52 Weeks + World War III = Zip 4 Readers

“Oh my god! Did that Suck” –Bill Murray, Scrooged (1988)


52 Week 50 and World War III parts 1-4

The Upshot from DC Comics: The end is near! As the year races towards its close, we follow our heroes through their final steps in space — and time! From the mean streets of Gotham to the far reaches of deep space, the last weeks tick down to their shattering conclusion. World War III is just the beginning!

In some 30 years of reading comic book stories, we can say without a doubt that never have we spent so much time, money and emotional investment on a story and received so little in return.

Bad enough that 52 was the continuation of Infinite Crisis, itself a very, very bad story and a would-be sequel to one of the greatest DC Comic epochs ever told (CRISIS on Infinite Earths).

Much like Infinite Crisis, 52 started out with promise but it has so utterly failed to deliver on just about everything it promised. Given its true and daring nature, we were prepared to give this weekly comic book “experiment” a lot of slack…that is until we were conned into purchasing all four parts of World War III.

World War III purported to fill in the blanks regarding the DC Universe and the missing year that 52 were supposed to do. Why couldn't 52 perform the task when it literally had a year's worth of story hole to do it???? It only confirms what we suspected while reading that the committee of writers made it up as they went along.

When we get to the actual story, the 52 gang has managed to take the only story and character that we actually cared about—Black Adam—and gone from Zero to Absurd in just a handful of issues.

Ok so the mad scientists take down Black Adam a couple issues back but a newly enhanced Captain Marvel—to say nothing of an uber telepathic Martian Manhunter are flipped like a cheese omelet. Does Wizard Marvel control the power of Shazam or not?

Another bone to pick with DC is that when we purchased the four WW3 issues plus the weekly issue of 52….the reader is given no earthly idea where to start first…so we followed the cover of 52 Week 50 “World War Three Begins Here” except it featured climax of the Black Adam battle. UGH!

So having been spoiled to the outcome, we dived into the four World War III books and grew more annoyed as it was just one long hodgepodge of DCU characters thrown together.

World War III was sold as the place where readers finally learned what happened during the missing year—but the reader learns nothing really new and it’s painfully obvious that its nothing more than an after-the fact attempt to shoe-horn in the One Year Later changes.

Example: We know that OYL Donna Troy will take up Diana’s armor to fill in as Wonder Woman but there is no explanation as to why she does this…she sees Diana’s armor, puts it on and off she goes.

Ditto with Supergirl apparently split in two as she returns from her Infinite Crisis mission on the other side of the galaxy—one going to the future and the Legion of Super Heroes, the other staying in the here and now.

After the turd sandwich called Infinite Crisis that DC force fed readers, they followed up with 52. The great “experiment” know as 52 is nothing less than the world’s longest and most elaborately staged fart gag—and the stink bomb finally hit with World War III.

Writers Keith Champagne and John Ostrander do their very best with what they have to work with and there are a few compelling moments—mainly around the already compelling character of the Martian Manhunter, as well as a foreshadowing of Ostrander’s upcoming Suicide Squad reunion mini-series—and they actually manage to craft four quite readable issues. Yet it’s the ultimate outcome that’s to too absurd to look past.

The bottom line is—no matter how much lipstick they manage to apply—there is no making this pig look like Power Girl.