- Have you ever noticed that DC loves

to use the very specific number 52, like, a lot?

This is something that has perplexed me for a long while.

Seriously, it's everywhere, like

in the channel 52 news backups in some of DC's comics,

the number of breaches in the Flash show--

- There isn't just one breach, there's 52

of them scattered throughout the city.

- [Voiceover] Or Captain Lance's call sign

in Arrow being DC 52.

- Blast patrol Delta Charlie 52 10--

- [Voiceover] And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

So what's the deal there?

What's the story between DC and its apparent love

for this number?

(playful electronic music)

Hello and welcome to The Show With Issues.

I'm not Scott, and I'm back here on NerdSync

because he's in the process of moving.

So deal with it.

Anyway, let's start by going back to 2005

where DC's New Earth was about to clash

with another one of it's famed crises.

For those unfamiliar, a crisis in DC terms

is a universe shattering event

that usually introduces some huge status quo changes

with a bunch of retcon style antics along the way.

DC is infamous for these, as they seem

to have one every few years, even going

so for as to reboot their entire multiverse twice.

Anyway, back to the crisis at hand.

In 2005, and event struck up by the name

of Infinite Crisis, where a lot of stuff happened

this is not necessary to this episode.

All you need to know about it, is that it ended

with a mysterious one year time skip.

"What happened in that mysterious 365 days?"

fans asked themselves.

"We'll tell you!" said the DC writers and artists

as they began slowly producing the first,

significant appearance of the number.

This came in the form

of a year long event titled simply, 52.

The series closely examined that missing plot hole

week to week for an entire year.

It featured lesser known characters as the protagonists,

seeing as heroes like the big three

were out of commission as a result of Infinite Crisis.

But why is this series named 52 in the first place?

Well this is where things start to get a bit fuzzy.

At face value, you could probably

say that the book is called 52 because

of it being a weekly series that ran

for exactly a year, and a year has roughly 52 weeks in it.

By using that logic, you could call any weekly series

that runs for every week in a year, 52.

This is where the actual canon significance

of the number comes in, and where

the actual origin gets even fuzzier.

So at the end of this huge run,

it's revealed that at the end of Infinite Crisis

the universe slowly started to

create identical copies of itself, 52 to be exact.

This is where things get a little weird.

Why were there 52 parallel worlds and not, say 50 or 60?

One might say that this is based

on the amount of weeks in a year,

or that it's based simply on the name

of the book, but nothing is very clear here.

The name of the book is potentially based

on the number of weeks in a year,

or the number of parallel universes in DC's Multiverse,

and the exact number of parallel universes

is either based on the number of weeks in a year,

or the name of the book.

It kinda creates this weird diagram

where things cause other things to happen

with no real source other than

the amount of weeks in one full year.

So you kinda just have to live

with that being our only constant explanation.

So what about The New 52?

Why is it called what it's called?

The main reasoning behind The New 52

being named The New 52 is in reference to two things,

the most obvious being that it's just

a simple reference to the amount

of comic series that the reboot launched with.

The New 52 originally launched

in 2011 with 52 new titles, but again why 52?

The 52 in New 52 was also referencing

the original 52 comic series.

Or wait, maybe it's referencing the amount

of universes rebooted after Flashpoint.

Or it could be a reference to the number

of weeks in a year again.

Hold on, maybe DC is just being self-referential

at this point, and is referencing

the fact that they love that number.

That last part is what I find really interesting here.

The idea that this number started

as something really super simple

and pretty much was just a "Hey why don't we

"use this number?" type of thing.

It turned into something bigger than expected,

and is now a synonymous number when talking DC Comics.

In fact, DC seems to do this sort

of self-referential, self-indulgent

type thing a lot, actually.

I mean, come on, it's even in their name.

DC originally stood for Detective Comics,

but now that can't be the case because

the company is called DC Comics,

which in reality, would just be Detective Comics Comics.

I'm almost certain the reason DC is called

what it is today is because no one

actually said the full name originally,

so they just went with it, and hey, it worked out.

Although Scott and Derek did team up

to do a 13 minute video last week

about DC's full name history,

so go check that out if you want.

After this though, I'm not done here yet.

This whole self-referential bit that DC seems to love doing

is evidenced even further with how almost

every New 52 book is ending a issue 52,

just before their subsequent rebirth books are released.

Just goes to show how much DC loves this number.

So let's recap here.

DC holds an event called 52 which

is a weekly comic series that runs for a year,

and it becomes immensely popular.

DC realizes this and slowly the number

becomes synonymous with the company,

even having it be a part of their 2011 major reboot.

Along the way, the origin of the number

is disputed until it's just watered down

to just being related to 52 and its success.

Now, the number appears everywhere

across DC's multi-media empire.

What do you guys think about this whole debacle?

Do you think there's even more significance behind

the number that we still don't know,

or is it simply just one random decision

that blew way out of proportion?

Let us know in the comments.

And if you wanna check out some more videos

from my side of things, you can click right here

to see the newest episode of The Show With Issues.

Or you could always check out some more NerdSync goodness

by clicking right here to watch

the latest episode of Comic Misconceptions.

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so you don't miss out on anything we do here at NerdSync.

I'm really tired though, so I'm gonna go now.

See ya.