Wanna get into DC Comics, but don’t know where to start?
You’ve come to the right place.
This is Issue at Hand.
Welcome back to Issue at Hand, Polygon’s show about the strange world of comics.
I’m your host, Susana Polo, and we’re back from vacation!
New set!
New suit jacket!
New season!
And what better way to start it off than by addressing a question that gets posed to me
constantly: “OK, so, like, I know Batman and Superman
and Wonder Woman.
What else is there in the DC Universe?”
I have one answer.
It’s a comic about a year when Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman were gone — and every other
superhero had to step up and fill the void.
It’s the first appearance of some of my absolute favorite heroes — and a perfect
introduction for new readers to the dusty corners of the DC Universe.
It’s called 52, and it’s one of my all-time favorite comics.
Published from May 2006 to May 2007, the story of 52 spun out of DC’s Infinite Crisis event.
At the end of Infinite Crisis, Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman all decided they had to take
a year off.
Superman had recently flown through a red sun, for reasons, and needed some time to
literally recharge.
Wonder Woman and Batman had both had a crisis of confidence and needed time to get their
heads together.
Also Batman decided to take his Robins with him too, for ... family bonding, I guess.
While the rest of DC’s books skipped ahead twelve months, 52 was going to tell the story
of what happened in a year without the world’s most famous superheroes.
Which necessarily meant that it was about some not-famous superheroes.
But that wasn’t the only special thing about 52.
52 derives its name from its concept.
It was DC’s first successful weekly series; telling a year’s worth of story in a year’s
worth of time.
As close as comics could get to their very own 24.
In order to accomplish this, 52 had to be made like a TV show, too.
Fifteen artists worked on the series, with Keith Giffen overseeing page layouts for consistency.
52 had a writers room, too, and what writers!
Geoff Johns, who is now chief creative officer of DC Comics and architect of DC’s cinematic
universe — comic book superstars Grant Morrison and Mark Waid — and Greg Rucka, who’s
written some of my favorite comics of all time.
Which you should know, because I made videos about them.
52’s success is why the number 52 remains associated with DC Comics.
It’s why there are precisely 52 parallel earths in the DC multiverse.
And it’s why the New 52, DC’s 2011 reboot and relaunch of fifty-two different books,
was called “the New 52.”
Now, you’re probably wondering: Susana, how could a book about obscure characters
be the best choice for new readers?
Because character obscurity is actually key to 52’s accessibility.
The 52 writers room knew that it couldn’t count on readers knowing who the core cast
was — so they had to provide background exposition.
And they had to make the reader care about the characters within the story itself — they
didn’t have the crutch of a reader’s fond history with them, because … they probably
didn’t have one.
And fair warning — if you read 52, you will become someone who gets excited about Elongated Man.
That’s an Issue at Hand Guarantee.
And Ralph Dibny is just the beginning.
52 consists of seven storylines that occasionally — sometimes explosively — intersect.
You could just pick up the book and start reading, but I’ll give you a bit of a teaser.
Ralph Dibny used to be the Elongated Man, a superhero who drank this stuff called gingold
to give himself stretching powers — and solved mysteries with his wife Sue, like a
comic book Nick and Nora Charles.
A little while ago, Sue was horribly murdered, and Ralph is... not doing so well.
Again, 52 tells you pretty much all of this — and this is really all you need to know.
Will Magnus invented the Metal Men — a team of intelligent android superheroes — then
he had a psychotic break.
He was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and, thanks to therapy and regular medication,
he’s a lot better now — but he still maintains his ties to the rest of the mad scientist
community.
It’s those ties that give him a role in 52 — he’s the only one who seems to notice
that rogue scientists across the world have begun disappearing.
Booster Gold is — well, I’ll let Skeets say it.
In the 25th century, Booster was a nobody.
Until he stole a bunch of stuff from a museum about 20th century superheroes and traveled
to our time.
He uses devices from that museum to give himself superpowers and the encyclopedic history record
of a museum robot — Skeets — to stop crime without working too hard.
What he really wants, though, is fame — and corporate sponsorship.
Black Adam is the archnemesis of Captain Marvel — no, not that one — this one.
He goes by Shazam now.
In a nutshell, Black Adam was the Shazam of ancient Egypt, able to say a magic word and
gain the powers of six Egyptian gods.
Today, he’s the theocratic ruler of the middle eastern country of Khandaq.
He’s trying to unite governments who want to keep American superheroes out of their
countries, but he’s having trouble with… politics.
Steel’s real name is John Henry Irons.
When Superman died in the ’90s, he decided that Metropolis needed help.
So naturally, he built a Superman-inspired power suit to fight crime with.
Think of him like… if Tony Stark wasn’t a billionaire narcissist.
His niece, Natasha, is his sidekick, and the two of them come into conflict with Lex Luthor,
who is back on his bullshit — now that he’s no longer president of the United States — because
he tried to kill Superman.
Starfire is an alien princess.
Adam Strange is a human who periodically teleports to a planet where he’s a superhero.
Animal Man is Buddy Baker.
Aliens gave him the power to share the abilities of any animal life around him.
The three of them were stranded in deep space by a horrible teleportation accident at the
end of Infinite Crisis.
Now, they’re hopelessly searching for a way home.
And finally — my favorites of the whole bunch — Detective Renee Montoya and the
Question.
If you read Gotham Central after I recommended it, 52 picks up on Renee where that series
left off.
Her family has disowned her for being gay, and she quit the force after the corrupt cop
who killed her partner walked free.
Vic Sage is the Question, a detective and vigilante whose mask is a layer of artificial
skin that gives him the appearance of having no facial features.
Yeah, the Question was a major influence on Rorschach, but he’s WAY better.
Together, Renee and the Question go on one of my favorite superhero origin stories — one
that also happens to contain the first appearance of one of my favorite superheroes.
Between those seven plotlines, 52 manages to cover every mood of the DC Universe — magic,
time travel, weird science, caped heroes, noir crime and epic space adventure.
It gets weird and wild — but it keeps its feet on the ground by investing in great characters
and relatable emotion.
You can pick all 52 issues up digitally, or you can grab DC’s handy two volume set.
And when you need someone to talk about Elongated Man … I’ll be here.