good series. The writing remains consistent, rarely will you read a poorly written issue, and the artwork is always highly detailed and a joy to look at(the covers, especially). Unless you despise DC and their characters you'll certainly enjoy 52. A suggestion though? If you don't know a damn thing about DC's storylines in recent years, check Wikipedia or read some of their more important stories(like Infinite Crisis, not really that great but it'll provide some backstory as to what the hell is going on, or Crisis on Infinite Earths, the first DC crisis) before this one.
Final Rating: 5/5
DC's been putting out a lot of **** books in recent years but this is certainly a diamond in the rough. Read it if you enjoy good writing and a schormgasbored(how the hell do you spell this?!) of interesting stories.
Rantings:
Unfortunately DC started a follow-up of sorts two months ago called Countdown, another year long, weekly series. Unfortunately Countdown's removed a few things from 52's formula that helped make it interesting, such as the real time element(each issue represented a single week of the story, while Countdown's issue represent a small portions of a full month) and the B-list main characters(Countdown focuses mainly on the better known heroes and characters). It's also supposedly pretty poorly written, has bad artwork, and is said to be just pretty damn uninteresting overall. Avoid it if you can. Me though? I'm latching on to this beast and riding it to the end, just so I can give you my sharpened opinion of the series in ten months, when it's over and DC's gearing up for Final Crisis.
*EDIT* - Reading through the first six issues or so of Countdown. The art's not as bad as I've heard, but the writing certainly is. Avoid it for now.
Signed,
ZeroWingEvil91 - Reading and watching through a sea of crap to bring you the good stuff since January 2007.
*Editors note: No idea on how long this'll actually be or a set date for when I actually start writing this, but I'll get to it eventually my dear Syrinx. Just for you.