Trivia / 52

• All Star Writers: The series is co-written by Geoff Johns, Grant Morrison, Greg Rucka and Mark Waid, all of them very popular writers for DC with multiple well-regarded works under their belts.
• Creator's Pest: Keith Giffen all but despised Osiris and behind-the-scenes notes showed a small little comic he drew of Sobek wanting to eat him. One has to wonder if Giffen absolutely relished in drawing the breakdowns for Osiris's death at Sobek's hands. Most likely, since the notes indicated that the death was expanded by Giffen into two pages.
• Executive Meddling: While the writers were left alone for the most part, Dan DiDio literally pulled rank on the issue that dealt with the end of Ralph Dibny's storyline, pretty much rewriting it himself via the authors and Keith Giffen. Ralph's conclusion is regarded as one of the highlights of the series. Of course, according to one of the writers DiDio hated 52 so absolutely, he would literally walk down the halls shouting it. He decided to make the next weekly series more editorially mandated to his wishes and we got Countdown to Final Crisis as a result.
• Hire the Critic: Keith Giffen was overjoyed upon hearing that Grant Morrison wasn't a fan of Lobo, as he felt the character had needed a revamp for a while.
• Lying Creator: In the commentary for Week Seven, Mark Waid points out that not even Booster Gold would be so stupid as to pay a sham-villain by check, and people should keep reading and have some faith to see the payoff. This is never brought up again. He does it again in the commentary for Week Thirteen, where he discusses the obscured-in-shadow figure in the background of the last panel; he says that he thought he knew who the character was when he wrote the script, but Week Forty-Two showed him that it was a different character entirely. Except that the trades include occasional reprints of the original scripts, and the revelation in Week Forty-Two is exactly who the original script said it would be.
• What Could Have Been:
  • According to the commentary in the trade-paperback, the Questions line "...no, really, that was smooth. No wonder the women are falling all over themselves for you. Hey, I got an idea, why don't we double date sometime!" was originally "...no, really [...] why didn't you just tell her you'd faked all your orgasms while you were at it?" Unfortunately, Greg Rucka knew from the beginning that this was not a line he would ultimately be allowed to keep in.
  • In Week Thirteen, when Ralph Dibny is breaking up the Cult of Conner, he brings along several heroes connected to either returning to life or the afterlife in order to investigate if, maybe, the Cult has a legitimate point. These heroes are Green Lantern (Hal Jordan), Green Arrow (Oliver Queen) and Metamorpho, all of whom have died and returned to life, and Zauriel, an angel who represents Heaven itself. Originally, the plan had been for Hawkgirl to be in the scene instead of Zauriel because the characters' history was heavily based on a cycle of reincarnation, but earlier in the series she had been transformed into a 20-foot tall giant, which necessitated a change.
  • Zachary Zatara, who appeared as one of the Teen Titans in Week Twenty-One, was drawn in the layouts wearing fishnet stockings as a joke and reference to his cousin, Zatanna. However, Joe Bennet, the penciler for the issue, did not know who Zatanna was and actually drew Zatara in fishnets, which almost made it to the printer without being noticed. Due to the rapid deadlines of the series, the Titans almost had a crossdressing member.
  • When Booster Gold was saving Metropolis from the meltdown of the nuclear submarine, he was originally going to give a speech reminiscent of Daffy Duck in Duck Season! Rabbit Season! Duck Season! "Look at me! I'm saving the day! I'm Supernova!" The scene was eventually re-written because the writers felt it would have been too blatant a hint as to the truth behind the story.
  • Grant Morrison intended the restoration of the multiverse in the series to serve as a starting point for what would become their series The Multiversity, which was originally going to have fellow 52 writers Geoff Johns, Mark Waid and Greg Rucka participate. When The Multiversity finally began publication in 2014, Morrison wrote every installment themself with no involvement from Johns, Waid or Rucka whatsoever.