Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities Official '52' Discussion Thread ... SPOILERS!

There's an interesting weekly blog by Douglas Wolk called 52 Pickup . He intends it to be weekly, in any event. Points out and speculates on a lot of details and references.

I haven't gotten #1 yet, but am looking forward to this series. I'll probably read it in 4-week batches. Looks like great summertime reading.

P.S. credit where due: I picked up this blog from Tom Spurgeon's site The Comics Reporter .

I have to say that I thought this was quite good. Much better than IC was.

And Cobie? I've seen some references that thought it was Connor but I kept thinking it was Arsenal as well.

Jamie

FC, great link!

Jamie, I can't help but really want to know who that is. The costume just feels so familiar! I thought Arsenal's earlier costume looked a little different? (His first 'Arsenal' costume was by far the best IMO).

I've reread issue #1 twice already and I really am enjoying it. Better than IC and great summertmie reading are two great ways of explaining it!

So, has anybody read #2?

I really enjoyed the Ralph and Booster storylines, but the Question/Renee stuff isn't doing much for me yet. I'm incredibly intrigued by the "mad scientist" stuff, though.

The first installment of The History of the DCU is incredibly disappointing, however.

I haven't picked mine up yet, but let me guess...

"There was an incredible knock at reality's door, when Superboy-Prime created the Big Bang."

Read #2 last night and we now have a better inkling as to what the whole statue thing was about.

This part of Ralph's story hooked me. I've always liked him as a flavor character but it's nice to see him resume his more detective side.

Booster? Well, it's Booster. I gotta love it but I think they're gonna kill him off. The new solicits seem to bear this out.

Renee? Meh. It just looks to me like they are going to make her the new Batwoman. It's going to take something more for me to become invested here.

T.O. Morrow and Doc Magnus? Nice. I've alwasy loved Reddy and the implications of what happened with the future can be interested, especially with Morrow involved. I liked the interaction here.

Red Inferno? Interested.

Jamie

Can't wait until Monday when I should have the first two issues.

Yeah, what he said.

Does anyone else think Ralph is looking like Conan O'Brian?

The Question needs his hat back.

I wanna see Magnus and Morrow in a series. Sort of the Odd Couple, but packed full of technobabble and psychotic ranting.

Ralph is back to detectiving, but he seems less lighthearted and more Raymond Chandler. Understandable, especially considering the case he's working.

Booster and Skids are having problems telling Time. I would have thought this was an issue when they first came to our time. But I am curious to see it played out.

The Question did this for the Huntress, and now he has Montya in his sights. Oddly enough, Rucka wrote that mini as well. I didn't like his taming of the Huntress, and I didn't like his dirtying of Montoya. Keep him away from my women folk.

Loving the Ralph scenes and can't wait for more.

Booster is fun, but I actually like Skeets much more than him (I suspect most do since its done on purpose).

The Will Magnus/T.O. Morrow stuff is the most interesting bit of all so far.

I love the Question, so I'm enjoying seeing him. I think the Question's pre-paid 3 weeks of work means that by week 5-6 we'll see Montoya having made some character progress, which will be welcome. I love both characters.

I can't wait to see more. 52 still has me more excited than anything else right now.

BTW, any insight on what Ralph was implying to Wonder Girl in those scenes at the end?

In regards to History of the DCU, I'm a little dissapointed myself. Not what I expected, and I hope that we'll all feel better about it once we see more.

The kidnapping of scientists (among other things) almost makes me think this is the mainstream DCU version of "Watchmen".

Here's a question that started bugging me.

In IC, we see that Booster knows who Bats really is (or at least where the Batcave is). But why doesn't he recognize Clark Kent at the memorial?

Jamie

That's one interpretation. Mine was that Clark came from behind Booster and he started talking back to the voice before he turned and saw Clark. And of course Clark kept up the pretense because not everyone at the memorial knew.

Note that Booster whacked him in the face giving him a bloody nose while he's flailing around.

Did Booster know where to find the Batcave or did Skeets? If the latter, then it wouldn't be surprising that Booster didn't identify Clark as Superman without being told so by Skeets.

I got the impression that it was Skeets who showed Booster the way to the Batcave. And he seems to have to remind Booster of when certain events will happen so maybe Skeets keeps some info to himself.

Hmmm....both good point. If anything, I think Booster learned it from Ted before Skeets. However, I was pretty sure that both Ted and Booster knew most leaguer's identities from the times they served.

Tamper's theory is a good one. I'll go with that or Superboy's punches....

Jamie
Praying that they do NOT kill Booster off in this.

I take it you haven't seen the August previews for 52 then.

I have....hoping it's a Red Herring.

Then again, I have little faith in their treatment of the BWAHAHAHA league any more, so it really wouldn't suprise me.

Jamie

I'm with you. All the hype of 52 being about supporting characters with a focus on Booster then they release something like that before they are a third of the way thru?

Two things about Booster and Skeets.

I think they are trying to show that Booster is relying too heavily on Skeets and “history” It’s a bit of a jibe at the internet generation who will google the answer, and get a very very fast answer, rather than go the old fashioned route and memorise stuff. For example someone who constantly uses wikipedia and only wikipedia to get their “facts” can on occasion get it wrong. Either because of incorrect entry’s, malicious changing of the entry or simply typo’s. If I mean 1776 but type 1767 it can change everything. These sort of data entries and mistakes should take some of Boosters cockyness (hey I’m living amongst the primitives) away.

I also think we will see a change in Booster, as he discovers that Skeets is not infallible. That he will have to interpret the information he is given and not just use it like a series of game cheats to get an advantage. After all Skeets is only as good as the info programmed into him and it may be that he has no information available on an event from 400 years in its past. I mean can we know exactly what happened at 17.00 on the 24th May 1606 in Great Zimbabwe? I am guessing that he will start to learn and grow and use his brain not just his computer.

They must be doing something right with this series, because I actually read the new issue of this before the new Legion issue!

Anyway, I thought this issue was pretty good, though I was somewhat dissapointed by the death of a villain that I've always kind of liked, in a quirky way.

Seriously, haven't they killed enough characters off. It seems like I can't read a comic today without some character being killed.

Well, the only good thing about this death is that the version I really liked was the pre-Crisis version, so maybe this'll clear the way for a new one more like the original.

-- I never even heard of this villain so I guess I won't miss him.
-- I've never heard of Shockwave either - has he been around before?
-- I thought Power Girl's costume was looking a bit ridiculous, even for her.
-- "senor gyro"? bwa-ha-ha - that's just silly!
-- Is "Booster Gold" Booster's actual name? I guess he could've made it his legal name, but it occurs to me I don't know his real name.
-- What the heck is "Sundoller Coffee" and shouldn't it be "Sundollar?"
-- what *is* that thing in the tube at the end?