Has anyone read 52 by Geoff Johns and Morrison?

[theboychild]

Was it a good read and worth getting? Cheers!

[MajorHoy]

Was it a good read and worth getting? Cheers!

It was probably one of the best "event-type" series that DC has printed.

However, it does follow the events of Infinite Crisis, so you may want to look into first.
(Infinite Crisis may not be quite as good as 52 was, but it does set the table for some of the things that happened in 52.)

[theboychild]

It was probably one of the best "event-type" series that DC has printed.

However, it does follow the events of Infinite Crisis, so you may want to look into first.
(Infinite Crisis may not be quite as good as 52 was, but it does set the table for some of the things that happened in 52.)

Good to know! Thanks, man! I just wasn't sure if I like the art. It wasn't really my thing. Yes, I bought IC and COIE and will read those first. Have you also read Final Crisis? Can you give me a brief description about 52?

[MajorHoy]

Have you also read Final Crisis?

Haven't read Final Crisis; it looks too bizarre and intimidating to make it worth my while.

(Also, aside from the death of a major character, who does eventually get better by the end of Blackest Night, I've never really understood how much it may have impacted the overall DC universe for the long term.)

[SJNeal]

Infinite Crisis and 52 are both well worth your time. If you want, you can stop there.

Final Crisis has tenuous connections (at best) and while an okay read, isn't the masterpiece some have convinced themselves it is...

[Ascended]

Was it a good read and worth getting? Cheers!

Yes and yes.

As MajorHoy said, 52 is one of the best Event stories DC has ever told.

It followed up on the events of Infinite Crisis and sees the Trinity all take a year off from public superheroing, and explores the heroic community not only dealing with that vacuum, but also the fallout from Infinite Crisis and Identity Crisis.

The series ran as a year long weekly book, with different writers and art teams tackling different aspects, corners, and characters in the story. The art wasn't always as good as it could have been but it was usually a lot better than it had any right being, all things considered. And while certain plot lines dragged in places, for the most part everything was always entertaining week in and week out.

For a few years, 52 was the book I would use to lure new people into the comics hobby. I definitely recommend it.

52 fell in the middle of a kind of over-reaching narrative that ran through DC in the 00's. It started with Identity Crisis; a murder mystery focusing mostly on C-list characters that put a new, contemporary spin on certain Silver Age elements. It's a polarizing story and may not be up your alley (I'd read some reviews if I were you) but I myself rather enjoyed it, despite a few things here and there I didn't care for.

Then it went into Infinite Crisis, which is a big universe-ending threat.....standard Crisis stuff. Good read, but it wraps up a little too cleanly for my tastes, far too many problems get resolved far too quickly and easily to feel organic. But still, it's a solid read. There were a few miniseries that tied into it that were all worth reading on their own merits as well, though all these years later its the OMAC Project mini that really stands out in my mind.

Then we had 52.

The follow up to 52 was Countdown, another weekly year long series. Don't read it. It's not good. At all.

Final Crisis is largely its own thing, and doesn't really tie into 52 beyond being set in the DCU and using certain characters that 52 also used. I think its worth reading on its own merits, but it's Grant Morrison at his most Morrison-y, so unless you're a big Morrison fan and/or you're really into head trip confusing narratives, you might want to skip it. At least for now. The concepts and ideas are amazing, but its a weird crazy story. There were also a few miniseries that were supposed to tie into Final Crisis, but I think the story works far better without them; the minis just muddy the waters. Except Superman Beyond. That ties into the ending of Final Crisis but it's an excellent story on its own (as all Superman stories written by Morrison are) and is worth reading regardless of other considerations.

[BatmanJones]

Infinite Crisis and 52 are both well worth your time. If you want, you can stop there.

Final Crisis has tenuous connections (at best) and while an okay read, isn't the masterpiece some have convinced themselves it is...

I'll say what I say whenever Final Crisis comes up... It needs a locksmith. No comic should need one but this one does and luckily one exists and has done the job. Our very own @Rikdad's posts on Final Crisis are filled with revelations. One shouldn't need a PhD to read a comic book event but Rikdad makes it easy and fun. His blog posts on it are also a really enjoyable read. You can find the first of them here:

https://rikdad.blogspot.com/2018/01/...ew-part-i.html

I think they'd even be enjoyable reading if you never read Final Crisis. He does Batman level detective work to unlock this weirder than hell Grant Morrison opus. I'm not a dumb guy and I don't typically need help understanding literature that is considered dense or even impenetrable (Samuel Beckett's work, all of it, is some of my favorite easy reading though I do trip up on Joyce). When I first read Final Crisis I thought it was unnecessarily complicated, didn't really make sense, was pretentious, was bad-Morrison (a thing I believed in before reading Rikdad posts). When I read the retro reviews Rikdad posted and finally understood where everything came from I realized how brilliant a series it really was.

That never happens to me. In this case it happened like crazy. After reading the blog posts I re-read Final Crisis and saw it for a masterpiece.

I don't even think it's possible for someone to fully or anywhere close to fully "get" Final Crisis without the Rikdad Companion. It's that vital. So very few people (a handful) have truly appreciated it in the way it was meant to be appreciated.

And I respect Morrison for not dumbing it down or feeding it to us. It reminds me of a note from the great, experimental playwright and theatre director Richard Foreman who tells his actors to play for the smartest person in the room and assume they will ALL get it, whether there's enough there for them to actually get it or not. I think that's a brazen way to be an artist and also a brave and bold one. On the one hand, a LOT of people will never get Foreman's work. But for the ones that do, it's richer than anything else. That's Morrison/Final Crisis as interpreted by @Rikdad for me all over.

As to the reason for the thread, 52 was super fun and never boring. I've probably read it 3 times and I know I'll read it more times. As DC events go it was a great one.

I also dearly loved Infinite Crisis.

[theboychild]

Infinite Crisis and 52 are both well worth your time. If you want, you can stop there.

Final Crisis has tenuous connections (at best) and while an okay read, isn't the masterpiece some have convinced themselves it is...

Thanks for the input! Bought both books today! Excited to get into it. Is FC necessary to read after these two books? Or are they completely irrelevant? I heard that FC concludes the entire Crisis series.

[theboychild]

Yes and yes.

As MajorHoy said, 52 is one of the best Event stories DC has ever told.

It followed up on the events of Infinite Crisis and sees the Trinity all take a year off from public superheroing, and explores the heroic community not only dealing with that vacuum, but also the fallout from Infinite Crisis and Identity Crisis.

The series ran as a year long weekly book, with different writers and art teams tackling different aspects, corners, and characters in the story. The art wasn't always as good as it could have been but it was usually a lot better than it had any right being, all things considered. And while certain plot lines dragged in places, for the most part everything was always entertaining week in and week out.

For a few years, 52 was the book I would use to lure new people into the comics hobby. I definitely recommend it.

52 fell in the middle of a kind of over-reaching narrative that ran through DC in the 00's. It started with Identity Crisis; a murder mystery focusing mostly on C-list characters that put a new, contemporary spin on certain Silver Age elements. It's a polarizing story and may not be up your alley (I'd read some reviews if I were you) but I myself rather enjoyed it, despite a few things here and there I didn't care for.

Then it went into Infinite Crisis, which is a big universe-ending threat.....standard Crisis stuff. Good read, but it wraps up a little too cleanly for my tastes, far too many problems get resolved far too quickly and easily to feel organic. But still, it's a solid read. There were a few miniseries that tied into it that were all worth reading on their own merits as well, though all these years later its the OMAC Project mini that really stands out in my mind.

Then we had 52.

The follow up to 52 was Countdown, another weekly year long series. Don't read it. It's not good. At all.

Final Crisis is largely its own thing, and doesn't really tie into 52 beyond being set in the DCU and using certain characters that 52 also used. I think its worth reading on its own merits, but it's Grant Morrison at his most Morrison-y, so unless you're a big Morrison fan and/or you're really into head trip confusing narratives, you might want to skip it. At least for now. The concepts and ideas are amazing, but its a weird crazy story. There were also a few miniseries that were supposed to tie into Final Crisis, but I think the story works far better without them; the minis just muddy the waters. Except Superman Beyond. That ties into the ending of Final Crisis but it's an excellent story on its own (as all Superman stories written by Morrison are) and is worth reading regardless of other considerations.

Very well said! Thank you for the thorough insight! I bought both books today, as well as COIE. Looking forward to reading it. I might as well give it a go with FC since it concludes the series. Isn't it part of the 'Crisis trilogy' along with IC and COIE?

[theboychild]

I'll say what I say whenever Final Crisis comes up... It needs a locksmith. No comic should need one but this one does and luckily one exists and has done the job. Our very own @Rikdad's posts on Final Crisis are filled with revelations. One shouldn't need a PhD to read a comic book event but Rikdad makes it easy and fun. His blog posts on it are also a really enjoyable read. You can find the first of them here:

https://rikdad.blogspot.com/2018/01/...ew-part-i.html

I think they'd even be enjoyable reading if you never read Final Crisis. He does Batman level detective work to unlock this weirder than hell Grant Morrison opus. I'm not a dumb guy and I don't typically need help understanding literature that is considered dense or even impenetrable (Samuel Beckett's work, all of it, is some of my favorite easy reading though I do trip up on Joyce). When I first read Final Crisis I thought it was unnecessarily complicated, didn't really make sense, was pretentious, was bad-Morrison (a thing I believed in before reading Rikdad posts). When I read the retro reviews Rikdad posted and finally understood where everything came from I realized how brilliant a series it really was.

That never happens to me. In this case it happened like crazy. After reading the blog posts I re-read Final Crisis and saw it for a masterpiece.

I don't even think it's possible for someone to fully or anywhere close to fully "get" Final Crisis without the Rikdad Companion. It's that vital. So very few people (a handful) have truly appreciated it in the way it was meant to be appreciated.

And I respect Morrison for not dumbing it down or feeding it to us. It reminds me of a note from the great, experimental playwright and theatre director Richard Foreman who tells his actors to play for the smartest person in the room and assume they will ALL get it, whether there's enough there for them to actually get it or not. I think that's a brazen way to be an artist and also a brave and bold one. On the one hand, a LOT of people will never get Foreman's work. But for the ones that do, it's richer than anything else. That's Morrison/Final Crisis as interpreted by @Rikdad for me all over.

As to the reason for the thread, 52 was super fun and never boring. I've probably read it 3 times and I know I'll read it more times. As DC events go it was a great one.

I also dearly loved Infinite Crisis.

Thank you for pointing me out to this link! Very helpful. I'm just concerned that FC will be too difficult to read/follow - as you've already mentioned. Now I'm unsure if FC is really THAT necessary, although it's part of the 'Crisis trilogy'.

Can't wait to read IC and 52, but I'll have to read COIE first.

[Ascended]

Very well said! Thank you for the thorough insight! I bought both books today, as well as COIE. Looking forward to reading it. I might as well give it a go with FC since it concludes the series. Isn't it part of the 'Crisis trilogy' along with IC and COIE?

It's a "trilogy" in that there's three of them, but that's about as far as it goes really. In most respects, Final Crisis is very much its own thing.

I mean, definitely read it, because it's a great story. Just don't think of it as a sequel to Infinite Crisis.

[Vordan]

52 is one of the best “events” ever. A dream writing team of Johns, Waid, Morrison, and Rucka focusing on the B and C-Listers telling the story of a year without the Trinity. I doubt we’ll ever see something that good again.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

It's a "trilogy" in that there's three of them, but that's about as far as it goes really. In most respects, Final Crisis is very much its own thing.

I mean, definitely read it, because it's a great story. Just don't think of it as a sequel to Infinite Crisis.

I wouldn't even consider them the same thing. Crisis on Infinite Earths and Infinite Crisis are two stories where the latter is clearly meant as a sequel to the other. The term Crisis in DC has existed long before those two stories and merely meant "DC crossover that concerns the multiverse". Final Crisis follows in the tradition of those.

[Franny6422]

Still think 'Dark Nights, Metal' should had been titled 'Dark Crisis.' Dark Nights?

[MajorHoy]

I wouldn't even consider them the same thing. Crisis on Infinite Earths and Infinite Crisis are two stories where the latter is clearly meant as a sequel to the other. The term Crisis in DC has existed long before those two stories and merely meant "DC crossover that concerns the multiverse". Final Crisis follows in the tradition of those.

I think if there's a "trilogy", it would more likely to be:

* Crisis on Infinite Earths

* Zero Hour (subtitled "Crisis in Time")


* Infinite Crisis

CoIE was the first BIG shakeup to the entire DC universe; Zero Hour tried to clean up the mistakes/confusion in the +/-ten years since CoIE; and Infinite Crisis undid/tweaked some of the changes resulting from both CoIE and Zero Hour.