If you’re still on the fence like I am about diving into the upcoming 52 trades, Iron Fist/Casanova/Punisher scribe Matt Fraction gives the series the most down-to-earth, non-maniacal, and thoughtful overview that I’ve yet seen.

The manic degree of pure invention that was going on here was stunning, too. DC books almost always have a precious air of preservation and nostalgia to them; DC books, to me, oftentimes feel haunted by their own continuity and not necessarily enriched by it. (A lot of books feel that way, not just at DC, it’s just that, at DC, it feels sometimes like a house style, you know?) But 52 threw all the comforts of safe storytelling out the window, for good or for ill, and tried to be something… well, if not “new” then at least ‘different’. Novelty was in its bones: characters were reborn and thrown into wildly inventive and over the top imaginative situations in a book that defies and denies conventional wisdom and practice. There were some big ideas going on here, some big thrills and some heavy duty weirdness both on the page and in them that, sometimes, in all their stoic grace and attitude, DC books miss.

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