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A review by crookedtreehouse
52, Vol. 1 by Geoff Johns
4.0
When it comes to brand alliance, I'm definitely more Team Marvel than Team DC. I think this has a lot to do with age, the era I got into comics (late 80s/early 90s), and political mores. (I don't think either company necessarily wants to court partisanship but as someone who has worked in comic retail for twenty years, the more progressive someone is, the more likely they are to prefer Marvel over DC. It's not an absolute but it's fairly accurate.)
Thanks to The Animated Series, I love as many Batman titles as I love X-Men books. The original Teen Titans show got me to read the 80s and 90s Teen Titan books. The events leading up to Blackest Night got me into reading all of Geoff Johns's Green Lantern run, his Flash run, and some of the older Green Lantern books. I've read most of The DC Event Books. Basically, anything with the word "Crisis" in it. I've read an assortment of Wonder Woman books. I tried to enjoy the New 52 but much of DC's universe just doesn't appeal to me.
This is part of why I hadn't read 52 until now. The other part is that when I was working in a new store, with a new coworker back in 2007, she recommended I read the weekly DC comic Countdown. And I read issues 52-50 (it started at 52 and eventually wound down to 0, followed by Final Crisis). I hated them. I asked why she recommended it, and she said "Oh, once you get to issue six, it gets really good." And when I said "You want me to read forty-sox bad issues to appreciate that one of them ends up being good?"
I never took her advice again, and I avoided 52.
The latter was a mistake. 52 is not at all in the same tone as the Justice League Unlimited series, but it's in the same scope, and has a similar appeal. In this series, Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman have disappeared. So we follow other Justice League members as their stories intersect, veer away from each other, and intersect with even more stories. There's a noir story with Rene Montoya (from Batman The Animated Series, and Gotham Central), a capitalist comedy of errors with Booster Gold, a dystopian anti-hero tale with Black Adam, a mystery/supernatural/team building story with Elongated Man still reeling from the effects of Identity Crisis, and a space epic with Starfire, Animal Man and Adam Strange. They're all pretty good.
Between each issue one of the four main writers: [a:Geoff Johns|10305|Geoff Johns|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1403679910p2/10305.jpg] , [a:Grant Morrison|12732|Grant Morrison|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1587378296p2/12732.jpg][a:Greg Rucka|18327|Greg Rucka|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1192549912p2/18327.jpg], or [a:Mark Waid|5363|Mark Waid|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1281876586p2/5363.jpg] talk about how the series was evolving as it was being written. The breakdowns are only about a page long, so it's more interesting tidbits than exhaustive backpatting.
This volume has me really excited to finish the series, and might get me to tackle one or two of the many DC reads I've been putting off: the Batman Who Laughs continuity, rereading Blackest Night, or even tackling the 80s Teen Titans run.
I recommend this series to anyone who's deep into DC continuity, fans of the non-Justice League level characters in the DCU, and fans of Johns, Morrison, Rucka, and Waid (for real, that's an amazing lineup of writers) who are curious to see how they'd work together to put out a 52 issue series.
Thanks to The Animated Series, I love as many Batman titles as I love X-Men books. The original Teen Titans show got me to read the 80s and 90s Teen Titan books. The events leading up to Blackest Night got me into reading all of Geoff Johns's Green Lantern run, his Flash run, and some of the older Green Lantern books. I've read most of The DC Event Books. Basically, anything with the word "Crisis" in it. I've read an assortment of Wonder Woman books. I tried to enjoy the New 52 but much of DC's universe just doesn't appeal to me.
This is part of why I hadn't read 52 until now. The other part is that when I was working in a new store, with a new coworker back in 2007, she recommended I read the weekly DC comic Countdown. And I read issues 52-50 (it started at 52 and eventually wound down to 0, followed by Final Crisis). I hated them. I asked why she recommended it, and she said "Oh, once you get to issue six, it gets really good." And when I said "You want me to read forty-sox bad issues to appreciate that one of them ends up being good?"
I never took her advice again, and I avoided 52.
The latter was a mistake. 52 is not at all in the same tone as the Justice League Unlimited series, but it's in the same scope, and has a similar appeal. In this series, Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman have disappeared. So we follow other Justice League members as their stories intersect, veer away from each other, and intersect with even more stories. There's a noir story with Rene Montoya (from Batman The Animated Series, and Gotham Central), a capitalist comedy of errors with Booster Gold, a dystopian anti-hero tale with Black Adam, a mystery/supernatural/team building story with Elongated Man still reeling from the effects of Identity Crisis, and a space epic with Starfire, Animal Man and Adam Strange. They're all pretty good.
Between each issue one of the four main writers: [a:Geoff Johns|10305|Geoff Johns|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1403679910p2/10305.jpg] , [a:Grant Morrison|12732|Grant Morrison|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1587378296p2/12732.jpg][a:Greg Rucka|18327|Greg Rucka|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1192549912p2/18327.jpg], or [a:Mark Waid|5363|Mark Waid|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1281876586p2/5363.jpg] talk about how the series was evolving as it was being written. The breakdowns are only about a page long, so it's more interesting tidbits than exhaustive backpatting.
This volume has me really excited to finish the series, and might get me to tackle one or two of the many DC reads I've been putting off: the Batman Who Laughs continuity, rereading Blackest Night, or even tackling the 80s Teen Titans run.
I recommend this series to anyone who's deep into DC continuity, fans of the non-Justice League level characters in the DCU, and fans of Johns, Morrison, Rucka, and Waid (for real, that's an amazing lineup of writers) who are curious to see how they'd work together to put out a 52 issue series.