Synopsis

“Trigger Effect”

Week 42, Day 2

Renee Montoya relights the candle. She is still in the cave, eyes closed, telling herself to “gaze into your self-made ABYSS. See what’s staring back.” When she does open her eyes, she sees her reflection, but without her face.

Week 42, Day 3

At the Tower of Fate, the Helmet of Fate tells Ralph Dibny that it is time to utter the incantation to bring his wife back. Ralph puts on the Helmet, pulls out a gun, and shoots himself in the head.

The bullet slams the Helmet into the wall, releasing Felix Faust, and then the Helmet transforms into Ralph’s wedding ring. Faust, surprised, says, “You knew it was me …? How?” Ralph tells him, “Because Faust, I’m a detective”. Ralph then maps out how he knew early on that Faust was behind the ruse. Ralph also admits that he has not been drinking boos for some time now, but gingold — and the Elongated Man punches Faust! He also tells Faust that the gun he just used is not a typical firearm, but a Wishing Gun: “Load a bullet … make a wish … and fire”.

Faust confesses that what Ralph has surmised is true, and then tells him why: after bargaining his soul with the demon Neron for power, Faust negotiated a trade with Neron for a “soul p-pure and stuh-strong at its moment of g-greatest despair … so I ch-chose yours!”

Neron arrives, wanting to take Faust, but Ralph tells the demon that Faust is his now. “I’ve put up with this façade for weeks. I’ve been through Hell and back to get to you.” Neron “trades” Ralph’s wedding ring for Faust by flinging it through Ralph’s heart. Ralph dies, a smile on his face. Neron tries to leave with Faust but realizes that the spell of binding that Ralph cast earlier is still in effect and it is trapped inside Fate’s tower. It vows to make Faust suffer “for eternity”.

Week 42, Day 7

Fire visits Sue Dibny’s gravesite. She picks up a wedding ring from atop the gravestone, crying, and whispers, “Oh, Ralph…”.

Thoughts

I misinterpreted the final scene with Renee from last issue. I thought it was in tribute to Charlie, but it was the final phase of Renee’s transformation.

This issue had quite the reveals! Ralph knew nearly all along that Faust was behind everything, from the Sue mannikin to his missing wedding ring. And then there was gingold and the Wishing Gun. What a cool concept, and it completely subverts the scene with Ralph supposedly about to kill himself. We see what transpired before the panel shown in issue 1, with Ralph saying, “I wish I were with Sue”. Knowing what happens to Ralph next, I guess he gets his wish after all. However, I find the “façade” Ralph has been portraying for weeks to be a bit disingenuous — after all, last issue he seems quite callous and oblivious to his actions. I suppose besides being the world’s stretchiest human and a great detective, we should also consider him a world-class actor? I don’t care for these kinds of mysteries where we don’t get to see all the clues, or am I just that unobservant?

Ralph says at one point that he’s waited a while to get Neron present, and it wasn’t to make a deal with it. Did he figure out some way to get to be with Sue if Neron was his murderer? And I loved the panel showing the smile on his face as he died, telling Neron, “I got you …”. It was a very low-key version of “I’m not locked in here with you; you’re locked in here with me!”

I found the final page scene confusing. Fire picks up Ralph’s wedding ring? Why was it there, four days later? Why is Fire (whom we haven’t seen since issue 4, I believe) at the gravesite? Did she and Ralph have a friendship from their time on the Justice League (I really don’t know — that era of Justice League history is foreign to me)? Or is this signaling the next chapter in Ralph’s “life”?

by Geoff Johns, Grant Morrison, Greg Rucka, Mark Waid, Keith Giffen, Joe Bennett, Jack Jadson, Alex Sinclair, Rob Leigh, Jann Jones, Harvey Richards, and Stephen Wacker. Cover by J.G. Jones and Alex Sinclair.

52 was a weekly series published by DC Comics starting in May, 2006. Because I had my 52nd birthday in late 2020, I thought it might be interesting (fun?) to examine this series 15 years later. I plan to post once a week about each issue. To read previous posts, click the link (52!).

Synopsis

“Dances With Monsters”

Week 4, Day 1. Renee Montoya continues her surveillance job for The Question. In orbit above Earth, a team of astronauts and Halo continue to look for missing superheroes, like Alan Scott and Animal Man. Halo detects a zeta beam trying to come in. In Metropolis, Fire tries to recruit Booster Gold to be part of a rescue team to search for and return those heroes who went into space during the (infinite) crisis, but Booster is more interested in making money off of his exploits.

Week 4, Day 3. The Question checks in on Renee, and John Henry Irons realizes he’s been poisoned, right before he touches an electronic device and appears to absorb it. He screams before there’s an explosion.

Week 4, Day 4. Ralph Dibny confronts Cassie Sandmark and her cult of Kryptonian worshippers. They tell him that they did not mark his wife’s grave, but immersing himself in the striped waters of the river Memon could show him something — or someone. They hold Ralph underneath the water and he blacks out. When he comes to, he is alone and missing his wedding ring.

Week 4, Day 5. For the first time in nearly two weeks, Renee falls asleep during her stake out, but does see someone enter the building. She follows him in and discovers The Question is already there. They discover the large man Renee saw enter is some sort of creature and they fight. Renee ends the altercation by using a high-tech (alien?) gun.

Week 4, Day 7. The zeta beam detected earlier in the week arrives on Earth, revealing several of the missing heroes who are injured and in some cases transformed.

Thoughts

I love that people are trying to locate the missing heroes who went into space and didn’t come home. It’s a nice turn from the superheroes helping the “normals”. Of course, not everyone on the space station is a normal human being — it’s Halo! Because she can (as we’re told in some clunk exposition) “detect and manipulate subtle radiation. She’s been scanning for incoming teleportation waves.” So zeta beams are subtle radiation? What does that even mean?

Finally someone confronts Booster about his preoccupation with making money, but his response potentially reveals some inner turmoil:

I helped save a future that spit in my face! So you know what? It is about me!

I certainly hope this isn’t the last we see of Fire. Her Jiminy Cricket role could prove useful.

When exactly was John Irons poisoned and by whom? Does this have to do with Lex Luthor’s reveal from last issue? Is Steel now going to be a new Amazing Man? The poison opens a window into his psyche: he’s worried about pushing Natasha away and not being able to rid himself of Steel. But when did he arrive at this decision? Was it while he helped clear debris in the previous issue, contemplating the futility of what his life had become? Or did I just forget a pivotal moment in Infinite Crisis involving Steel?

The scene with Ralph and Cassie confounds me. In issue 3, Ralph deduces that Cassie left him a message, but when he confronts her, she seems surprised, and now a member of this group says they are not vandals. They do offer him a vision (note that they do not offer any answers) if he immerses himself in the waters of Memon (“Do you want to see?”). They hold him under until he passes out, and when he comes to, he is alone and missing his wedding ring, the symbol of his wife. Did Ralph “see” something that has not yet been revealed to us, or is the vision what he sees before him — his isolation? Regardless of the answers, the question remains, in more ways than one: air bubbles form the rough shape of a question mark as Ralph loses consciousness, the only interesting appearance of this symbol.

I’ll reserve any thoughts about the creature that Renee and The Question fight in their scene (though I will note that the cover depicts the confrontation between Renee and John Irons???) and instead focus of the final page: the return of Alan Scott (Green Lantern), Hawkgirl, Herald, Bumblebee, and, unknown to me until I looked it up, a fused Cyborg/Firestorm. Besides that oddity, Herald has metal poking through him, Bumblebee is unconscious, Green Lantern is bleeding from one eye (is it gone?), and Hawkgirl is really tall (25 feet according to the DC wiki). What a great cliffhanger.

History of the DCU, part 3

by Dan Jurgens, Art Thibert, Guy Major, Jeromy Cox, Nick J. Napolitano, Eddie Berganza, Ivan Cohen, and Jeanine Schaefer

Crisis on Infinite Earths is summarized in four pages. The only interesting thing about this part is the headshots of different versions of the Flash. Seeing the different designs and people just makes me want to know their story.