I’ve not mentioned covers at all, but I think I finally should. All of the covers for “52” have looked great, but this week’s cover seriously made me crack up. It brakes the fourth wall and mocks the cover to week one. It also sets the tone for the rest of the issue which is very humorous.

The issue starts off with Lex Luther’s superheroes taking down a terrorist cell. Of course the fight sequence turns out to be a test-promo made by Lex’s TV station. Luther is concerned that the team doesn’t have a proper name and that the people don’t have “code names.” The public loves codenames and this is all about public perception.

We also start to see side effects of Luther’s heroes. A girl on the team is upset because Luther gave her super-speed, but she needs to take a drug just so that she can function on a semi-normal level. Luther could care little about her problems because he is more concerned about the other team members going on diets and getting makeovers.

Things get a little too crazy though when the issue jumps to outer-space where Starfire, Animal Man, and Adam strange run into the god Devilance. The encounter is short lived because in a matter of panels, Lobo shows up and quickly kills the god. Now, I don’t really know anything about Lobo other than that in the 90’s he was a wolverine or venom anti-hero type of character.

But it seems that he’s still that 90’s type of character. I mean he’s so “badass” that he can smoke a cigar in the vacuum of space (if you can’t tell I’m being sarcastic, I really don’t think he’s ‘badass’ or cool in anyway) Things get soon get ironic because there is a scene with Lobo and Starfire in space, and even though there are speechbubles they are empty because there isn’t sound in space. Yet he can smoke?

What really crosses the line though is that Lobo rips off Starfire’s clothing because he wants to see her breast. He then takes a moment and drools while staring at them. I’m sure someone could write a whole essay on how sexists it was. I mean if its bad enough that it offends me, then its pretty bad. I’m really suprirsed that DC let this whole issue break the overall tone of the series.

The issue wraps things up with some sort of robot-creature waking up in Australia saying “52” I have no idea who this character is but this is the second time someone has woken up and said “52”