I don’t know about you guys but the above add has had me chomping at the bit. It’s because I don’t have answer; I haven’t figured it out. The dots remain unconnected, my ducks remain out of a row and, while I’m letting Nancy, Joe and Frank down, that’s o.k. because trying to solve the mystery has been half the fun 52. So here again is me going all Conan Doyle and adding two and two with the hopes of getting four.
And I start with the bible. I don’t know about you guys but I have noticed a heavy hand of the biblical in this comic. I am not just talking the fact that we have a “Crime Bible”, or the Four Hoursemen but whole passages: Revelations 9:1 dropped by Veronica Cale back in week 29 is a great example. Seeing the cover for next week’s issue kind of drove it home for me. So I started looking for Book Fives : Passage Twos just to see what would pop up, now I’m going by the New American Standard. Since the title of this week’s issue is “Revelations” I checked there first and got this:
And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, "Who is worthy to open the book and to break its seals?"
Not very helpful. The second book I checked I found this passage:
He created them male and female, and He blessed them and named them Man in the day when they were created.
Now I don’t know about you guys but this struck me as somehow important. So many of DC’s stories deal with creation: creation of the Universe, creation of powers, the beginning of time, etc. 52 deals with the year after the creation of a new world and the men and women who populate it. More importantly though it was the book that this quote came from that got me: Genesis. Of course that alludes to New Genesis, Apokolips, and all that other stuff that I talked in my previous post, but it is also the name of an often-wished forgotten crossover by Jon Byrne.
The year was 1997 and DC decided to put out a
weekly crossover that linked every power from Green Lantern to Speed Force to Kryptonian abilities to one thing: the Godwave. See upon the Second World’s destruction, which led to the New Gods, a wave was sent out that seeded the powers of Earth’s heroes and villains. Well now the wave was collapsing in upon itself and heading back to it’s origin point: the Source Wall. Darkseid was going to use the moment of its return to rewrite the universe in his own image. Sounds like pretty standard comic fair to me.
However, there is something interesting that occurred in the pages of Genesis that I did not know before picking up the mini-series on ebay. More people than just those who I talked about in my previous post have pierced the source wall. In fact, thirteen people set into the great unknown power to see if they could set things right. Those thirteen include:
Mary Marvel
Donna Troy
Wally West (?)
Three Legionnaires
Steel
Martian Manhunter
Guy Gardner (although he was Warrior at the time)
And Ray Palmer
The heroes were not successful and as a result the source wall exploded. Heroes caught in the blast were:
Superman (he was blue at the time)
Kyle Rayner
Captain Marvel
Captain Atom
Aquaman
Bart Allen (?)
Big Barda and Mister Miracle
And Superboy
Not to mention Jesse Quick, Supergirl, Jack Knight, Orion, the Omega Men (stars of their own recent mini-series), the Darkstars, and the Ravers.
All of these guys took a hit from the power of very existence and most of them have been major players in the Three Acts.
Finally, I want to add that the Godwave originated at the beginning of time. There are two other beings of great power that also originated at that very moment as well: The Monitor and the Anti-Monitor.
Again, I’ll say these connections are tenuous at best and bringing in the Bible into my comics is not something I do lightly (Brian Singer I’m looking at you) but there feels like there is something here. You know? I leave this post with this. In week 43, Sobek revealed himself to be Famine. In Genesis book 43, passage one it reads, “Now the famine was severe in the land.” Kind of spooky, right?
