The Semi-Complete "52" (Abridged - *SPOILERS*)

Gnostic85 · Forum Newbie Joined: Sep 19, 2006 Posts: 7

For those who've missed what's been going on in "52", here's a summary of everything through week 38:

PART ONE:

- Suicidal after the death of his wife Sue, Ralph Dibney (formerly the Elongated Man) nearly commits suicide, but is stopped when a phone call from the funeral home informs him that Sue's grave has been marked. The mark is an upside-down version of Superman's emblem (which is actually a Kryptonian ideogram for "hope"), and Ralph learns that the inverted symbol means "rebirth". This leads him to the Cult of Kon-El, a religious sect headed by Wondergirl that seeks to resurrect Superboy, who was killed during the Crisis. The cult promises to show him his wife, but instead they steal his wedding ring.

- Betrayed by Alexander Luthor during the Crisis, Black Adam becomes a major d!ck, ripping low-rent supervillain Terra-Man in half on national TV to demonstrate his new zero-tolerance policy towards supercriminals. He also forms alliances with worrisome folks like the Great Ten, China's state-sanctioned superteam. But at least he doesn't truck with Intergang - he kills two of their representatives when they bring him an orphan girl named Adrianna Tomaz...

- Former GCPD detective Renee Montoya, mired in guilt after the death of her partner Crispus Allen, has been getting drunk and having lots of random sex. This changes however when she attracts the attention of the Question, who hires her to help him investigate an apparently abandoned building. After several nights staking out the building, the two of them see someone enter, and follow him. The visitor turns out to be a horrible monster who nearly kills both of them, but fortunately, Renee finds a hi-tech weapon and kills the beast with it.

- John Henry Irons (AKA Steel) has been having problems with his niece Nat, who wants power and glory without sacrifice. Called in to investigate the apparent murder of Lex Luthor, Irons discovers the body actually belongs to Alexander Luthor, whom Lex uses as a scapegoat for the crimes committed during his recent supervillain career. Lex rewards Irons by injecting him with a chemical that causes him to gain a temporary steel shell. These apparent newfound powers infuriate Nat, who walks out and signs up for Luthor's new Everyman Project, a project which promises superpowers to the common man.

- With Superman temporarily depowered after a deadly battle with Superboy Prime, second-stringer Booster Gold sees an opportunity to establish himself as the star he feels he should have been. Of course, in order to speed up his rise to fame, he uses robo-buddy Skeets to feed him information about future crimes and disasters so he can stop them, and about future business news so he can invest wisely and become rich. Of course, this tactic backfires, as the future becomes increasingly unpredictable. Meanwhile, the apparently pure-hearted hero Supernova appears, and starts to steal Booster's thunder...

- Dr. Will Magnus, creator of the Metal Men, makes regular visits to Dr. Morrow, creator of the android Red Tornado. Morrow expresses increasing worry about the disappearence of several other super-scientists, including Dr. Sivana. Meanwhile, Magnus struggles with bipolar disorder and harrassment from the government, which seeks to gain control of his Metal Men.

- The space team led by Donna Troy during the crisis reappears, having gone missing while trying to repair the space-time fabric. Unfortunately, they are not quite safe and sound. According to Sentinel, Adam Strange attempted to open a zeta beam to take them home, but the beam split and shrank Bumblebee and enlarged Hawkgirl, fused Cyborg and Firestorm, and caused Red Tornado to explode, critically wounding Herald and Seninel.

- Meanwhile, unbeknownst to Sentinel, Animal Man, Starfire, and Adam Strange were sent to a distant planet. Strange lost his eyes in the accident, but they were otherwise unharmed, and had apparently ended up in a paradise. Unfortunately, the paradise happens to be the stomping grounds of Devilance, the Fourth-World god of the hunt. The three manage to escape after incapacitating Devilance and using the tip of his spear as a conductor to activate an old warship, which takes them into space.

Gnostic85 · Forum Newbie Joined: Sep 19, 2006 Posts: 7

PART TWO:

- Renee's investigation into the abandoned building leads her to former lover Kathy Kane, heir to the Kane estate. She tries to ask Kate if she knows who the building's owners are, but their history gets in the way, and Renee gets shown the door. However, Kane decides to do her own investigation, in the guise of Batwoman. When Renee and the Question learn that Intergang owns company which owns the building they were investigating, they break into the company's Gotham headquarters, only to be ambushed by an army of atavistic shape-changing thugs. Thankfully, Batwoman saves them, but they learn that they'll now have to follow Intergang to Kahndaq, Black Adam's territory.

- Meanwhile, Black Adam assembles the various allies he's made for a meeting, which is interrupted by Adriana Tomaz, who's been an unwilling refugee in Kahndaq ever since Intergang smuggled her in during their failed attempt to bribe Adam. Adam tries to speak with Tomaz, only to be chided by her for ignoring his own people in his arrogant attempts to isolate the country from the rest of the world. When Adam tells her about the murder of his wife and children, she tells him how her own parents were murdered by Intergang while her little brother was kidnapped. Deciding that he needs someone to keep his power in check, he consults former enemy Captain Marvel, who's been growing increasingly powerful - and increasingly disturbed - since inheriting the powers of the Wizard Shazam. With Marvel's blessing, he gives Tomaz a pendant which allows her to become the god-like Isis.

- Booster Gold, irritated by the increasing inaccuracies of Skeet's predictions, and humiliated after a staged super-battle is exposed as a set-up, decides to seek out Rip Hunter, the so-called "Master of Time" to find out if he can determine why Skeets' predictions keep going wrong. However, in Hunter's present-day headquarters, Booster finds notes which seem to indicate that he himself is causing the problems... or so he tells Skeets. Later, Booster apparently dies while trying to stop a nuclear explosion.

- Natasha Irons, convinced that her uncle John gained his new steel skin from Luthor's Everyman Project, applies and is accepted by Luthor himself. Luthor gives her the works, turning her into the light-powered Starlight. This results in a confrontation between her and her uncle, who is humiliated when she kicks his ass.

- Red Tornado's torso turns up in Australia, where it's discovered by a young mechanic named John Warrawa, an aborigine whose people happen to believe in a being called Tornado Dreaming...

- Ralph Dibney seeks out Wondergirl, after the Cult of Kon-El steals some of his late wife's clothing from a storage locker. Finally confronting her, he learns that the cult intends to do a trial resurrection, raising his wife from the dead. Desperate to have her back, he agrees to help, but brings in Green Arrow, Green Lantern, Metamorpho, and Zauriel to help him take out the cult in case the resurrection turns out to be a scam. As the ceremony gets underway, his friends convince him that it's not worth it to try and raise Sue, and so they bust up the ceremony. However, as the cult escapes, Ralph sees the effigy of his wife apparently moving and calling out to him. The building collapses and Dibney is nowhere to be found...

- Renee and the Question travel to Kahndaq in order to investigate Intergang's activities there, and find the country celebrating the impending marriage of Black Adam and Isis. Despite the throngs of people gathering in the streets, the two detectives find Intergang's hideout, only to discover 8 murdered guys and a load of rat poison. They are subsequently framed and thrown in jail. After escaping and hiding out for a week, Renee realizes that Intergang's plotting to set off a suicide bomb at the wedding. They hurry to the ceremony, where Renee shoots the would-be suicide bomber, only to learn it was a young girl. Distraught, she goes back to her old sex-and-booze ways, which is not a very smart thing to do in a Middle-Eastern country. An angry Black Adam nearly kills her, but the Question convinces him that the wiser course of action would be to enlist the two detectives to help rid his country of Intergang and find Tomaz's little brother Amon.

- Dr. Morrow disappears, leaving his friend Magnus a piece of paper that provides the machine code needed for Magnus to resurrect the Metal Man Mercury. It comes in handy, as Magnus finds his house besieged by crude duplicates of his creations. Together, he and Mercury manage to eliminate the mindless robots, only to be captured by a larger one and taken to Oolong Island, where he is reunited with Dr. Morrow. Morrow informs him that the missing scientists have been brought to this island to work on Intergang's "Four Horsemen" project.

- After going missing for several weeks, Ralph Dibney is found in Marseilles by Detective Chimp, who asks him to help investigate the death of Tim Trench, one of their mutual friends from way back. The deceased was found wearing Dr. Fate's helmet, so the chimp's teammates from Shadowpact are brought in to help tap into the helmet's spirit and learn how the hell it ended up with Trench. The helmet speaks to Dibney and promises to help him resurrect Sue if he'll go on a pilgrimage. Thus, Ralph sets off, much to the discomfort of Shadowpact, who think he's talking to himself.

Gnostic85 · Forum Newbie Joined: Sep 19, 2006 Posts: 7

PART THREE:

- With Booster gone, Skeets tracks down Daniel Jon Carter, a former football player and 21st-century ancestor of Booster. Carter's been a loser ever since busting his leg during a football game, and Skeets offers him the chance to take over Booster's identity in exchange for helping it to access Rip Hunter's hideout once more. However, upon seeing the picture that supposedly implicated Booster in the chronal abnormalities (which Skeet realizes to actually be implicating it) the robot coldly traps Carter in a time loop. and walks off.

- Starfire, Strange, and Animal Man try to escape the vengeful Devilance, only to be caught by him once more. However, Devilance is then trapped and killed by bounty hunter Lobo. After tense negotiations, Starfire convinces Lobo to help them get home. Problem is, Lobo has joined the Church of the Triple-Fish God, and in the process, has managed to get in trouble with a giant crazed head named Ekkron. On top of all that, the road back to Earth is takes them into the path of a genocidal maniac named Lady Styx, whose fanatical followers have destroyed whole planets.

- The Everyman Project churns out a team, Infinity Incorporated (name legally purchased by Lexcorp), whose members include Starlight, wind-controlling Skyman, sharp-taloned Fury, super-strong Nuklon, speedster Trajectory, and shape-shifter Everyman. What none of them know is that their powers are under Lex Luthor's control - with a push of a button, he could strip any one of them of their abilities. Indeed, on their first mission, tackling the rampaging Blockbuster (no relation to Bludhaven's crime boss of the same name), Luthor decides to depower Trajectory, who had been a problem for him. As a result, she is killed in action. Witnessing her death are Beast Boy and an ad-hoc group of Teen Titans, who team up with Steel to investigate Luthor's control over the Everyman project.

- A young Iroquois man, Jon Standing Bear, is called home for his estranged father's funeral. On the bus ride over, he rescues a young woman from a would-be rapist, tossing the creep out the window of the bus. The woman, an applicant for the Everyman project, later becomes Matrix, Trajectory's replacement in Infinity Inc. As for Standing Bear, he inherits the Manitou Stone, a meteorite fragment which grants its wearer "the speed of a thousand running deer, the keen senses of the wolf nation, and the power in his legs to leap higher than the tallest trees." He also gets a buffalo helmet, and a name - Saganowahna, the Super-Chief.

- Renee Montoya and the Question infiltrate Intergang's Kahndaq headquarters, where they discover a burgeoning cult devoted to the worship of evil. There, they see Amon Tomaz, Isis' little brother, being beaten for his refusal to convert to their cult. Black Adam and Isis bust in, breaking up the cult and rescuing Amon, only to find that the boy has been badly injured during the attempts to break him. Black Adam reveals that because of his marriage to Isis, he has gained the ability to endow his family with a portion of his own powers (in the same way Captain Marvel was able to share power with Mary Marvel and Marvel Junior), and thus he grants his newfound brother-in-law the power to become Osiris.

- The proliferation of the Everyman project drives Firehawk and the newly-healed Firestorm to form a new Justice League. Of course, with Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman missing, and most of the classic members occupied, they have to settle for newbies Super-Chief and Bulleteer (the steel-coated heroine from Seven Soldiers), as well as complete reject Ambush Bug. Their first and last mission, stopping a stampede of pirates and killer robots, is a complete disaster, not due to the team's own incompetence, but rather because dozens of untrained Everyman superheroes decide to join them, to disastrous effect. Super-Chief discovers that the stampede of time-lost folks were actually summoned by Booster in an effort to draw out Rip Hunter, which results in Skeets killing him. The rest of the team is scapegoated for the idiocy of the Everymen, and disband.

- Dibny's quest takes him to the realms of the dead - to Hell, where he learns the horrible fate of Felix Faust, whose repeated sale of his own soul had destroyed him, and to the Iroquois afterlife, where he watches Jon Standing Bear fall into oblivion. Finally he arrives in the palm of the Spectre, with whom he attempts to make a deal to bring back Sue. The Spectre offers to give Ralph what he desires, but in exchange, Dibny must become a temporary host so that the Spectre can avenge the crimes committed by Jean Loring, who orbits the sun, possessed by Eclipso. As Loring killed Sue, Dibny agrees, and uses the spectral power to purge Eclipso, making Loring sane once more. He pulls her back in time 84 weeks and 2 days, to the night Jean killed Sue, intending to leave her there in a loop, to watch her own horrible crime over and over without the benefit of insanity to insulate her. However, he cannot bear to witness it either, and so he undoes the punishment. Having angered the Spectre, he decides to try the mystic realm of Nanda Parbat next...

- Meanwhile, Martian Manhunter, who has been working undercover to disband Checkmate after its involvement in the death of Blue Beetle and the assault on Themyscira which caused Wonder Woman to send the island into another dimension, manages to get the corrupted agency disbanded by the US government, but the UN decides to create its own Checkmate in order to monitor the new proliferation of heroes from the Everyman project. Alan Scott is selected to serve as its White King, with Terry Holt (AKA Mr. Terrific) as his Knight.

- Black Adam and his new family are summoned to dinner with Venus Sivana and her family. The Sivanas are worried about their patriarch, unaware that he is safe on Oolong. Their dinner, however, is distrupted by one of the doctor's last experiments prior to his kidnapping - a large anthropomorhic crocodile. Though Venus is horrified, young Osiris, who felt out of place anyway, goes to look for it and discovers that the creature is in fact docile. Osiris befriends it, giving it the name Sobek.

- On Oolong, Magnus navigates his way through the mad scientists, learning that they are led by Chang Tzu (formerly Egg Fu) and that the Four Horsemen are being developed by Intergang as a "solution" to the "problem" of Black Adam and his family. He meets the lovely Dr. Veronica Cale, who seduces him and has his antidepressants taken away. Without them, Magnus becomes bipolar again, and begins work on a deadly Plutonium Man...

- Supernova collects various weapons, including Luthor's Kryptonite gauntlet and Starman's staff, while Skeets kills several time travelers, including the Time Commander, and tortures Waverider in hopes of learning where to find Rip Hunter. When Waverider tells him that nobody knows how to track Hunter, Skeets kills him.

- On Thanksgiving, as the Sentinel, Wildcat, and Flash contemplate disbanding the Justice Society of America, Infinity Inc. introduces its newest member - the plant-controlling Jade. This doesn't sit well with Sentinel, father of the original Jade, and enrages his son Obsidian, who attacks the new Jade and nearly pulls her into a shadow dimension before Sentinel intervenes. Dismissed as the old models of superheroics, father and son stalk off.

Gnostic85 · Forum Newbie Joined: Sep 19, 2006 Posts: 7

PART FOUR:

- In Gotham, Intergang boss Bruno Mannheim builds up an empire centered around a religion of crime, the outgrowth of his encounter with Darkseid five years earlier, an encounter that left his mind warped.

- In space, Adam Strange and his fellow spacefarers attempt to escape the wrathful Ekkron, only to discover that Ekkron is in fact a Green Lantern from whom Lobo stole an eye. He, Starfire, and Animal Man decide to invite Ekkron to join them, deciding that the giant head would help them keep Lobo in check.

- Renee and the Question get a lift from the Black Marvel family to Nanda Parbat, where Renee is to receive training from Richard Dragon, while the Question and his longtime friend Tot study the "Crime Bible" stolen from Intergang's Kahndaq headquarters... or so Renee believes at first. As time goes on, she suspects something is wrong with her new collaborator, who can't stop coughing. When she finally confronts him about it, she learns why he approached her all those months before - he's dying of cancer, and wants to stop Intergang before he goes. As they look over the Crime Bible, they read a prediction that the "apostle" of crime will tear out and consume the heart of the "daughter of Cain". Looking at the illustration, Renee notes how the "daughter of Cain" resembles Batwoman Kathy Kane, which causes her and the Question to hurry back to Gotham. They manage to contact Batwoman and together, the three of them stop Mannheim from ripping out Kathy Kane's heart. Alas, Mannheim escapes.

- Johnny Warrawa, facing eviction by a corporation which has purchased his people's land, uses the Red Tornado's parts to contruct the Tornado Man, a mechanical representation of the local spirit believed to guard over their land. He uses the robot in an attempt to drive out the developers, but the robot's original programming kicks in and it starts to create a large, destructive tornado. In order to stop it, one of Johnny's friends whacks the head off, disabling it. The boy's hauled off to jail, but the Red Tornado's head is still functioning...

- Robin and Nightwing, having spent months looking for Batman, and in the process recreating the journey that turned him into the Dark Knight, end up somewhere in the Middle East. After realizing the state their city is in without them around, they resolve to split up, with Nightwing returning to Gotham to clean things up, while Robin continues the search for Batman. Meanwhile, Bruce Wayne wanders the Empty Quarters, seeking out the Ten-Eyed Surgeons, fanatical warriors who promise to excise the demons that have made him so paranoid and angry in recent years. When Robin finds him, he declares that "Batman is gone."

- On a distant planet, Captain Comet tries to stop an invasion by Lady Styx, managing to call in two Green Lanterns to help, but to no avail. The planet is overrun by the Stygian hordes, who destroy everything and leave Comet dead and mutilated. However, before dying, Comet manages to send out a radio-telepathic message which reaches Adam Strange and his makeshift crew.

- In Nanda Parbat, Dibny seeks out Rama Kushna, who answers questions about death and dying. Instead, he encounters the Yeti, a reserve member of China's Great Ten. The Yeti attacks him, and their battle causes an avalanche. Fortunately, Ralph is discovered by another Great Ten agent, Yao Fei, the Accomplished Perfect Physician, a man who can heal or destroy using his voice. Yao explains that the Yeti was an shapeshifting agent who inexplicably went rogue, and asks Dibny's help in capturing it with a charm designed to inhibit its abilities. Though Ralph wants to wait to see Rama Kushna, he is informed that she will not grant him an audience, and so he agrees to help the Physician. When they encounter the beast, he nearly kills Yao, but Dibny manages to place an inhibitor around its neck, causing it to transform back into a man. Following the battle, he finally gets his audience with Rama Kushna, but her answers to his questions are vague, except at the end, when she tells him how to be with his wife once more - apparently it was not what he wanted to hear, because he leaves dejected.

Gnostic85 · Forum Newbie Joined: Sep 19, 2006 Posts: 7

PART FIVE:

- John Henry Irons manages to intercept his estranged niece during a pre-New Year's Eve shopping trip and warns her about Luthor's control over her powers.

- Osiris and Sobek are invited to join the Teen Titans, but when Black Adam and Isis arrive to pick them up after their first day, the group is intercepted by the latest iteration of the Sucide Squad, led by Black Adam's former teammate Atom Smasher, who had been jailed for his role in Adam's rise to power. The team, made up of losers like Electrocutioner and Plastique, are no match for the Black Marvels, but when the axe-wielding Persuader manages to hurt Isis, Osiris panics and flies right through the bastard, tearing him apart. The footage is captured by Amanda Waller, who feeds it to the media...

- The new year kicks off with a bang, as Luthor hits a switch depowering almost all of the Everymen in Metropolis, except for the members of Infinity Incorporated, who rush into action to clean things up, unaware that their boss is behind it. The subsequent panic is intended to draw out Superman, but instead Supernova appears, along with a host of other heroes, including newbie Offspring, son of Plastic Man. In the aftermath, Starlight realizes that her uncle was right all along...

- In space, Adam Strange learns that Lobo intends to hand him and his friends over to Lady Styx in exchange for a bounty. He thus forms a plan: Lobo takes Starfire and Animal Man in, while he and Ekkron prepare a diversion. Lobo betrays Starfire and Animal Man, expecting payment for them from Styx, but she refuses, and he goes into a berzerker rage. Strange blasts holes in the lady's citadel, and Ekkron pulls off a kamikaze attack, grabbing Styx and pulling her into a herd of Sun-Eaters. The battle costs Ekkron his life and, it seems, Animal Man's as well...

- Skeets finds Rip Hunter at last, hidden in the most remote location on Earth - the bottled city of Kandor. Just as it moves in for the kill, though, Supernova appears and reveals his true identity - Michael Jon Carter, formerly known as Booster Gold! It turna out that back when Booster visited Hunter's lab, Hunter appeared and warned him that Skeets was insane. In order to escape Skeets' surveillance, he had faked his own death by having Rip switch him with his own future corpse, then traveling back in time 12 weeks to assume the identity of Supernova. He further reveals that Supernova's powers came from the Phantom Zone Projector, which Rip Hunter then whips out and uses on Skeets. But the robot manages to surprise them by consuming the zone itself. In a final desperate maneuver, Rip opens a portal through which he and Booster escape... but Skeets is right behind them...

- In space, the apparently deceased Animal Man is left on a makeshift slab, where he later awakens to find himself in the presence of the beings who first gave him his powers...

- On Oolong, Dr. Magnus is going through a complete manic episode after being "liberated" from his meds by Dr. Veronica Cale. He is summoned for the unveiling of three of the four horsemen: Roggra of War, Zorrm of Fevers, and Azraeuz of Death. As the monstrosities are unveiled, some of the scientists are elated, but others, like Dr. Cale, are horrified...

- In Gotham, the Question is dying in complete agony, constantly hallucinating. Renee tries to send for plants from Nanda Parbat, but none of them survive outside their natural habitat. Finally, in complete desperation, she takes him back to the Himalayas, hoping that if they can reach Nanda Parbat, the mystics there will heal him. Alas, it's to no avail; Vic Sage dies on the mountainside, but not before asking a final question of Renee: "Who are you going to be?"

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*phew* Man, that took a long time. Hope somebody actually benefits from this, and that I haven't just gone completely insane...

Aremis · Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2007 11:53 pm Post subject:

I personally appreciate it. I got nearly every issue, but since Ive been on a new film assignment that takes up 19 hours of my day, and nowhere near a comic store, ive lost track of the story
You helped a lot.
Thanks
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GhostofMacbeth · Forum Member Joined: Sep 21, 2001 Posts: 616

Thanks for all of the work