Meanwhile...

In the DCU Green Room...

I don't know about everyone else, but I'm still checking out Keith Giffen's sketch's every week. Not only do I get further insights into the story of 52, (for example, in the sketch it's clearer that Devem intentionally started the fire), but it's also fun to see how a book is put together, and how artistic choices down to rendering and inking stage effect the story telling.

And as for the comic itself, I'm going to go on record as saying what I'm enjoying most is what most reviewers seem to hate (no, not the History of the DC Universe, starring Donna Troy. THAT was awful).

I'm enjoying the inconsistency. The fact that one week you'll get the Question, but then you might not see him again for a month while we focus on people entirely unlike him. Reviewers who like street level crime fiction are disappointed when an issue focuses on Isis, reviewers who like heroes LOST IN OUTER SPAAAAACE are disappointed when an issue focuses on a more traditional story of superhero secret identities and foolishly brave reporters.

But I'm really digging the cross-genre action. The idea that the DC Universe is a heterogeneous place; where a tragically doomed romance of the gods might be interrupted by a sci-fi gang armed with Kirby-tech weapons crashing the joint; a celebrity fall from grace and a timeline gone haywire are in fact the SAME story; and that the only person who can solve the disappearance of mad scientists from around the world is a mourning detective who may or may not have discovered the secret to bringing back the dead; gets me pretty danged excited.

Certainly I'm not saying the book is without its flaws. Inconsistent art styles I don't mind. Inconsistencies within a book are more annoying. I KNOW deadlines can be tough and for a book like this I'd rather have it on-time than highly detailed, but for the next nine months or so 52 is going to be DC's big book so you'd kind of hope they'd put just a little more effort into it. Some of the dialogue has been superb, but some has been kind of clanky and the last issue has some foreshadowing so heavy-handed I'm kind of hoping it's actually a red herring. And the less said about a certain terrible (and disappointing) back up feature, the better.

On the whole, however, I so enjoy the concept of 52 that I'd pick it up with even a half-way decent execution, and for all the complaints, the execution has been good, sometimes great! So unless it goes completely off the rails soon (and dear God don't let that happen), I'm in for the long haul.