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Fraction's review is entertaining and pretty spot-on. I haven't read any serious critiques of "52" that universally praise it, but most of us who enjoyed it really did enjoy it for its uniqueness, its fresh storytelling dynamic and its timeliness. We didn't poo-poo it automatically, erroneously assuming it would be just another steaming pile of crossover crap.

Not even the larger event that DiDio & Co. tried to create out of "World War 3" (from Week 50), with four exttra issues, mattered. You could read just that single week's issue of "52," as I did, and get the whole story. So there do appear to be a few shreds of credibility left in the comics industry after all.

I'm happy with "52" and very glad I bought it each week. I already miss not having it around. I doubt I'll buy "Countdown" every week — I was unimpressed by the first week, and dubious that lightning can strike twice. But I'm glad I was there the first time it did.

I got the first four issues of 52, read them, then returned them to my shop. What a dragged out beginning, and yes, I know that they had a lot of momentum to build up, but it wasn't worth my money.

Even though every jerkwad and his third-rate blog or spoiler-filled post has pretty much ruined everything in the series for me, I'll still get it in trade and read it in one big swoop.

"Even though every jerkwad and his third-rate blog or spoiler-filled post has pretty much ruined everything in the series for me.."

Just curiosity, but I did wonder why you read those spoiler filled postings and blog entries in the first place? Almost nobody writes spoiler free reviews these days - I tend to buy my comics a week or two after they hit so I just have to avoid comic sites like the plague until I can pick them up

I missed the entire event, but that review is making me second-guess myself. I may or may not decide to go back and re-collect the entire series based on the strength of that review alone.

Fraction typically has good taste when it comes to what is and isn't cool in the world of pop culture art (anyone interested should check out The Basement Tapes) but is he overselling the greatness of 52?

Industry professionals are often too cynical to praise mass-market event books. To see someone who knows the medium inside and out like Fraction have a fanboygasm over DC's event comic is really strange for me.

Is he right? Is it really worth the accolades? I've seen a lot of criticism, but a lot of said criticism was mindless internet snark.

Who knows what to think?

The review itself is a rather odd beast - I agree with a lot of what he says, but my lingering memory of the piece is a pile of superlatives with not enough substance to justify their use (paragraph 3 is wildly over the top, and the final paragraph simply hits you with "throwing idea on top of idea", without going into what those ideas where, why I should care, what made them *good* ideas to pile on top of other ideas and so on).

A decent review, but to me, it doesn't go into the reasoning behind why he thinks so many things in 52 were awesome with any degree of detail.

My take on 52 is basically that it was middling to bad for the first half of the series, then picked up steam and by the end, was a lot of fun.

The last month or so was particularly effective.

Is it worth reading 52 issues so that the last 8 would be really good?

I don't think so, to be honest.

That being said, those last 8 or so issues WERE quite good.

You view the work as the work, not as the fulfillment of its advertorials, and certainly not in light of your expectations.

Holy crap, I love that sentence so much that I want to marry it. So few fans do that these days, and it royally pisses me off whenever I see it. Good stories that get ignored or shut down because fans don't like one of the creators (or even the editor), bad stories that get hyped because the writer made a really good explanation on a certain ad-heavy blue website... people fail to judge the work as a work, and instead as a segment of a multi-media presentation. I love you, Matt Fraction's Review.

--yo
kisses!

i thought it went a bit smelly in the middle.

(fingers crossed they might put that on the back of the trade)...