So I just read the interview with Johns on newsarama, and finally understand the connections..
It was a world without Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman, so others filled these rolls.
Batman was replaced with the detective The Question in the story.
Wonder Woman and Themiscrya were replaced with Khandaq and Black Adam.
And Booster Gold replaced Superman, marked by an early apperance of Booster Gold having people going "Look! Up in the sky!" and then ultimately saving all existance.
Very interesting
...So, this means OYL, right? 313
Here is a sneak peek at the up-coming spin-off series.
Couple things:
1. I loved WWIII! J'onn's inner monologue, and his poetic philosophy on the realities of human nature, was particularly resonant. You'd need the 4 issue mini for that (since Week 50 doesn't cover it all) but I enjoyed it thoroughly....not a huge moral crisis, just one of the most powerful on Earth completely losing it...and the ensuing carnage. Powerful despite its simplicity.
2. Week 52 was utter chaos. Anyone care to explain wtf happened? Because I get that Booster and Skeets saved the multiverse (or something), but I have no idea what it means. Is there a multiverse again? Are the Earths identical? What exactly takes place with that overgrown cockroach that can apparently consume entire multiverses? Does continuity change due to this?
well yes there is a multiverse but residual effects of alex luthor's f ****ing with of things, resulted in certain histories mashing together. ergo, superman remembering his time as an honorary legionaire in his youth, when this was clearly pre crisis superboy who did this. as you could aslo see they were even showing flashes of the wild strom universe.
maybe im reading too much into it but we know that in wildstorm there has always been a multiverse. so much so that they had universe and dimensions that were made of pure ideas, or dreams, or colors or sound or whatever you can imagine, and of course they traverse it with the bleed... no we also know that since cap atom's return from WS universe he's been running his mouth up about the bleed. so im thinking that they can officially tie everything together now and make it less complex
Eh, I found WW3 to be a bit of a let down. J'onn musing about how humans suck and realizing no they don't is old news to me now. Plus I felt a bit let down by the promo art and posters. I knew Jason Todd couldn't have a huge role, but with him as Red Robin in one of the posters I expected more than him killing some criminals. Plus I found it a bit unlikely that BA could really have been so hard to stop and that more people didn't die.
Other than that 52 was amazing. I did not see the whole Mr Mind thing coming. I don't like that they brought back the multiverse (kinda takes away from the importance of IC imo) but the whole thing was written brillantly and had me on the edge of my seat for a lot of it. Truely good stuff.