DC Comics’ epic year-long mini-series comes to an end, but was it worth it?

At this time last year, DC Comics’ “52”—a 52-week miniseries chronicling a year without Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman—was supposed to jump-start the DC universe. A follow-up to DC’s massive “Infinite Crisis” miniseries, in which Superman, Batman and friends underwent big changes (Superman lost his powers, Wonder Woman was a criminal, etc.), “52” was meant to re-establish and re-energize DC’s line of comics, all the while featuring second-string characters who carried on while the company’s three biggest heroes took a breather.

“52” wasn’t just an exercise in storytelling. It was an effort to boost sales and bring new readers into the DC universe. It was ambitious, yes. And at times, pretty entertaining. But after 52 weeks and more than 1,000 pages of comics, “52” showed that the best DC has to offer isn’t really that good at all.

The project set its sights high. A weekly, ongoing comic series hadn’t been attempted since the late 1980s, when DC switched its flagship Superman title “Action Comics” from monthly to weekly. But even then, it was more of an anthology than a long, continuous narrative, and the experiment ended after less than a year. “52” boasted some serious super-star comic talent, with Greg Rucka, Grant Morrison, Mark Waid and Geoff Johns on writing duties, and artist Keith Giffen on pencils. Even more difficult—each issue had to take place “in real time” (a move most likely copped from the TV show “24”); that is, if it was Christmas in the real world, it was Christmas in Gotham City. Plus, the creative team had to tie together just about every single character, from A-listers like Batman to D-listers like Ambush Bug, into one cohesive narrative.

It worked, mostly. Rucka, Morrison and the rest focused their tale on a select group: Ralph Dibney, the Elongated Man, spent the year grieving over his recently deceased wife; Rene Montoya, a Gotham City cop, spent the year grieving over her lost partner; Black Adam, a former super villain, spent the last half-dozen issues grieving over his dead family; and Booster Gold, a time-traveling huckster superhero, turned out to be much more important than anyone expected.

For comics fans, and DC fans in particular, “52” was a pretty good ride. There are some great slam-bang action moments—epic space fights involving a trio of heroes stranded at the edge of the galaxy and big superhero slugfests—and even a couple of moments of raw emotion, like when Black Adam’s family is killed. Well, as emotional as you can get when a giant bird/cyborg monster kills some spandex-clad fictional characters. But still.

From a storytelling perspective, however, the “big changes” promised during the year’s worth of stories weren’t that big at all. In the end, things weren’t really all that different from where they were a year ago. Booster Gold was still goofy, and Rene Montoya went from being a brooding cop to a brooding vigilante, and so on. Everyone knows that in comics, nothing major ever changes. But when your sandbox is full of C-list characters, it doesn’t hurt to break at least a few of the toys.

And 52 straight weeks of one series can be exhausting. By the time number 51 hit stores, remembering what happened in week 45 was difficult, and thinking back to week 10 or 11 was nearly impossible. New readers jumping onto the title faced similar problems, and keeping up with all the plot developments required either a fair amount of research on the Internet or an encyclopedic knowledge of DC’s characters.

Most of all, sales weren’t that great. According to data compiled by ICv2, a Web site that tracks pop culture news and sales data, “52” started out strong in May of last year, with weekly sales at around 140,000 copies. But by week 45, sales dipped to around 92,000. Meanwhile, “Civil War,” Marvel Comics’ big “event” book of the year, sold well over 250,000 copies during the 10 months that it was published—and that series featured only seven issues and was plagued by chronic publishing delays.

DC seems confident in the weekly comic format, though. After the final issue of “52” ships next week, another weekly series, “Countdown,” is scheduled to ship the week after. “Countdown” will, ahem, countdown from 51 to one, at the end of which, DC will launch its next big event. As publishing strategies go, this one’s not that great. With a guaranteed fan base of about 150,000 people, rocketing into another yearlong series that’s not only a commitment for fans, but off-putting to new readers seems excessive.

Unfortunately, it’s representative of the biggest problem facing Marvel and DC these days. Comic book movies have been staples in multiplexes for the last five years, but those moviegoers aren’t picking up new comics. And lacking any new way to draw in some new blood, DC and Marvel are instead pumping out one big event after another, tiring readers and scaring away potential customers.

Some writers at the company are paying attention, though. Writer Brian Azzarello, better known for indie fare like “100 Bullets,” slyly skewered the whole “52” event in a back-up series in DC’s “Tales of the Unexpected.” In Azzarello’s series, long-forgotten hero Dr. 13 teams up with a gay vampire, a Nazi gorilla and a band of Z-listers and discovers that the “architects” of the fictional universe (thinly-disguised versions of Rucka, Johns, Morrison and Waid) are rubbing out all the light-hearted, quirky characters in the name of a more cohesive, realistic universe. Say what you will about Nazi gorillas, but they’re probably an easier sell to new—and old readers—than 52 weeks of the status quo.