52 Week One

Golden Lads & Lasses Must ...

Written by Geoff Johns, Grant Morrison, Greg Rucka, Mark Waid
Art Breakdowns by Keith Giffen
Pencils by Joe Bennett
Inks by Ruy Jose
Colors by Alex Sinclair
Lettering by Nick J. Napolitano
Assistant Editors Jann Jones & Harvey Richards
Edited by Stephen Wacker
Cover by J.G. Jones & Alex Sinclair

Our cover shows the abandoned relics of DC's Big Three — Batman's cowl, Wonder Woman's sword and lasso, and Superman's cape. It's a haunting image that effectively shows us this series isn't going to focus on those heroes, but the "C-list" heroes in the background — Steel, Ralph Dibny, the Question, Booster Gold and Renee Montoya. It's cold, bleak and captivating.

One interesting thing of note with this cover is that it includes the actual date it was published: May 10, 2006. This bucks the decades-long trend of putting the publication date on comics two months later than when they actually came out. For example, Teen Titans #36 came out on May 24, 2006, but the date on its cover says July 2006. I've been organizing this blog by publication date for convenience, but now this 52 series is going to mess with me slightly.

Our story begins with an abstract image of significant moments in DC history represented as shards of glass swirling and converging into the one remaining Earth after Infinite Crisis. These moments include Barry Allen turning into the Flash, a young Dick Grayson being kissed by Starfire, and Superboy kissing Wonder Girl.

We then dive into the first week between Infinite Crisis and One Year Later. Ralph Dibny, the former Elongated Man, is still mourning the murder of his wife, Sue, in Identity Crisis. And now that his home has been destroyed during all the recent chaos, Ralph is suicidal. Detective Renee Montoya is mourning the death of her partner, Crispus Allen, who is now the Spectre. Renee is trying to drown her sorrows with copious amounts of alcohol, but she has attracted the attention of the Question. Steel has been spending his time with first responders around the country, helping clean up and rebuild all the cities that were practically leveled recently. He's disgusted with his niece, Natasha, who hasn't spent any time helping clean up and is trying to join the Teen Titans. So Steel deactivates her armor and tells her build her own.

But the most relevant story to us involves Booster Gold. He seems to have relaxed quite a bit since the defeat of Brother Eye and is all about self-promotion now. He's placed a few sponsorship ads on his outfit like a NASCAR racer, and is staging a very public battle against Mammoth. After he defeats the villain, Booster makes sure to pose for the cameras with a refreshing can of Soder-Cola. His robot Skeets reminds him that the world is still mourning the death of Superboy, so Booster puts on a show of weeping for the fallen hero.

Booster Gold flies away, excitedly looking forward to tomorrow's Superboy Memorial. Booster knows from the history books that this event is the defining moment of the century. Superman will give a speech that will be taught in schools for the next 500 years and Jimmy Olsen will win a Pulitzer for his photo of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman announcing the new Justice League. And, to make things better for Booster, Skeets has told him that he will be a member of this new JLA, which means Booster will likely gain even more sponsors.

Finally it's the day of the big memorial, and everyone who's anyone shows up. Green Arrow and Black Canary greet the Ray, rejoicing that he has survived, while lamenting the loss of the Freedom Fighters. Ray also reports that Uncle Sam still hasn't been found. In the big group shot, we see Empress and Beast Boy comforting a weeping Wonder Girl. (We also see Nightwing in the crowd, even though I thought he had already begun his trip around the world with Batman.) Bart Allen, who now has red hair, is talking to Jay Garrick and Wildcat. Apparently Wally's doing fine, but he and Linda just decided to spend some time away. Their twins are growing quite a bit and, according to Bart, are kind of annoying.

Bart reiterates the fact that his speed is gone and Jay is the only Flash now. Bart says he wishes he was fast enough to save Conner, and Jay says they all wish they could have saved him. Booster Gold is excitedly counting down the arrival of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. Beast Boy asks him where those heroes are, and Booster smugly tells him to relax. He then turns to the podium, placed right in front of the gold statue of Superman with an eagle on his arm (erected after he was killed by Doomsday) and the new gold statue of Superboy standing right next to him. Booster shouts out "Ta-daaaaaaa" but the heroes don't arrive.

Everyone gives Booster Gold the stink eye, and Skeets begins to malfunction. Booster has a panic attack, shouting that the future depends on this speech that inexplicably isn't happening right now. He spots Jimmy Olsen and angrily demands that he take the picture of the missing heroes. Martian Manhunter and a few others try to retrain Booster, including reporter Clark Kent, who tells Booster that Superman isn't coming. Booster hits Clark in the face, giving him a bloody nose and asks how he knows this. Clark simply replies, "I just know. And I'm sorry."




This series was pretty remarkable. Guided by four amazing writers, who each shared a love of comic book history and brought something different to the table, 52 provided a creative anchor to help guide readers into the post-Infinite Crisis world. And in a delightful change of pace, we got to see the DC Universe change and adapt through the eyes of the lesser known characters. Unfortunately for us, Bart Allen was not one of these lesser known characters to receive the honor of being written by Johns, Waid, Morrison and Rucka. Bart instead got his own series, which is an incredibly odd thing to complain about, but there you go.

In this issue, we got a couple of more little clues about Bart's time spent in the Speed Force. There are still a million questions about it all, like are Wally and his family still living in the Speed Force? But I guess those questions will have to wait. For now, I'm a little disappointed we didn't see Bart interacting with his old friends, especially Cassie, who is in the most grief after Conner's death. I'm also very concerned that a trend has already begun to make adult Bart look too much like Wally.

Next time, we'll get a quick reminder of Bart's days as Impulse and Kid Flash in the backup feature of 52 Week Eight.