Broken Frontier

It’s Halloween and there are plenty of tricks and surprises, as 52 inches closer to the halfway mark of the series.

This issue of 52 was segmented into some interesting moments and in doing so, several surprises became apparent. The issue also paid tribute to Halloween, and I thought the menagerie of gifted writers involved in this weekly project did an admirable job treating the readers to a few surprises along the way.

The biggest moment came when the head of Intergang (Bruno Mannheim) made his play to take over Gotham City. That was offset by a nifty moment when Captain Marvel Jr. and Mary Marvel failed in their attempts to bring down the demon Sabbac, and much to their chagrin, the Black Marvel Family roared in to pull their butts from out of the fire. Of course, an even bigger shocker came when Ralph Dibny was shown the fate of Felix Faust, and Lex Luther’s newly formed Infinity Inc. enjoyed success working the streets on Halloween night.

All of these events gelled nicely together and I thought Week Twenty-Five’s bag of tricks gave the reader a chance to glimpse the darker moments still to play out. All the writers involved found their strides here, and you could see the machinations in plotting come to fruition, especially when it was time to understand the price that Ralph Dibny could pay in his quest to bring his wife back from the dead. Another moment that I was tickled pink by came when the Marvels were upstaged by the newly formed Black Marvel Family, and I couldn’t help to chuckle at Freddy’s thoughts about glimpsing the newly formed Osiris in action. Beyond that, the writers were bang on with all the segments that comprised Week Twenty-Five and there wasn’t a weak moment here for me.

Even the art in this issue continued to delight me, as the foursome of Bennett, Eaglesham, Jimenez and Olliffe worked cohesively throughout. For my tastes, Jimenez’s segment involving Ralph Dibny’s quest with Doctor Fate worked best, and I just loved how he was able to establish an eerie tone as the fate of Felix Faust was revealed. The other segment that I enjoyed immensely was Dale Eaglesham’s take on the Marvel Family’s clash with the Black Marvel Family. I thought it was hilariously funny when there was a shot of some kids trick-or-treating and all of them began fighting over who would be Black Adam and Isis. I should also point out that the art of George Perez on the two page origin of Nightwing was some of the best artwork I have seen from him in a long time, so that was a great way to cap off a relatively good issue.

So after twenty-five issues, 52 is having no trouble finding a comfort zone for telling an engaging story week in and week out. I thought Week Twenty-Five was much darker than some of the previous issues, and the story I am finding most interesting of late is Ralph Dibny’s sojourn into the realms of magic. I get the feeling that when this is all said and done he’s going to have paid a great price and that fascinates me greatly. Anyhow, this issue was loaded with treats, so it’s appropriate to say this was Halloween themed.