History ComicBook / FiftyTwo

While Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman appear occasionally throughout the story, the main focus is on the rest of the DC Universe as it functions without its iconic heroes, devoting most of its panel time to second and third string characters, including some who had been all but abandoned at the end of UsefulNotes/TheSilverAgeOfComicBooks. Because of the [[LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters sheer number of characters]] to keep track of and all the continuity and decades old story lines used as the backbone of the story, ''52'' could be accused of veering into ContinuityPorn. This is alleviated to a certain degree by the collected volumes of the series, which included creators' notes at the end of each week that tended to illuminate various parts of that week's chapter (including some of the more obscure references). DC also produced a companion book to the series that reprinted some classic issues featuring some of the major characters of the series that are not as well known (Rip Hunter, for example, had been pretty much been out of DC Comics since the 1960s, but becomes pretty important as 52 presses on), as well as more recent issues that set-up the characters for their individual stories.

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: Damn near every character in the DC Universe shows up at some point. [[MemeticMutation And they are awesome!]]

* AdultFear:
** In the aftermath of the Comicbook/InfiniteCrisis, the cosmic event that shattered existence, Alan Scott has to deal with the realization that his daughter died in the crisis, and no parent should ever have to outlive their children.
** ComicBook/TheQuestion has terminal lung cancer exacerbated by a lengthy smoking addiction, gradually wasting away and losing both his mental and physical faculties. Despite his history of fighting alien menaces and international conspiracies, there is nothing he can do to stop his cancer from metastasizing.

''52'' was a yearlong series published by DC Comics from May 2006 to May 2007. As the name suggests it consisted of an issue every week for an entire year, a Herculean task made easier by having four writers (Creator/GeoffJohns, Creator/GrantMorrison, Creator/GregRucka, and Creator/MarkWaid), one breakdown artist (Keith Giffen), and a veritable army of pencilers, inkers, colorists, and letterers. The story takes place between the events of Comicbook/InfiniteCrisis and the One Year Later storylines of Franchise/WonderWoman, {{Franchise/Superman}}, and {{Franchise/Batman}}.

** The reason Lady Styx wants the [[FanNickname Space Heroes]] dead is because she believes they [[spoiler: saw the recreation of the Multiverse]].

* StuffedIntoTheFridge: [[spoiler: Osiris]], much to Keith Giffen's delight.

** This story, along with the ComicBook/SevenSoldiers maxi-series, sets up important plot points for ''Comicbook/FinalCrisis''. The scenes showing what Batman and ComicBook/{{Robin|Series}} did in their year off set up a number of points which become important during Morrison's run on Batman, and Rip Hunter's chalkboard predicts events in a whole host of future stories.

* TheTopicOfCancer: [[ComicBook/TheQuestion Vic Sage's]] battle with cancer forms one of the main storylines. [[RealityEnsues And then he dies of it.]]

* RealityEnsues: [[spoiler: ComicBook/TheQuestion has lung cancer resulting from years of smoking.]] Instead of a quick and clean death from the disease, or a HeroicSacrifice since he knows he is already dead, he slowly wastes away over weeks, becoming sickeningly gaunt and delirious, hallucinating old friends and lovers as he babbles incoherently. [[DespairEventHorizon Ungodly godawful]], but a realistic depiction of a cancerous death, with accompanying moaning and groaning which author Greg Rucka knows from personal experience.

** Ralph Dibny's gun is labeled as being evidence from the "Anselmo Case". The Anselmo Case was a RunningGag in the detective series ''Series/Moonlighting''.

** There are numerous reference to ''Franchise/StarWars'', including comparing traveling through an asteroid field to ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'' and telling Skeets that "I am not the droid you are looking for."

** During the Black Adam/Isis wedding arc, Intergang coats the shrapnel of their suicide bomb with rat poison, an anti-coagulant, which is what real bombers do to make sure that that their victims bleed out if they are not killed by the immediate blast.

* FrickinLaserBeams: Intergang has access to Apokoliptian and Thanagarian weapons technology, and Renee Montoya steals a very handy laser pistol from one of their warehouses.

* ChekhovsGun: At the Black Adam/Isis wedding in Week Sixteen, the Intergang bomber quotes from the Crime Bible that serves as the foundation of the Religion of Crime. The bible itself and the religion as a whole would not be featured or even named until Week Twenty-Three, when the Question and Renee Montoya infiltrate one of their occult meetings.

* EldritchAbomination: [[spoiler: Mister Mind becomes this in the end, but in the lead-up we get the Four Horsemen of Apokolips and Lady Styx, and ''none'' of them are what we would call "nice."]]

* ForScience: The Science Squad on Oolong Island.

* GiantEnemyCrab: Hannibal turns into one to fight [[spoiler: Steel]]. [[spoiler: Steel]] responds by breaking his grip - and his hand. This does raise the question, just what has Hannibal been eating?
* GloryHound: Booster is reckless in his search for glory.
** [[spoiler: Subverted a quarter of the way through. While Booster does seek to be the big hero the moment he enters the Rip's lab it all becomes an act to defeat Mr. Mind]]

* HiveMind / HiveQueen: Lady Styx and her empire of zombies.
* HollywoodHypeMachine: When it was announced that {{Comicbook/Batwoman}} would be reintroduced to Franchise/TheDCU in this series, and that she would be gay with a history with Renee Montoya, the media reaction was ''astounding''. Creator/DanDiDio himself said that he was completely unprepared for the amount of focus and recognition, including spreading into media that is not traditionally related to or focused on comic books. With such a focus on her and her sexuality she became known as DC's most high-profile gay superhero. However, the press response was greatly out of proportion to her role in the series, which was as a supporting character spread out over fifty two issues, and after its conclusion she did not receive another starring role until her 2009 headlining of ''Detective Comics''.

* JawBreaker: After [[spoiler: Sobek]] [[EldritchAbomination reveals himself,]] he is killed this way.

** Renee is forced to kill a [[SuicideAttack suicide bomber]] that Intergang sent to disrupt the Black Adam/Isis wedding, but the bomber herself was only a young girl, a ''kid'', and Renee begins to pray to God, begging forgiveness [[ShootTheDog for what she had to do]].

* ObfuscatingDisability: Averted. Ralph Dibny believes that minor villain Professor Milo is faking the need for a wheelchair so he can disguise a mystical artifact as one of the wheels. Ralph dumps him out of the chair then rips off the wheel since he needs it for a ritual that will supposedly revive his late wife Sue. He is horrified when he realizes that Milo wasn't faking his disability and really needed that wheelchair ''since he lost both of his legs''.

* SecondSuperIdentity: Everyone thought that Supernova was Franchise/{{Superman}} in disguise. [[spoiler:Actually, it was ComicBook/BoosterGold from the future all along.]]
** The original Silver Age Supernova ''was'' Superman in disguise.

* SexForSolace: Renee admits to Charlie that she has a clearly defined pattern whenever it comes to severe emotional trauma, namely [[DrowningMySorrows getting drunk]] and then [[SexForSolace hopping into the nearest bed she can find]]. The series opens with her picking up random women in an attempt to deal with the death of Crispus Allen and being left by Daria Hernandez, and the Question first approaches her just after one of her liaisons. When it looks like she has gotten a handle on her emotional problems, she then [[ShootTheDog needs to kill the Intergang suicide bomber to protect the Black Adam/Isis wedding]] and is found "drunkenly taking pleasure with one of [Black Adam's] citizens." A key point in her [[CharacterDevelopment character arc]] is when she is eventually able to deal with her personal troubles emotionally, instead of running away from them through alcohol and sex.
* ShootTheDog: Intergang tries to attack the Black Adam/Isis wedding with a [[SuicideAttack suicide bomber]] that Renee tries to stop, but with the heavy crowd blocking her way Renee can not reach the brainwashed young girl before she detonates her bomb, forcing Renee to shoot and kill her to protect the massive crowd.

** When Renee Montoya takes aspirin, the panel was specifically drawn to give the impression that she was chewing the pills instead of just swallowing them; this is apparently "an old drunks' trick."

* SuicideAttack: Intergang tries to attack the Black Adam/Isis wedding with a brainwashed girl carrying a bomb, [[ShootTheDog forcing Renee to kill her before she can detonate the device.]]

* TheseHandsHaveKilled: Renee Montoya has killed people before, in her duties as a cop and when fighting for her life against Intergang, but at the Black Adam/Isis wedding she is forced to shoot an Intergang suicide bomber that is a young girl, just a kid. Regardless of the reasons for her actions she is wracked by guilt over having killed a child and prays for forgiveness.

* WouldntHurtAChild: When trying to stop the attack on the Black Adam/Isis wedding, Renee is horrified to discover that the Inergang [[SuicideAttack suicide bomber]] is a little girl, only a child. This makes Renee's [[ShootTheDog subsequent actions]] even harder.

* HeroesUnlimited: ComicBook/InfinityInc seems to have a new roster of heroes every time it is seen; this is not hyperbole, until they get their official team name and uniforms there is literally a new stable of heroes in every appearance, with only Natasha present in every incarnation. The Teen Titans themselves are trying to expand during the series, and are seen holding tryouts and gaining (and losing) new members in their various appearances.

* SuperZeroes: ComicBook/BoosterGold's pallbearers. For the record: Beefeater, the Blimp, Honest Abe, Mind-Grabber Kid, Odd Man, and the Yellow Peri.

* CrisisCrossover: An unusual example of a Crisis Crossover that happens immediately after another. DC has referred to the surrounding Crisis' as chapters in a single large story beginning with ''Comicbook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths'', then ''Comicbook/InfiniteCrisis'' and ending in ''Comicbook/FinalCrisis''.

-> '''PANEL 1''': "''I'm Steel, second-stringer from the Superman books. And I am'' '''awesome.'''"
-> '''PANEL 2''': "''I'm Booster Gold. I protect the past to ensure your future. And I am'' '''awesome.'''"
-> '''PANEL 3''': "''I'm Ralph Dibny. I stretch and am a second-stringer on the Justice League. And I am'' '''awesome.'''"
-> '''PANEL 4''': "''We're Starfire, Animal Man, and Adam Strange. And we're second-stringers from the DC universe. And we are'' '''awesome.'''"
-> '''PANEL 5''': "''I'm Renee Montoya, second-stringer from the Batman books and the Batman animated series. And I am'' '''a lesbian.''' ''And also very, very'' '''awesome.'''"
-->-- '''[[WebVideo/AtopTheFourthWall Linkara]]''', ''52 In 5 Panels''

-->- '''[[WebVideo/AtopTheFourthWall Linkara]]''', ''52 In 5 Panels''

** Lex Luthor is absolutely convinced Supernova is Superman. Since Clark Kent is depowered during the run, it obviously isn't.

* [[SignificantGreenEyedRedhead Green-Eyed Redhead]]: Kate Kane combines FieryRedhead and GreenEyes into a red and green explosion.
* GreenEyes: A necessary part of the [[SignificantGreenEyedRedhead above-mentioned trope]] for Kate Kane.

* [[FiveBadBand Ten Bad Band]]: The Great Ten.

* TruthSerums: Played with when Lex Luthor kidnaps Clark Kent and gives him an experimental truth serum which his scientists explain is a synthetic recreation of Franchise/WonderWoman's magic lasso. He then asks Clark, who broke the story about new hero Supernova, why it is that Superman is [[ItsAllAboutMe toying with Luthor by pretending to be someone else]]. Clark, {{laughing mad}}ly, informs Lex that he does not know who is under the Supernova mask, but he is absolutely certain of one thing: [[CrowningMomentOfFunny it is not Superman]]. Creator commentary in the trade paperbacks points out that this scene, and perhaps the entire future path of DC comics, could have gone so differently if Luthor had simply known to ask ''the right question''.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: This story, along with the ComicBook/SevenSoldiers maxi-series, sets up important plot points for ''Comicbook/FinalCrisis''. The scenes showing what Batman and ComicBook/{{Robin|Series}} did in their year off set up a number of points which become important during Morrison's run on Batman, and Rip Hunter's chalkboard predicts events in a whole host of future stories.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: This story, along with the ComicBook/SevenSoldiers maxi-series, sets up important plot points for ''Comicbook/FinalCrisis''. The scenes showing what Batman did in his year off set up a number of points which become important during Morrison's run on Batman, and Rip Hunter's chalkboard predicts events in a whole host of future stories.

* ArcNumber: 52, [[TitleDrop duh]], also referenced by ComicBook/RedTornado and it is written all over Rip Hunter's blackboard.

** When Luthor first gets his superpowers at the end of one issue, his shirt is torn in the shape of Superman's hexagonal logo. According to WordOfGod, it began as an accident, but went with the StealthPun.