Ultimate Thor by Hickman Annotated

[Siege Of The Golden City]

Ultimate Thor #1 - "Do You Lack Faith Brother... Or Do You Believe?"

• Into the storm! Ragnarok nears!
• Visions and symbols! The lightning, the black sun. An army of frost giants invading Asgard.
• Dead ravens. Who shot Balder with an arrow?
• So the Braddocks have Thor captive, he's been writing down prophecy or poetry from the Edda.
• Donald Blake comes to help him.
• In 1939, Zemo uses Norn stones/Runes to open a Bifrost gate in Germany to summon Ice Giants, recruiting them to invade Asgard.

Ultimate Thor #2 - "Change Is Chaos"

• Thor is a god because he remembers!
• Asgard conquers Jotunheim and all is well. Odin reveals to Thor that Asgard cannot exist without him; that a small part of Odin exists in the city and even in the hammer Mjolnir.
• Loki's mother Karnilla asks him to get the Norn Stones.
• Back in 1939, Zemo is revealed to be Loki, who leads the army of giants across the Bifrost, where he kills Heimdall with a bow and arrow.

Ultimate Thor #3 - "Salt and No Spirit"

• Just noticed that they haven't show Donald Blake's face yet!
• Balder is killed by Loki!
• Mammoth turns into an ice-fenris and kills Odin!
• Loki is imprisoned in the world-tree, and it burns down!
• Dead ravens shot by Loki.
• Them drinking Heimdall's blood was morbid af.

Ultimate Thor #4 - "Bring The Thunder"

• Donald Blake is revealed as a reincarnated Balder!
• He reveals that Asgard will return, and Odin will return as well someday.
• Thor agrees to join Europe's super-soldier initiative.
• Fury attempts to recruit him, to no avail.
• Helmut goes to the gate in Germany and frees Loki from the room with no doors, setting him up to wreak havoc during Ultimates 2.
• Thor joins the Ultimates in the fight against the Hulk.

52 #40-52 Annotations

[VOL IV - Spring]

52 #40 - "Man Ain't Nothing But A Man"

• Everyman finale!
• Steel, Offspring, Beast Boy, Raven, and Aquagirl invade the Lexcorp building, fighting Infinity Inc.
• John Henry takes on Super-Lex; he gets waxed but frees Natasha with his hammer.
• Nat reveals that Luthor's off-switch on New Years was a electrical pulse that disorganized the metagene, using Steel's atomic hammer to nullify Luthor's powers.
• John Henry explains that the everyman metagene is toxic and would have killed Luthor in six months.
• The day is saved!
• In Kahndaq, the plagues have destabilized the country.
• Osiris believes he himself is the cause: his killing of Persuader during #34 has cursed him and the country.
• He and Sobek embark on a quest to find the Rock of Eternity so he can find a new family and new powers to set everything right.

52 #41 - "Miracles & Wonders"

• Adam Strange and Starfire's Warbird is attacked by a bounty hunter named Molek. They take him down, but not before he trashes the Warbird and injures Starfire.
• Molek claims Lady Styx might not be as dead as we think...
• Renee has been in Nanda Parbat getting over the death of Charlie. Tot and Richard try to help her shed the grief and look inwards for revelation, but she refuses.
• Ralph goes to Haven and meets with Prof Milo, a golden age Batman villain who is now wheelchair bound.
• Ralph removes the wheel from his handicap, revealing that he faked a disability so he could sneak in an artifact, the silver wheel of nyorlath...
• But milo is actually disabled!
• As the haven security is about to apprehend Ralph, Fate zaps him away. All these artifacts he's been gathering, the time for the ritual has come...
• Back in Nanda Parbat, Renee converses with a lone black haired woman... it's Diana!?!?!
• Diana claims that she is waiting for a friend who will give her a new life.
• Diana tells Renee to once more stop fearing her inner demons, and instead embrace the mystery unfolding.
• As Adam Strange and Starfire tumble towards a red sun, Adam explains that his constant need to overachieve stems from his insecurity: on Rann he's won the love of Alanna by being a hero and super-man compared to the rest of the infertile Rannian men, but on Earth he's just a regular guy.
• Starfire tells him to get over himself, and he gains a second wind to repair the ship.
• However, the ship crashes into a sudden celestial object...
• It's green lantern mogo! and Opto309V!

52 #42 - "Trigger Effect"

• Opener: Renee sees her reflection in the cave... but it's her with no face, as the Question!
• BRILLIANT!
• The Death of Ralph Dibny!
• We've been duped... but Ralph hasn't!
• The ritual is set within the Tower of Fate...
• Ralph aims the gun, the same gun he had in #1, the same gun he stole from the Flash museum in #33, and shoots the helm off his head!
• The helm is Felix Faust?!? He had taken the ring from the fire! He had animated the hay mannequin! He crafted a fake helm of fate for a body out of the gold of the ring! He killed Tim Trench!
• Ralph found out because everything that had been happening had gone according to his wish back in #1, the wish for him to be with Sue!
• Felix Faust planned to trade Ralph's soul at his breaking point to free himself from a debt to Neron.
• Neron arrives, but Ralph refuses to let him take Faust's soul.
• Neron kills Ralph by shooting his wedding ring through his chest, but not before he and Faust discover the wish Ralph made on the wishing gun was to bind Faust and Neron to the tower of fate.
• Ralph dies, and his wedding ring is returned to Sue's gravestone, where Fire finds it.

52 #43 - "Family Matters"

• Osiris and Sobek descend into the Rock of Eternity, meeting with the Shazamily!
• Mary vouches for him, but Freddy explains that Osiris' murder of Persuader has caused the DMA to investigate the Titans.
• Osiris wants Captain Marvel to remove his powers, but Black Adam and Isis confront Osiris.
• Classic Geoff Johns irrational squabbling occurs, but everybody calms down as Isis convinces Osiris to return with them.
• Buddy is resurrected by the Yellow Aliens and returned to the continuum. Just before he's killed by the vacuum of space, Buddy reaches out and grabs the powers of the Sun-Eater herd!
• The pregnant chick Lady Styx nabbed back in #31 gives birth to a new Lady Styx!
• Osiris tells Sobek that he's leaving, but Sobek tells him he can be freed of the curse by transforming back to Amon.
• He does, but then...
• SOBEK EATS AMON! HE'S THE HORSEMAN OF FAMINE!

52 #44 - "Deaths in the Family"*

• Well God damn...
• The end of the black marvel family.
• Isis and Adam find the corpse of Osiris as they are confronted by Yurrd, horseman of famine, and his brothers.
• Huge brawl ensues. Adam kills Sobek/Famine. Isis is poisoned by pestilence.
• Black Adam kills War and Pestilence. Just before Death kills him, Isis blasts Death away from Kahndaq with lava.
• Isis succumbs to the plague as she tells Adam that he was right from the beginning with his Freedom of Power treaty and the war against the evils of man. She tells him to avenge her and Osiris.
• The flower Isis gave to Renee back in #26 disintegrates. She knows Isis is gone.
• Tot and Richard present Renee with equipment to begin her new journey.
• She embarks to Kahndaq to discover what happened.

52 #45 - "Every Hour Wounds, The Last Kills"

• The funeral of Isis occurs in Kahndaq. It hasn't stopped raining since she passed.
• Black Adam meets with Renee Montoya, she tries to offer some sympathy, but Adam is having none of it. He tells her she should return to Gotham, as Intergang begins to expand it's agenda.
• Azraeuz is given santcuary by Bialya, a country embracing Intergang's new world order of crime. When the president contacts Manheim for help, he pretty much ignores them.
• Apparently Oolong Island and Chang Tzu have seceded from Intergang by barring communications, but Manheim claims he has a mole on the inside of the Science Squad...
• Adam attacks Bialya and kills every man, woman, and child. He fights with Azraeuz, and tortures him for information and motives.
• The world begins mounting a response, as Checkmate starts putting together a plan, made up of Mister Terrific and Alan Scott and Sasha Bordeaux.
• Amanda Waller wants to make a Suicide Army of 100+ criminals, but Atom-Smasher refuses the call and threatens to expose her if she tries to stop him.
• In China, the Great Ten convene, but Thundermind doubts the agenda of the NCP and Chinese gov, which makes August General in Iron + Socialist Red Guardsman irritated. Could the Great Ten have some connection to Intergang or the Four Horsemen...
• Black Adam heads towards Oolong Island after discovering the origin of the Four Horsemen, and Sivana is ecstatic to go toe to toe with his rival!

52 #46 - "Mad Science"

• THE BEST ISSUE OF THE WHOLE SERIES!
• Black Adam vs the Science Squad! An assault on Oolong Island!
• Cale is the mole for Manheim? She unlocks the blast doors.
• Whatever's happening is much bigger than crime... apostles of anti-life, servants of death and despair...
• and a FINAL CRISIS NAME DROP!
• Morrow is in a bidding war for the scrap remains of Red Tornado!
• IQ rallies the scientists, and they defeat Black Adam!
• Luthor almost escapes his arraignment if not for Clark Kent and Steel!
• The JSA surveys the scorched earth of Bialya. No survivors are found.
• Atom-Smasher returns and joins them. He wants to bring in Black Adam.

52 #47 - "Revelations"

• In Nanda Parbat, Bruce has entered the Thogal ritual for 7 days in darkness. A ritual of spiritual purification. The Ten Eyed Tribe have cut his demons out, demons that provided some comfort and protection. Bruce & Tim climbed the 9999 steps of Nanda Parbat. Will Bruce survive?
• Tim waits outside the cave, and the monk tells him a riddle: there is a goose in a bottle, how will you get him out without killing the goose or breaking the bottle?
• Manheim and Whisper find out that Batwoman is Kate Kane.
• Will Magnus completes the Plutonium Man, a dark mirror of everything the Metal Men are.
• Animal Man gets sun-eater powers and can travel through Space B: a higher dimension of sorts that Sun-Eater shoals use to migrate. He can use it to instantaneously get back to Earth. He witnesses a moment one month ahead of now (4 weeks), characterized as a spherical entity which is super dope. The moment depicts Ellen and a male acquaintance returning from a date. Buddy gets sucked in and returns to the story.
• Natasha declines an invitation from Beast Boy to join the Titans, instead becoming a part of John Henry's team, Steelworks! John Henry gets a kiss from Dr Avasti!
• Renee looks for Kate at her apartment, only to find it trashed. She's been taken by Intergang! Nightwing arrives at the same time, and they team up to save her.
• Diana meets with Rama Kushna and gains wisdom, knowledge of the pain and lack of perfection in mortality, enhancing her perspective to rebuild her mission.
• Tim answers the monk's riddle: the goose is only in the bottle because he said so; the goose and bottle are mere words, now the goose is free...
• Bruce emerges from the cave with a smile on his face.
• Batman has been put in a box by his creators since the 1940s. Grant Morrison is saying that box does not exist, freeing him to evolve as we segway into the greatest run on the character.

52 #48 - "Asked & Answered"

• The Question reborn!
• Dick and Montoya team up to stop Manheim from killing Kate and turning Gotham into an Apokoliptan Fire-Pit.
• Abbott goes turncoat on Intergang and helps Nightwing disables the devices across the city.
• Renee puts the pseudoderm mask on, becoming the newest Question!
• Does the man dream of the butterfly, or is it the butterfly that dreams it's a man?
• She arives just in time to see Kate get stabbed in the heart, but she survives and throws the knife into Bruno's back.
• Back at Oolong island, Chang Tzu announces to the world his capture of Black Adam; opening up him for sale to the highest bidder!

52 #49 - "Eve of Destruction"

• The JSA and Great Ten come to a standoff on the beaches of Oolong Island.
• Oolong Island is revealed as property of the Chinese government, and everything unravels:
• Chang Tzu is a reserve member of the Great Ten! After Black Adam departed the Freedom of Power treaty, he angered powerful people as mentioned way back in #24, and those powerful people were the Chinese government. Using intergang money, Chang Tzu and the science squad built weapons to destroy the Black Marvel family, the weapons being hosts to powerful apokoliptan old gods in the form of the Four Horsemen.
• The reason the Great Ten are here is because Chang Tzu has betrayed them, and if any of this info gets out, they are screwed.
• But how did Alan Scott know this? Well it was Thundermind who beamed the expo into his mind!
• Magnus reveals to Chang Tzu that the Plutonium Man was a farce, he rebuilt the metal men in miniature form!
• Magnus lets Morrow escape via teleportation to Sivana's Omnibot above the Earth's orbit.
• Chang Tzu gets turned into Egg Fu by Metal Men and Magnus' bi-polar trigger-finger!
• Atom-Smasher frees Black Adam, and he escapes to wage war on those who took is family from him.
• Infinity Inc chumps still want to prove themselves and claim they'll step up when it really matters...

52 #50 - "World War III"

• The title says it all!
• Black Adam ravages the world.
• He busts up China, totaling the great ten as he kills the seven deadly brothers, yeti, shaolin robot, and he might have taken out the Immortal-Man-In-darkness as well.
• Nuklon and the Infinity Inc scrubs pussy out at the last second.
• Just as Nat and JH are about to launch a nanite missile, Booster warps in and yoinks it...
• Billy and the magic gang zap Adam with a controlled javelin of the living lightning that transforms him back to Teth-Adam. However, Billy also changes the name of power that activates Black Adam to something he claims Adam will never guess.

52 #51 - "Homecoming"

• Buddy makes it back home!
• Big super-hero funeral/gathering.
• Bruce and Clark meet up. Diana has a new identity as Agent Prince. I guess she works for the DMA with Sarge Steel?
• Donna was the Wonder Woman we saw in #50!
• Tim Drake new costume, dropping the green and yellow for just red and black to honor Superboy. Talks with Ravager about her dad.
• Red Devil! He was in the Teen Titans audition issue #32 with a crappy costume but now has powers? Must look into the post IC issues for his origin.
• Adam Strange gets his eyes back! And he's back on Rann with John Stewart, Opto309V and Sardath.
• Emerald Eye of Ekron is a prototype will-powered weapon, and Ekron was an ancient primordial green lantern before they came up with the rings.
• Lobo takes the emerald eye to the triple headed fish god, who wanted it since he's prophesied to be killed by that very weapon. Lobo fulfills the prophecy!
• Alien bounty hunters show up to the Baker house but Starfire disintegrates them before collapsing.
• Morrow lures Skeets to his bunker in the Rocky Mountains. Skeets reveals that Red Tornado caught a glimpse of the garden, and made a map...
• Rip and Booster show up, but not before Skeets reveals his true form:
• He's not skeets, but in fact Mister Mind! After being bombarded by suspendium thanks to Sivana, Mind has metamorphized into the hyperfly!
• The gang hops into Rip's new timesphere. We have to go back to where it all started! We have to go back! 

52 #52 - "A Year In The Life"

• The revelation is upon us!
• 52! When Superboy destroyed alex luthor's machine, the thousand earths collapsed back into one, and then unfolded into 52 identical universes to keep from imploding.
• Mister Mind in his Hyperfly form is on the chase. With every flap of his wings, with every bite he takes out of history, the timelines of this newfound multiverse are shifted.
• Mind throws up the phantom zone to trap the time-sphere, but Supernova emerges to blow the blast with his projector tech suit. Who's under the mask? None other than Daniel Carter!
• Daniel was trapped in a 52 second time loop by Skeets back in #19, the same 52 seconds that Doctor Tyme was looking for in #39.
• Rip freed him and put Daniel at this moment, because he used Morrow's tech that allowed him to see glimpses of the future.
• If they don't stop mister mind, his larvae will drain the multiverse, leaving a husk of worlds to die in darkness!
• Rip goes time diving and nabs the suspendium, aka Sivana's artificial time, from the bald bastard's lab while leaving him with one less kneecap!
• Booster goes back and meets Ted Kord one day after the original COIE, getting him to repair Skeets and give him a power source.
• They build a flytrap out of skeet's body, combining the suspendium to keep Hyperfly sated while they prep the final play: Booster throws a flytrap hail mary backwards in time to build up chronal energy, turning the flytrap into a time bomb that will seal the rift in time mister mind has created. Daniel catches it right at week 1/day 1 and spikes it to revert mister mind back to his worm-form.
• Sivana finds him in the crater, and ensures the time loop!
• So mind had crawled into skeets when magnus was repairing him; but we saw mind cocooning in sivanas lab back in #3... continuity discrepancies but whatever, it's still good!
• Per Morrison:  I can confirm that the 'cocoon' spun by Mister Mind doubled as a matter transporter, which allowed him to beam himself inside Skeets after seeing him on TV.
• They can rebuild skeets, his consciousness is preserved!
• The world is still looking for black Adam. Alan Scott and Mister Terrific plan to join Checkmate to hunt him down. Black Adam has made two crocodile-skin boots out of Sobek?
• Fire-pit in a school, creepy drawings made by children, it's up to Ralph and Sue Dibny: Ghost Detectives!
• Magnus rebuilds skeets, but his memory is a backup from week 2! Booster will fill him in!
• Renee recreates the panel sequence that Vic did back in #1, and shines the bat signal on Kate Kane's apartment.
• Are you ready?

52 #27-39 Annotations

[VOL III - Winter]

52 #27 - "The Past Best Hope"

• So this is something I had to stop reading and look up on the wiki: Crispus Allen becomes the new host in Infinite Crisis, but apparently refuses the offer. Spectre gives him a year to think on it, hence the hostless version we see here.
• Spectre will resurrect Sue only if Ralph can punish Jean Loring Eclipso accordingly. They travel back to the night Sue was murdered (fixing the mysterious sound plot-hole) and Ralph restores Jean's sanity so she can suffer in a time loop watching her past self murder his wife. However, Ralph can't do it, and he pulls them both back to the present. Failing to hold up his end of the bargain, Ralph and the Helm choose to go to Nanda Parbat (to meet with Deadman or Rama Kushna?)
• Waverider hides in a clock shop, witnessing Time Commander die in front of him. Apparently he recruited the Time Stealers to fight against whatever mysterious threat is influencing the time stream (Skeets?)
• Fun reference to HG Wells.
• So Alex Luthor caused the refactoring of history, but the new earth and this missing year after the crisis is described as wet cement and honey by Skeets.
• Rip Hunter's true name and details of birth are secret...
• Skeets is made of dead waverider's skin!!!
• Renee has been trained by Richard Dragon, while Tot learns about the religion of crime via stolen crime bible.
• Vic has lung cancer!
• So the prophecy is that Manheim will kill Kate Kane! Twice-named...

52 #28 - "Beyond the Black Stump"

• Vic and Renee travel to Gotham and meet with Kate Kane/Batwoman, telling her that in three days the prophecy of her dying is to occur.
• Ridge-Ferrick arrives in aussie-land. Why is intergang down under? Uranium Mining Development...
• Johnny Warrawa was white the last time we saw him but is back to being aboriginal?
• Where are the scraps of red tornado going?
• Lobo and the space gang are hunted by the emerald head of ekron!
• The prophecy doesn't come true, but Manheim hints that Renee and Vic are part of it too, referring to them as "The Questions"...
• The Emerald Head of Ekron is revealed as a Green Lantern! The eye is part of his arsenal, and when Lobo stole it (because Ekron apparently offended the Triple Fish God), Ekron was defenseless as sector 3500 was destroyed by the stygian passover.
• Ekron teams up with the gang as they head towards this cosmic tyrant!

52 #29 - "Name Calling"

• Jeez they are doing a great job of making you hate these infinity inc everyman stooges.
• Obsidian drops in to start some trouble but alan pulls him out.
• New hero Jade joins infinity inc. Disrespectful af.
• Harder and harder to see any redemption for Natasha at this point.
• Komrade Krabb
• Science Squad thanksgiving! Fucking hilarious.
• Veronica Cale femme fatale evil genius, she's working on the secret weapons of Project X, definitely related to the fourth world tech Intergang has acquired.
• She snitches on Magnus, and Chang Tzu takes his meds away.
• Ferry gets a race switch... the errors due to the weekly schedule are becoming more apparent the more I read...
• John Henry peels off the steel skin! There's an expiration date on the everyman powers!

52 #30 - "Dark Knight Down"

• So Bruce, Dick, and Tim have been traveling the world to recreate the journey that built the batman, and they believe it's happening because he wants them both to become the new batman and robin.
• Charlie is admitted to hospice care within Kate Kane's apartment she lets them use.
• Dick and Tim intercept an intergang weapons shipment in north africa.
• Bruce has dipped out on Dick and Tim towards the desert, the empty quarter, to have the ten eyed tribe cut out his demons accumulated through the grim-dark age since the death of jason todd.
• Dick returns to gotham and Tim finds bruce in the desert, who claims that Batman is gone.
• Dick meets Kate/Batwoman in gotham as they take out the intergang monster men.

52 #31 - "Human Resources"

• Captain Comet faces the Stygian Passover!
• Lanterns Thormon Tox and Xax are looking for Lantern Ekron. The Guardians fear the Stygian Passover and recall all lanterns.
• Lady Styx is our villain! She comes from the forever pit outside of the multiverse?
• "Believe in Her"
• Believer Cubes, Glorifiers = undead zombie soldiers.
• Ewww. Everyman Hannibal Bates needs to digest matter to takes its form. He pretends to be Natasha's boyfriend. Nasty mf.
• Ralph meets with Cassie, and she reveals that she found out Devem was a scam. She still believes that Conner was resurrected in the form of Supernova. Ralph lies to her about where he went, telling her Marseilles after reading it off the dossier given to Cassie.
• Ralph knows who Supernova is.
• Captain Comet is crucified at the head of Lady Styx's warship as she kills the GL's and eats one of their power rings like popcorn.
• Lobo, Ekron, and the space gang witness everything.

52 #32 - "Seven Days in Nanda Parbat"

• Ralph and the helm venture to Nanda Parbat. He helps the Accomplished Perfect Physician subdue the Yeti with an amulet that contains his rage.
• Ralph communes with Rama Kushna who tells him how he can be with her again.
• Ralph claims that he wrote his own end back in the ambassador hotel, be careful what you wish for...
• Osiris and Sobek want to join the Teen Titans, but Freddy Freeman is skeptical. He tells Osiris to convince the world that he is not a murderer like Black Adam, and he will help him join.

52 #33 - "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year"

• Christmas in the DCU!
• Ralph takes the gun we saw in #1 from the flash museum...
• Dick gives Batwoman a real batarang
• Luthor continues to fail to qualify for the metagene everyman procedure, so he tells his scientists to harvest the genetics of a test subject who initially resisted the metagene but then accepted in hopes he can overcome his own immunity.
• Charlie succumbs to delirium due to the chemotherapy and remembers people from his past. Renee spends time with Kate.
• The space squad arrives in Vega.
• Black Adam and the fam work to clear up their public image by depowering before the world.
• Amanda Waller gathers her ad-hoc suicide squad led by Atom-Smasher featuring Owen Mercer, Plastique, Electrocutioner, Count Vertigo, and some kind of version of the Persuader.

52 #34 - "Suicidal Tendencies"

• New years eve!
• Osiris and Sobek join the Teen Titans.
• The Black Marvels convene just to be attacked by Atom-Smasher's Suicide Squad.
• Persuader is about to kill Isis when he's torn in half by Osiris flying right through him.
• It was Waller's plan the whole time and she gets video recording.
• John Henry teams up with the Birds of Prey to meet with Natasha in secret, revealing to her that he's lost his steel skin and his suspicions of Trajectory dying at the hands of Blockbuster as one of Luthor's designs.
• Luthor kidnaps Clark Kent, injects him with truth serum, and questions him on Supernova's secret identity. Clark tells him Supernova is not Superman.
• Charlie is put in the hospital and Renee stays at his bedside.
• Luthor once again fails to qualify for the metagene, and activates some kind of remote to create a crisis that Supernova will fail to stop.

52 #35 - "Rain of the Supermen"

• Luthor turns off everyone with the everyman metagene except for Infinity Inc
• Supernova and the reg supes do damage control
• John Henry assembles the Titans
• Natasha suspects Luthor of foul play and confides in Skyman...
• The space squad arrives in the remains of the planet Vartu from #31
• Adam Strange plans for Lobo to give the three up to Lady Styx as a trojan horse so they can destroy her war machine from the inside.

52 #36 - "How To Win A War In Space"

• Animal Man and Starfire are brought inside Lady Styx's chambers by Lobo and Fishy.
• There's no bounty and Styx plans on eating the heroes and removing the intel from their brain stems.
• She insults the shit out of the Triple Fish God, causing Lobo to forsake his vows and revert to good ol fashion Main Man Ultraviolence!
• Adam Strange blows a hole in the hull as Ekron rams Lady Styx into a group of migrating Sun-Eaters. They are both devoured.
• Animal Man ends up getting shot by necro-toxin and succumbs to the poison. His wife and kids somehow feel his passing.
• Charlie continues to get worse, so Renee says screw it and decides to take him back to Nanda Parbat, leaving Kate to deal with Intergang in Gotham.
• Osiris gets booted from the Titans, but Sobek comforts him.
• Supernova is revealed to be working with Rip Hunter, who is suffering from some kind of temporal-linguistic-dissonance. He's building a device out of stolen weaponry from across the DCU that Supernova has been collecting.
• They are hiding from Skeets inside the Bottle City of Kandor!
• But Skeets is here anyway!

52 #37 - "Secret Identities"

• Skeets tries to destroy Kandor, but Supernova sheds his costume to reveal himself as...
• BOOSTER FREAKING GOLD!
• When booster and skeets went into Rip's bunker back in #6, Rip met with him and revealed the truth behind Skeets and they made a plan to stop him...
• Booster faked his death by switching places with his future corpse, going back in time to before Supernova appeared to show up as him alongside his past self. He and Rip operated out of the leveled Fortress of Solitude using kryptonian tech to make the Supernova costume out of the Phantom Zone projector!
• Rip rebuilds the projector out of the torn suit and tries to suck skeets in, but Skeets devours the entire Phantom Zone!
• Rip and Booster warp away, but Skeets follows...
• Hal helps Ollie rebuild Star City, while Ollie and Dinah chat about Ralph.
• Buddy is laid to rest in an impromptu funeral as Lobo and the gang prepare to go their separate ways.
• Adam Strange doesn't remember what they saw beyond, what Lady Styx wanted to kill them for.
• Buddy is resurrected by the Yellow Aliens!

52 #38 - "Breathless"

• Renee and Charlie venture through the snowy steps of the Himalayas towards the hidden city of Nanda Parbat.
• Magnus is off his meds and hyper as hell, rebuilding the Plutonium Man.
• We see the unveiling of the four horsemen: Yurrd the unknown (famine), Roggra (war), Zorrm (pestilence), and Azraeuz (war). These were four old Apokoliptan gods at the dawn of the fourth world given form by these physical bodies (final crisis hinting).
• We see only three of them, as the horseman of famine Yurrd rode out before his brothers. Apparently their mission is to remove the threat of Black Adam, since he's been destabilizing their efforts in Kahndaq.
• Cale expresses some regret over her contributions to Project X.
• John Henry and Beast Boy plan how they will deal with Luthor, but worry that his end goal might be to remove the powers of regular heroes.
• Natasha makes contact with them and reveals that Luthor is hiding something in a secret room. She apologizes for everything she's done, and prepares to venture alone.
• Renee and Charlie climb through snowstorms, but Charlie gains a final moment of lucidity before the gates of Nanda Parbat are revealed to them... as he passes away...
• Who is Renee Montoya, what will she become...

52 #39 - "Powers & Abilities"

• Dennis blows up his lab to cover something up, but Natasha and Jake witness him doing it.
• Mercy discovers what he was hiding...
• Ralph and the Helm venture to destroyed Atlantis to get one of the shackles of Arion. They meet with what appears to be a memory-donked Arthur who tells the that getting a shackle means freeing the monster it imprisons. Ralph replaces the shackle with his makeshift straw wedding ring.
• The four horsemen are sent on their way through a boom tube.
• Morrow suspects Magnus is gathering various metals to rebuild the metal men, but he distracts his mentor with the revelation that Red Tornado is in scraps in Australia!
• But we see that Magnus has been rebuilding the Metal Men, and Mercury hides in tiny form!
• Doctor Tyme asks Sivana about his missing 52 seconds, but Sivana shows him Suspendium, artificial time he created.
• Sivana reveals that before he was captured, he had been zapping the worm Mister Mind with Suspendium to possibly unleash his full potential. Since then, Suspendium has been acting strange...
• Sobek tells Adam and Isis that Osiris believes himself to be cursed by his powers.
• The skies over Kahndaq turn black as Isis' garden dies.
• Luthor and the everyman scientists prepare a subject for metagene procedure while Natasha watches with her bug drone.
• Jake reveals to her that he's not Jake, he's Hannibal, and he's been eating jake!
• Natasha zaps him, but it's blocked by Luthor who has Superman level powers! Dennis had been lying about Luthor's incompatibility with the metagene procedure!

52 #14-26 Annotations

[VOL II - Fall]

52 #14 - "Sand & Rust"

• Vic and Renee arrive in Kahndaq.
• John has built a new suit for Nat, though she is part of Lex's new everyman squad.
• What appears to be the US gov wants Will's metal men as new age smart weapons.
• Haven has some crazy security systems: dogs and birds and chicks with Uzis riding bikes in ice cream cars.
• Morrow vanishes from his cell, leaving a letter to Will behind, a note written in machine code
• I love the question wordplay!
• "I swear before this is over I'm gonna hold his dead body in my hands."
• What's the deal with the rat poison?
• Mercury is back! Did Will use the machine code provided by Morrow?

52 #15 - "Outshined"

• THE DEATH OF BOOSTER GOLD!
• Everything is going downhill for him as he leaps into his last hurrah to gain some favor.
• Supernova has more of a personality in this, but we still don't know who he is.
• Sea monster hijacks nuclear sub into metropolis.
• Supernova zaps the monster away, but Booster tries to absorb the radiation into his forcefield and ends up getting skeletized!
• Renee and Vic escape from Kahndaqi prison.

52 #16 - "Uhebbuki"

• Black Adam proposes to Isis.
• Renee and Vic have been hiding out in the shipping container Tot Rodor sent them. She gets the kirby-tech gun!
• An answer to the rat poison! = an anti-coagulant to coat the shrapnel, maximum damage!
• The whole marvel family is here! Tawky Tawny, Mary, Freddy, and even Uncle Dudley!
• They are married, as the suicide bomber is killed by Renee.
• The bomber said an interesting prayer, mentioning Cain killing Abel. What secret lies in this new revamped Intergang?
• Uhebukki is I love you in Arabic.
• Adam Strange, Buddy Baker, and Kori finally leave the prison planet!

52 #17 - "Last of the Czarnians"

• Erik Storn = claws
• Eliza Harmon = speed
• Hannibal bates = shapeshifting
• Gerome McKenna = strength
• Jacob Colby = flight?
• Trouble in paradise for the Everymen, as the fast one Eliza claims she can't slow down after Luthor gave her powers. She uses a device/drug called sharp for relief.
• The space gang is caught in an asteroid field
• Buddy mentions the events of the 80's Animal Man series written by Grant, and he tries to rationalize the experience of meeting the writer.
• Adam Strange talking about how he gets zeta beamed away from Alanna before they start bickering as well as the fact that he likes being a loner is hilarious.
• Devilance tracks the ship down is about to strike until he is killed by Lobo!
• Was the asteroid field as trap for Lobo?
• Lobo has found religion?
• How does Lobo need these heroes' help?
• The remains of Red tornado are found by aboriginals in Australia! And all he says is 52...

52 #18 - "Dismantled"

• House of Mystery! Cain!
• Croatoan Society? Ralph, Detective Chimp, Terri Thirteen (could this just be Traci?), Tim Trench and Edogawa Sangaku
• Tim Trench was wearing the helm of fate, Terri touches him, and he becomes a puddle of water?
• So we're calling the shape-shifting intergang goons the "monster men"? Love it!
• Booster gold funeral = we get an appearance of Mind-grabber man from SS
• Skeets finds what appears to be an ancestor of Booster = Daniel Carter
• Ralph joins Shadowpact in Egypt to activate the Helm
• The helm reveals some secrets about the 10th age of magic, and how Tim trench tried to use the power of fate without any of the training, so he got liquified
• The helm wants Ralph to be the new bearer, and promises him powers (to possibly bring back Sue?)
• But the Shadowpact says Ralph is imagining the Helm talking to him...

52 #19 - "History Repeats"

• Skeets reveals that he had to watch the atomic lock while Booster entered the vault of rip hunter, so will we ever find out about the chalkboard + "all his fault stuff?"
• A big dump of reveals regarding whats going on with the space stuff...
• Lobo had an epiphany and turned into a priest of the triple fish god, with a talking dolphin as his servant
• The planetary debris they arrive on seems to be a refugee camp, refugees from an annihilated sector 3500 destroyed in something called the Stygian Passover.
• what was a new god doing on the fringes of space...
• lobo and fishy are going into sector 3500 on a pilgrimage to the three golden planets
• the person who put a price on our trio's heads is the same who destroyed sector 3500
• the emerald eye of ekron! used by emerald empress in the legion of superheroes future!
• Wonder girl, still crazy, thinks that Supernova is Conner...
• SKEETS IS EVIL!
• What secret did Hunter find out about Skeets?
• Daniel gets caught in a time loop vortex!

52 #20 - "God is Fragged"

• What does Supernova want with Batman's kryptonite gauntlet
• The Batman style crime busts are definitely Batwoman
• Luthor has a everyman power kill-switch!
• interstellar carrion that feeds on dying planets! Did someone send them?
• buddy gets space-fauna powers!
• lobo gets shredded
• Starfire can survive the power of the emerald eye
• the emerald head of ekron???
• was is lobo who ripped it out of Ekron's head, or did he acquire it from someone else?
• Is Ekron in league with the mystery villain and the stygian passover?

52 #21 - "Teambuilding Exercises"

• Trajectory is let back on the everyman team, which is now referred to as "Infinity Inc."
• Skyman, Nuklon, Starlight, Fury, Everyman, and Trajectory
• New version of Blockbuster
• Ralph and the Helm of Fate enter the Aztec Underworld...
• Ad-Hoc Titans group: Beast Boy, Raven, Hot Spot, Power Boy and Little Barda, Zachary Zatara
• So Luthor turns up Blockbuster (most likely controlling him the whole time) and turns off Trajectory leading to her demise.
• Titans lose a couple of members, but Gar pledges to help John Henry with his suspicions about the Everyman project and luthor.
• In Australia, a mechanic puts red tornado back together into a scrap body
• Is Johnny Warrawa the aboriginal guy we met back in #17, and Mungo is this white guy, or are there three people? Not sure why the art is confusing me. Or Johnny is this white guy who's in the shop and mungo is the one outside with the beer?

52 #22 - "Burial Ground"

• Luthor thinks Supernova is Superman, we obviously know it's not since Clark and him have interacted.
• Luthor is incompatible with the metagene therapy...
• Jon Standing Bear and this ginger chick who wants to join the Everyman program
• He's a descendent of Super-Chief! The Iroquois hero!
• Jesus christ, he kills his gramps and takes the sky stone.
• John Henry recruits a man named Ferry who claims that Luthor gave him powers and then took them away.
• Magnus calls his brother David who mentions the Moz-OC organization known as SHADE
• Some interesting retcons: all of the wild revamps of the metal men have been now labeled as a fever dream psychosis from Magnus' mental breakdown after the plutonium man went rogue.
• The US military besieges Magnus' home and send their soulless versions of the metal men to capture him. He and mercury fend them off, but something else attempts to intercept Magnus, taking out the military goons.
• It looks like a giant sentinel from marvel, but it blows up the house. 

52 #23 - "The Island of Professor Morrow"

• The monster men! So intergang is the one kidnapping mad scientists?
• Oolong island!
• Omni-Bot
• Baron Bug, Rigoro Mortis, IQ
• Book of Crime, religion of crime
• Amon Tomaz, Isis brother, gets handicapped by the monster men and whisper a'daire!
• Question grabs the crime bible
• Black Adam adds Amon to the family, he gets shazam powers. Takes the name, Osiris!
• What will the black adam family do in China?

52 #24 - "Just Imagine"

• Jason Rusch has put together an ad-hoc JLA, consisting of himself, Firehawk, Super-Chief, Bulleteer, and Ambush Bug.
• Ollie is running for mayor, and immediately declines the call to join the JLA.
• For the past six months, J'onn has infiltrated the US government in order to shut down Checkmate for good to avenge Ted Kord and the others who died at the hands of Max Lord at the Omac Project. He succeeds, but for how long...
• Love the memorial in Mount Justice.
• Black Adam has turned a new leaf! He's slowly removing the aggressive policies of the Freedom of Power, but the Chinese Great Ten feel that he's going soft, claiming that his actions will anger a number of powerful individuals.
• Ambush Bug has some fun meta lines in this.
• Time vortex unleashes temporal anachronisms onto the streets of metropolis. The source... Skeets!
• Who is Skeets attempting to draw out with this?
• Firestorm gets zapped, while Super-Chief is sent to the spirit realm. His ancestor, Flying Stag, reclaims the manitou stone and gives it to Ralph Dibny.
• The massacre in metropolis does wonders to Firehawk's political campaign, but we're okay with it given her doucheyness.
• Checkmate is granted authorization by the UN, all of J'onn's work has been undone!
• Amanda Waller doesn't buy Black Adam's change of heart, and she recruits Atom-Smasher to put together a new Suicide Squad to deal with him.

52 #25 - "Liminal Times"

• Bruno Manheim, leader of intergang, apostle of the religion of crime, and cannibal! We get a great description on how Darkseid communed with him, and we can assume that he's part of this whole religion being the god of evil and all that.
• Only other dead dude besides mirage I recognized was Kite man.
• Black Marvel family KO Sabbac, king of devils. Neron name-drops as well...
• Happy halloween judeo-christians!
• Ralph and the Helm of Fate have been loose in the magic underworlds for a while now, and we see the soul of Felix Faust, permanently imprisoned in Hell after a deal with Neron gone wrong.
• They turn around and leave, but we see the soul of Faust disintegrate...
• Who will Ralph bargain with for the resurrection of his wife?
• The ginger from #22 returns as Matrix!
• Alan Scott meets with Michael Holt. He reveals that he's been selected as the new White King of Checkmate, and will join if Michael becomes his Bishop. He wants to keep the organization in check and monitor Luthor's agenda.
• Courtney is in private school!
• So intergang wants Magnus to build a new Plutonium Man and Morrow finds out about the medication stifling Will's creativity.
• Manheim meets with the man behind the oolong island, Chang Tzu, a revamp of the Kanigher creation Egg Fu!
• Mentions of the Four Horsemen and Intergang mobilizing...

52 #26 - "Halfway House"

• The Black Marvels take Renee and Charlie to the Himalayas, where they rendezvous with Tot and freaking Richard Dragon!
• Isis gives Renee a rose...
• YOU ARE WRONG! with Jack Ryder AKA the Creeper!
• I guess Natasha's attitude is partly justified since it's all about teen rebellion and angst, and maybe she believes the Luthor doppelganger scapegoat he gave to the public...
• Sivana Family! I love it!
• Suspendium... We see Waverider! "I Know Why"... Could that be a future scene...
• Veronica Cale arrives on Oolong island!
• More Fawcett stuff! Crocodile men!
• Amon befriends him. He claims to be an experiment of Sivana, a mutated crocodile pulled straight out of the Nile six months ago...