DC's "52"

NEWSARAMA - DAN DIDIO SPILLS ON DC'S "52"

"The story of 52 begins the week after Infinite Crisis concludes and runs weekly thereafter," DiDio told Newsarama. "It answers most of the outstanding questions from the missing year, but more importantly it sets the tone for our world and the direction of the DC Universe for the years to come."

The series will be DC'’s first attempt at an intentionally weekly comic since turning Action Comics into Action Comics Weekly between 1988 and 1989. Moreover than just running a weekly series, as DiDio explained, 52 will run in real time (or as close to real time as comics can approximate) "that is, when it'’s winter outside your window, it will be winter in the United States of the DCU.

"With each issue one week passes, and yes, we plan to show the change in time as the series progresses," DiDio said. "“We get to show how the life of the DC Universe changes over the course of a year, in real time. With plans like this, it is imperative that we insure that the entire series ships on time. For 52 to ship late it would be like Time Magazine shipping late.

"That said, I wouldn'’t go forward if I didn't believe we were going to hit all our shipping dates. Pre-production is the key to everything and we have the full support of the company to make sure we do this right."

I don't know where Infinite Crisis is going. I can't tell if One Year Later is crass hackwork. I don't know if rumors like the one in today's "Lying In The Gutters" are true, or if they'll be any good.

But something like 52 is at least bold. It's something different, something fun, and has the arrogance of TV's 24. And that went pretty well, didn't it?

I'm hoping they're as bold with pricing and format, as a weekly hit of $2.99 will do a lot to dilute my excitement. But this sounds like a fun event, and will get me running to the shop each week to see what happens next. If they fail at keeping it on-time, it will be a disaster, but if they succeed, I think 52 could prove to be an event to be remembered.