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?