In week three of the ongoing 52 series, we get a big shocker - Lex Luthor is dead! Or is he? That is the primary focus of this issue. If you are a comic book fan or a DC Comics fan, you are skeptical of the "fact" that the corpse of Lex Luthor, one of the greatest DC Comics villains of all time, is lying dead on the street. By the end of this issue, you will at the very least know who that man is.

John Henry Irons, the man also known as superhero Steel, gets involved in the autopsy, but I am not entirely sure why he is brought in when his specialty is obviously in another field. This is a totally new wrinkle in the life of Irons, who also has to contend with the superhero pull his niece is feeling, even after the events of Infinite Crisis. Steel still sees her as a child and doesn't want her to put on any type of costume until she is a fully independent adult.

Elsewhere, we go back to the life of Booster Gold. From week one, Booster Gold's life hasn't been going as well as he'd like it to, with his floating pal Skeets malfunctioning for one reason or another. Still, Booster Gold takes a chance and looks for yet another sponsor to add to his list. If it was up to me, this malfunctioning robot storyline would lead to his death and someone more interesting would take his place - someone like Aquaman.

Seriously though, let's replace him with someone who takes no prisoners, someone who appears in this issue as the badass of badasses. Black Adam was briefly in the first issue, and he's back. This time, he is taking charge in the wake of Infinite Crisis, and he is nowhere near the type of goodie-goodie hero that someone like Superman or Batman is. Get your buckets out, because this issue gets bloody whenever Black Adam is around. He has claimed the kingdom of the nation Kahndaq for himself, and who knows what he's after next! Power Girl, the Scarlett Johannsen lookalike, is in this issue as well and she is just as stunned as many readers are about how Adam operates.

Black Adam and the death of Lex Luthor spice up 52 this week, but I miss my dose of The Question and his big mystery. Next week, we get to see a glimpse of what Question is looking for.

As with every issue of 52, there is a "History of the DCU" extra tagged on to the book. I don't see the relevance of this little mini-comic starring recently resurrected Teen Titan Dianna Troy, but maybe it helps new readers understand the grandness of the DC universe. To me it's just a waste when you could easily put a letters column in its place.

See also: Week 2, Week 1, and the 52 official site.