52 week 5
John Jack
Recap
52 week 5 begins humbly, with Alan Scott letting Animal Man's family know he's missing. His wife takes comfort in the fact he's not definitively dead.
The next day Steel (miraculously unfazed by whatever happened to him last issue) Doctor Mid-Nite and Alan Scott work to help the people injured by the Zeta beam accident. Scott relays the story of what happened, the Zeta beam refracted like a prism and rather than simply transport the heroes it scrambled some, killed others outright and sent some to parts unknown.
As this happens Renee Montoya is visited by Maggie Sawyer, who asks Renee who hired her for the stakeout. Renee doesn't roll over on the Question and Sawyer warns her she could be arrested if she does it again.
Lastly we pull away to Animal Man, Adam Strange and Starfire, having been transported to an unknown seeming paradise in space. Strange works to fix the ship, Starfire walks around naked for some reason and Animal Man taps into the red and informs them that they're not alone on this planet!
Review
A very interesting issue and by far the most focused of the series so far, with the bulk of the issue being focused on the fate of the Zeta beam victims. I really liked the backstory into the aftermath of the Rann/Thanagar war and the divergent narratives are really neatly set up. Really interesting that we would divert into an almost completely new storyline with this many threads in the air but I like where we’re going. I’m really confused about what happened with Steel last issue but did notice he’s wearing his suit for the first time in the series this issue, which makes me very curious.
The Montoya story is a welcome aside and provides a small epilogue for her first arc in this series, I appreciated it and figure it will serve as a bridge into her next story.
As I mentioned last issue solidly focusing on one story makes me wish we got more progress on the other storylines, we see Booster for a second but he hasn’t done anything in a couple weeks I guess.
The art this issue by new to the series artist Chris Batista (with inks by superstar Jimmy Palmiotti!) is really great, I especially like the spread showing the Zeta beam incident and the Eden planet is really detailed and interesting. Once again we devolve into cheesecake for a chunk of the issue but that’s kind of this era for you, and Starfire does always seem to fall into that category for whatever reason. The cover by JG Jones is spectacular.
There’s two entire pages like this
Final Thoughts
A solid issue that gives us some answers and sets up a new plot line, very good.
52 Week 5: Lost in Space
- Writing - 8/108/10
- Storyline - 9/109/10
- Art - 8/108/10
- Color - 9/109/10
- Cover Art - 10/1010/10