Right after Infinite Crisis wrapped up, the regular DC books apparently skipped forward a year. 52, published at the same time, told the story of that missing year in 52 issues, published once a week yearly. I'm not sure what I expected out of it, but I didn't expect it to be very good. That's a pretty grueling schedule to keep up for an entire year. And what do you know, it is pretty good.Because they were smart when they started. 52 worked on a team approach, with a team of writers and a team of artists working together to get this thing done. Still, it must have been a marathon to write, because it's going to be a bit of a marathon to read. And the quality has mostly held up. I like that the story is focusing on the less iconic characters of the DCU, and I like that the story is more down-to-earth, more human and relatable. Not feeling the Starfire/Adam Strange/Animal Man in space storyline, though. The art is consistent, but generally nothing to get too excited about.
There's a lot of exposition in this volume, naturally, since there are a lot of storylines to cover, and a lot of time to do them in. But it did get me hooked on most of them.