Shaolin Robot

A curiosity from one of DC's most ambitious Modern Age experiments, Shaolin Robot emerged in 2006 within the pages of 52 — the landmark weekly series that stretched across a full year of real time and pulled in some of comics' heaviest creative talent, including Geoff Johns, Grant Morrison, Keith Giffen, and Joe Bennett. With only a handful of catalog appearances, this is a rare, blink-and-you'll-miss-it figure whose brief existence shares panel space with titans like Green Lantern, Batman, and Wonder Woman, as well as intriguing international characters like Socialist Red Guardsman and Fang Zhifu. For collectors who love unearthing the overlooked corners of 52's sprawling, globe-spanning story, Shaolin Robot is exactly the kind of enigmatic background player that makes that series endlessly rewarding to revisit.