About Heroes

Writers: John Ostrander & Keith Champagne
Artists: Pat Oliffe, Jack Jadson, Andy Smith, Tom Derenick

Well, I'm more than a little dissapointed. I was told and read that all or most of WW3 would be in 52 Week 50. That account was wrong, only the last 2 days of the War were included. I understand the reason behind this (to explain the difficulty and the ending with Black Adam), and 52 was the best comic of WW3, but I'm still dissapointed. I bought all four of these issues thinking that they would be more character pieces, explaining the OYL changes with the backdrop of WW3. What I got was a 4 issue mini-series about Jonn J'onzz changing his look and outlook on humanity. OYL pieces were glossed over, with Firestorm getting most of the spotlight. Jason Todd never trully explained why he became Nightwing (that responsibility speech was crap), and Batgirl's change was better explained in Teen Titans with the serum than here. Why did she take over the League of Assasins? Who knows. We found out how Aquaman became "Squid-face" but were offered no explanation as to who those Water Gods were, and what exactly Aquaman wanted. We saw Supergirl return "changed" but that was never explored, as she's painfully different in Brave & Bold and Superman titles than she is in her own book. We saw Donna Troy as Wonder Woman, but like Jason Todd, offered no real explanation as to why other than "it had to be done." We saw the Titans fail, and Amanda Waller go after some dude whose signifigance or identity was never explained. And in the final issue, we had a re-write of 52 week 50, only to include Martian Manhunter, when he was only seen in one panel in 52, but according to the Minis, he had a much larger part to play in the battle. In the end, I'm left with a bad taste in my mouth with WW3, and $10 less in my pocket. I skipped out on the Batman Mad Monk trade this week because of this? Get me a time machine. For me, the WW3 mini's lacked a sense of purpose and direction. Jonn proved a good narrator, but his story could have been told in one or two issues of this mini. I wanted more moments with Firestorm, Donna Troy, Jason Todd, and the Titans, and I only got a quarter of what I wanted or thought I was getting. If a new reader starts DC with 52, and grabbed this mini, he/she would ultimately be lost, because there are so many characters here who are not in 52, or even that well introduced or written for that matter. The writing was not bad, just okay, and a stronger sense of direction would have helped a lot in this department. When 52 is eventually remembered, WW3 will be the event that sucked, and was uneccessary. Yes I wanted answers to all my OYL questions, but I didn't wanted them to be glossed over so quickly. I felt that they deserved much more respect than they got here, and a lot of these OYL mysteries have been forgotten in their books. Hell, we're just now getting to the Dick and Barbara marriage Proposal, OYL. It's clear to my now that 52's plot hijacked the original plan (which I like), but the solution for that hijacking was made and put to the side until it was time to make it. Johns, Morrison, Waid, and Rucka had no hand in WW3, and it shows when reading the titles. The art got progresively better with each issue, but that was not enough to save it. D