52, Week 21 (Johns, Morrison, Rucka, Waid / Giffen, Bennet; DC, 2006)

Every Wednesday morning, I make a blind pull from Siri's (randomized) choice of one of the 20 alphabetically-organized shortboxes that constitute my comics collection, (re-) read it, write about it, and publish the resultant review/memory/whatever. Earlier installments live here.

(Box09): Probably not the best narrative to channel switch into 21 issues in but fond memories of DC's post-INFINITE CRISIS continuity experiments (One Year Later was mostly a success, IMO – mostly) and scrapped ideas nonethless manifest: in addition to Ralph Dibney and Dr. Fate's helmet looking for an entrance to hell and some mechanic in the middle of nowhere rebuilding Red Tornado, I'd forgotten that Lex Luthor had his The Seven in Infinity Inc ("The Everyman Project": in addition to Natasha Irons's "Starlight" codename, we get Lex in full LexCorp/Vought mode – Giancarlo Esposito's already playing him in THE BOYS, might as well make him Lex in SUPERMAN LEGACY because he'd be perfect); we even wade into anti-nepo-baby ("blood brat," excellent term) superheroics – before Lex kills one of them for ratings.

As for the 52 series as a whole (its sequel, COUNTDOWN, left much to be desired; think I made it a few issues in before giving up), my fondest memory is it being both the debut of Batwoman and Renee Montoya's The Question, two of my favorite characters of that era. In Rucka I trust, always; the GOTHAM CENTRAL omnibus beckons.

Always thought that weekly comics would make a great digital comics exclusive: how would 52 worked in today's iPad / DC Universe Infinite world? Given how piss-poorly mainstream comics are adjusting to and making use of digital possibilities, probably not as swimmingly as it should.