Week Fifty-One
The secret of 52 is that the multiverse still exists. How much cooler would this week’s issue be if Dan Didio hadn’t let that little bit of information spill out all those months ago? 52 worlds. 52 Morrows. Apparently, a year ago, when Alexander Luthor’s hands were tearing open space and time, way out near the Rann-Thanagar Warzone, some heroes saw something. The Garden, as “Skeets” refers to it. Red Tornado made a map. It’s all building up to the fact that there are 52 alternate Earths still left after the events of Infinite Crisis. Not a bad little surprise, if’n you ask me. Too bad they couldn’t keep it as a surprise.
Anyway, let’s talk about what actually goes down this week. For starters, Buddy “Animal Man” Baker returns to Earth, much to his wife Ellen’s delight. Starfire also returns to Earth, to give Buddy’s jacket to the missus, only to find that Buddy’s still very much alive. Meanwhile, our third Space Adventurer, Adam Strange, wakes up to his home world of Rann, with newly restored eye-sight. All’s well that ends well. Lobo, meanwhile, returns the Emerald Eye of Ekron to his fish-god, right before he uses it to blast said fish-god into oblivion. Oh, and there’s also a memorial back on Earth for Conner Kent, who died last year in the Crisis. Robin explains the new suit (“they were his colors”), and Bruce Wayne meets up with Clark Kent.
The majority of the excitement this week, though, comes at the end, as all good excitement tends to do. “Skeets” breaks into Professor Morrow’s laboratory in the Rockies to get the Red Tornado head, which contains a map of the Garden I mentioned at the top. Booster Gold and Rip Hunter show up to stop him, and “Skeets” reveals who he really is. After all this time, we finally get a definitive answer as to who Skeets really is. The answer? Mister Mind. I kinda guessed it in the comments section of that old post, but I was still quite wrong. Heckuva surprise, ya ask me. That is a surprise that was literally fifty-one weeks in the making.
All in all, a solid week. Next week is for all the marbles, and I, for one, cannot wait. Don’t let World War III get you down, kids. 52 is still off the hook.
See ya in seven.
I really liked everything about the issue except the bits of all the heroes standing around. The WW3 fallout, as it were. They all seemed as ambivalent as I was to the “mega event.”
That image of Mr. Mind’s new form was really disturbing. I had to turn the page really quick. I’m such a baby.
Also, this week’s Supergirl & The Legion of Superheroes is a tie-in of sorts to 52…I’m sure I’ll adress that in my Meaningless Awards post.