Everything that rises must CONVERGE: Aldo and others read DC's CONVERGENCE clusterf*ck so you don't have to

Somebody talked about doing this elsewhere, and I was already half thinking about it, so herein lies madness for all to join in.

This was supposed to just be a sticking plaster, a chance for DC to breathe while they moved from NYC to Burbank. But as staffers refused to leave and were replaced, DC jumped on the opportunity and cancelled a lot of books. This may (or may not) have some relevance for Convergence. In any case, it changed focus and became a Summer Crossover event only not in the summer. And not very crossover-y as it takes place in isolation from everything else, instead of everything else.

Anyway, with Convergence #0 out last week it's probably worth recapping that (and Earth 2 :World's End and The New 52:Future's End) before jumping into the titles this week.

Earth 2: World;'s End was a particularly poor quality weekly that tried to explain why Earth 2 was over-run by parademons by suggesting Highfather sacrificed it to Darkseid in return for him not attacking New Genesis. The heroes of Earth 2 tried in vain to defend it, including the Atom giving his life to expand into a giant underground cavern and Green lantern meditating himself to death. Oh, and a Sikh suicide bomber flying a plane into a tower. The heroes end up losing, and Mister Terrific (a refugee, let's not forget, from the Johnsiverse who escaped to earth 2 when his own book was cancelled) takes them on a spaceflight to 'rescue' them after they abandon Earth 2. Which I'm betting all gets forgotten pretty quickly. Anyway, it was pretty dreadful any way you looked at it even by the low standards previously set by Earth 2 and World's Finest.

The New 52: Future's End was a series written by 4 writers who possibly never exchanged the time of day with each other during the creative process. Remember how 52 was 3 different books that made no sense together? Well this was even more so. Brother Eye has replaced everyone by robots and the few heroes that are left are hidden. Apart from the ones that aren't, who live on an island prison with - I shit you not - Fifty Sue who it's always hinted is something more important than an annoying brat but it's never really clear. After a lot of pages of brooding and fights, and a strangely large number of pages set in diners, nothing really happens. Batman Beyond turns out not to be the Batman Beyond that everyone thought he was, and is from Earth 2. Then Braniac turns up and there are a couple of pages of plot. Just one or two, mind. AFTER AN ENTIRE FUCKING YEAR OF NOTHING HAPPENING.

bless you aldo

Re-reading those two final,weekly issues before starting writing about Convergence, I remember that I forgot to say that Alan Scott starts meditating because his dead boyfriend (yeah, that's right, we made Alan Scott gay! WE ARE EDGY AS A BUTTER KNIFE!) , who has since turned into the Wind Elemental, persuades him he'll be happier dead. So he gets the power of Evil Superboy and punches Darkseid with the Universe.

Actually both series are notable because the heroes LOSE them both. In World's End the Earth is lost to Darkseid and aside from a small number of heroes on a spaceship which can't really get anywhere and has no supplies floating round Apokolips all the human race is dead. In Future's End Brother Eye has won, and not only that, Tim Drake (for it is he that is now Beyond Batman Beyond) has been kept in some kind of time bubble while some of the fighting took place and everyone he knows has aged 35 years including his gf from earlier in he series. And Braniac doesn't appear at all near the end. Is this now supposed to be outside Convergence? Before it's even started?

Convergence #0 sort of does the job as a setup issue but also is completely unsatisfying. The Braniacs from lots of different books tell the Superman from the Johnsiverse that he's not the only Superman by showing him all he times other Supermans died and Power Girl's Boob Window. Johnsiverse Superman clearly comes from Earth Stupid because he just doesn't get it. Having said that, Braniac doesn't get it either or at least the ones that Stupid,an punches to death in the desert (did I mention the sentient Braniac who might actually be a planet was also a desert? Well he is.) because we have to wait for Planet Braniac to form All New Braniac who explains that this isn't like Secret Wars at all, or like Battleworld, and the cities which are going to Battle each other in a War on his World in Secret aren't missed by anyone because they were all going to get destroyed anyway.

Then he waves his arms like Wil Wheaton does at the beginning of Tabletop and is >< this close to saying "and this... is Convergence."

There's a list of cities in BattleConWars at the back of the book and this is really SuperBats heavy. Plus TWO Captain Carrot/Zoo Crew cities. Feels a bit like an unnecessary set of scope limiting decisions already.

I've got all eleven out this week and "looking forward" to reading them, or at least hoping the Tom Peyer one isn't horrific.

Convergence #1 takes some of the heroes we thought were dead in World's End and dumps them on SecretConWorld where they nearly get knocked out before the group stages start for not having a city to call their own. They protest for a bit and Braniac lets them in as long as he can cover them in the dream metal out of the Invisibles. He then makes himself all big and turns up on TV screens in the sky of all the cities to tell them the same plot he Wil Wheatoned in the previous issue while alluding to the stories they come from (Infinite Crisis, Flashpoint, Zero Hour and Kingdom Come for some examples) then we get a splash page of heroes looking up at Uncanny Braniac so you can look at it and go OOOOH I REMEMBER THEM.

You know what's next when BattleVergeSecrets start and the enclosed Eden Projects fite each other? IT'S DOMESDAY!

That's not my pun btw, that's genuinely what the issue is called. Honestly. Not even I'm that bad.

To be fair, I'm pretty sure there is only one Captain Carrot city. I believe the other is from the world of Justa Lotta Animals, which is the world where the superhero animals Captain Carrot draws for a living are real.

And no, I didn't have to look that up.

Earth-C and Earth-C-Minus, if memory serves.

To be fairer, you're right. Sugar & Spike world also seems to be a thing in it.

gotta paid it out as much as they can. They got months worth of pointless fill-ins to sell.

Yuck.

I'm thinking about doing some kinda commentary for Secret Wars, as I've already started digging that hole for myself. I hope it's not as terrible as this sounds.

Yep, all bad so far

Aldo, we love you

the amazing thing about reading aldo's recaps is that they're totally incomprehensible and yet i am certain that the actual comics themselves are even less coherent

you're doing the lord's work here aldo, i hope you cling to your sanity

I find this all personally sad because I only really got into the DCU proper for the first time on the back of 52, after which I started buying a bunch of then-current stuff and checking out older stuff, and I was actually reading a significant portion of their output until they pulled a Flashpoint on us and began their long, strange trip to Shitsville. I keep hoping that they'll right the ship but it really doesn't look like it's gonna happen.

They really are very, very incoherent comics - speaking as someone fairly familiar with DC of the past ten years.

I think it's mostly just a campaign to Mark Waid cry.

"that tried to explain why Earth 2 was over-run by parademons by suggesting Highfather sacrificed it to Darkseid in return for him not attacking New Genesis"

Yeah, that sounds heroic.

Convergence Batgirl #1 deals with Stephanie Brown, Cassandra Cane and Tim Drake from an immediately pre-Flashpoint Gotham. In what is possibly scene-setting (because if this happens in all of them it'll be REALLY tiring) we learn that Gotham has been under the Dome for a year and so at the end of Year One (DO YOU SEE WHAT I DID THERE) people are getting really pissed off and are starting to think about eating their pets because they're running out of food. So what does a responsible Batgirl do? Threatens them with chemical weapons that they need to stay in their houses when it looks like they might be able to get out. Then Uncanny Braniac covers them with his magic goo and they end up at the beginning of the comic. WARNING! DO NOT READ THIS WHEN YOU NEED TO PEE! Seriously, the first half is all about Stephanie trying to work out the logistics of taking off her suit in the desert without stripping off completely (although having spent years being Batgirl you'd assume she's come across this problem before?) until she sees Gorilla Grodd and "suddenly I don't need to pee any more". Which I can only parse as she's let her bladder go in her suit because she saw a giant gorilla. What is this, a freakish crossover between DeviantArt and AAOOO? Why am I reading a book about the toilet habits of a teenager? (Only kidding, if Convergence turns into a series about bodily functions I will be as happy as a pig in a series about bodily functions. PLEASE MAKE THIS HAPPEN.)

as said above, bless you and thank you aldo, said that on yer whole DC relaunch thread, you are doing some god's work, tho which god has yet to be determined but still much appreciated

Thanks for all the kind words, I can't decide myself whether I am doing a good or bad thing; whether people might actually be encouraged to read such shitty comics by how much they fail to entertain me.

To prove I wasn't joking about Giant-Sized Stephanie Brown Toilet Antics Happy Fun Hour:

https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8759/17107741231_f5532138c9_o.jpg

I was a bit intrigued to see that Montoya Question book by Rucka in the shop yeaterday. I will await your scathing review before deciding whether it's too saturated wirh Convergence sewage to bother with.

wtf dc

between that and kevin smith's infamous 'batman pisses himself' farrago it's starting to seem like there's a burgeoning subgenre of bat-related watersports comics:

http://wac.450f.edgecastcdn.net/80450F/comicsalliance.com/files/2010/07/wg07.jpg

They're a couple of decades behind the curve:

http://andersonvision.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/SPIDERMANBEYONDerpooping.jpg

Convergence Batman & Robin #1 is set at the same time in the pre-Flashpoint Gotham as Batgirl Pissypants and is a real kick in the teeth for Batman as he isn't good enough to be Gotham's champion in BattleConWars. Take that, Batty Boy, Uncanny Braniac thinks you're not as good at fighting as a teenager with poor bladder control! So, because this doesn't really have anything to do with SecretWorldVerge it instead makes clear this comes from a time when nobody has found out Jason Todd is Red Hood yet, and re-runs the daddy issues many robins fight from B&R until the baddies turn up in Gotham who are The Extremists, from an issue of Justice League Europe. Wait a minute, in Batgirl Pissypants the whole plot of Uncanny Braniac is to take out Champions from the domes to fight each other in the desert. Instead there's is crossover beat-em-up happening inside the individual domes? How is that even possible if the domes are impervious except by the deliberate hand of Uncanny Braniac? Did the writers even get a brief before this started?

After having read 4 SecretCon books, Mister Freeze sums up my feelings about the whole enterprise:

https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8684/16487533134_318858afd7_z.jpg

is that Denys Cowan?

Certainly is, and inked by Klaus Janson. So, now you know everything the book has going for it.

Convergence Harley Quinn #1 is ALSO set in the same Gotham and the events of Battle Bats and Secret Robin are vaguely referred to in this but the one character they share - Poison Ivy - behaves completely differently. You know, it's almost like there's no editorial control whatsoever. This book is at least almost a good read, as we see Harley has come to terms with her mental illness in the year under the dome and is happily settled down with a policeman. Then, IN DIRECT CONTRADICTION of Batgirl Pissypants, Uncanny Braniac decides the champion of this Gotham is Harley and she has to fite Captain Carrot. OBVIOUSLY nobody in Gotham bats an eyelid at the notion of a 6ft rabbit with giant muscles and Ivy & Catwoman break into Harley's apartment in order to send her over the edge into madness again with whatever the pheromones that did something to her in a very minor flashback were.

So, Harley is bonkers and ready to fight. It was all quite a good read until the end. The best book so far, even if it did feature Damien Hirst.

Even Convergence Justice League #1 is set in the same Gotham City FFS. And despite the fact we know a Batmans was inside the dome, along with any number of other heroes, we have an all-female Justice League featuring Zatanna, Supergirl, Vixen, Jade and Jesse Quick. And, for a completely inexplicable reason, Congorilla. SERIOUSLY? I love Congo Bill but he was really hanging out in Gotham at the same time as this Spice Girls reunion? Anyway, the Justice Lovelies (because BEWBS) have spend the last year swanning round nightclubs like the own the joint because they're celebrities, wearing spaghetti strap tops and mini skirts (because BEWBS and LEGS). Uncanny Braniac doesn't tell them anything that he hasn't told us, the reader, in EVERY OTHER FUCKING BOOK but luckily Sadface Aquaman's steampunk mate is paying more attention than your average DC staffer because he sees Mera in one of the panels of the dome that shows inside other domes and, you know, giant rabbits and shit.

So, in a contradictory plot to the other ones, the domes are down and everybody can travel between all of them now so Steampunk Aquaman (who we know is Bad Aquaman - or Baquaman - because we saw him kill someone with his trident. AND BY THAT I DO NOT MEAN HIS PENIS. ) turns up on his War Octopus so he can stab her with his trident. AND BY THAT I MEAN HIS PENIS.

Supergirl punches his War Octopus hard in the tentacles. I SAID TENTACLES. And they all go back to the sea. Wherever the sea might exist, given Uncanny Braniac's planet is a desert. OOPS CONTiNUITY SPOILERS.

Al also on trend this month:

http://i.imgur.com/SQg5F30.jpg

ok that's some amazing continuity to refer back to that

Kind of wish Al still posted here.

Next week's Convergences: Aquaman, Batman Shadow of the Bat, Catwoman, Green Arrow, Green Lantern Parallax, Justice League Intl, Suicide Squad, Superboy, Supergirl Matrix, Superman Man of Steel

What's that Convergence Nightwang & Oracle #1 ? Wickedy Wild Wild Blue Beetle and Guy Gardner have been killed by. Hakwmans, wiping out one of the SecretBattleCons off-screen before the series has even started? But isn't that getting rid of one of the few potentially entertaining cities without bothering to even write it just so you can indulge yourself in puss-poor fanwank? No? Oh well, fanwank it is!

So, back in an increasingly crowded pre-Flashpoint Gotham Nightwang stops a bored Mister Freeze robbing a museum in deliberately flash way, admitting he does it in such a way to look the best for the cameras or so he looks HAWT. It's also weird to see his relationship with Starfire before the Johnsiverse rewrote Tamarans into goldfish with her still in love with him and them very much a couple. Which is then super weird to see Dick ask Babs Gordon (who is, of course, still in the wheelchair) to marry him. That's a Dick move, Dick.Then the Hawkmans turn up to spoil things and there will be a fight while Babs does some Oracling, because she invented computer surveillance (although I'm not sure she did, because hadn't we had Brother Eye by then?).

Anyway, this is so desperate to tick a gazillion fanwank buttons it misses some fairly basic plot practicalities. Firstly, this Gotham (unlike the EXACT SAME GOTHAM with Justice Lovelies or Harley Quinn or Batty Man) doesn't have Uncanny Braniac in the sky explaining the plot for the hard of thinking - and we know that explicitly because we are with Dick & Babs at the exact time the dome comes down, which we know from he others Uncanny Braniac is in the sky. Secondly, where is Baquaman's War Octopus? The restaurant where Nightwang shows Babs his ring is on the river Goth, which I'd hazard a guess is the only water Baquaman would find to ride his War Octopus in on, so they must have gone past them. And thirdly, and maybe most importantly, the Hawkmans turn up with lots of Wall-Es flying around the sky, literally hundreds of them, which aren't in any of the other issues set in this very SecretBattleVerge.

You know, with THE ENTIRETY OF DC CONTINUITY to use as your sandpit to constrain yourself to sort of one instance having written an overarching plot WHICH SPECIFICALLY ALLOWS YOU TO USE THE WHOLE CONTINUITY is just fucking stupid. Almost as stupid as only having to pay attention to 1500 pages or so of comics and completely fucking up all your continuity in the first 150. Utterly inept editing, and somehow they held on to their jobs.

Hooray! Convergence Speed Force #1 is set in Gotham! Because there aren't any of them about, are there? Thankfully, this is from a Gotham at the time of Flashpoint, except it can't be because Barry was back by then but Wally (who is, according to the text, the only Flash at the time) says he isn't. Honestly guys, when I said 'you' don't have to read things the 'you' I was talking about was other ILXors, not DC employees. So with the entire chronology to pick from, you can't even get the continuity right of the one YOU (that's YOU YOU DC staffers, not 'you' YOU ILXors) choose? WTF? I'm pretty sure a turtle that had spent the last 50 years living in an underwater cave could make a better fist of this.

So, Wally and the kids (wait a minute, didn't the kids get aged into adulthood by some weird shit from space or something? So how are they still 10 or whatever?) are trapped in Gotham and Wally's mind is unravelling, not least because none of the other heroes in this Gotham gaf about trying to get out and seem content to wallow in their own filth. But then we know that Batty Man likes that secretly. Anyway, Uncanny Braniac shows up in the sky like you'd expect and shows us the Hakwmans killing Wickedy Wild Wild Beetle (which is odd because it can't have happened yet) then drops the walls and Flash runs to save them but is too late. He then runs home where he is chased by one of the Zoo Crew before Armour Extreme Wonder Woman turns up with all her mates to kick his ass.

While he was running about in the desert, Wally failed to spot Batgirl Pissypants taking a dump behind a bush. That wasn't very observant of him, it could have been important. I mean it must be a plot point, right? Because otherwise it would just appear to be a grown man's fantasy about teenagers and urine and that couldn't possibly be true, could it?

Wait, aren't the pre- and post-Flashpoint earths the same earth? So how are they co-existing? Or did the pre-Flashpoint earth get retconned into being a parallel 52 earth or something?

Not to be naive and demand this makes sense or anything.

i think the whole gimmick of this Brainiac jazz is that he's resplitting all the continuities into different earths. right? i dunno.
that said, aldo - aren't they intentionally sticking to one alt. continuity per week or something?

Ok that makes sense. Or "sense".

No, the gimmick is that he's taken a city at a specific point of continuity out of time and that's ok because it was about to be taken out of continuity by whatever storyline it was part of collapsing universes together. It was always supposed to be something to do with the multiverse but it isn't at all really, other than making a general point that all of the universes in the multiverse are confirmed as being in the same multiverse.

They seem to be sticking to one broad set of 4 or 5 alt continuities a week, which makes the story even weaker because in their desperation to shoehorn in hero x, y and z they turn up even when they weren't there in the original comics.

To whit, Convergence Superman #1 , set in Gotham. It turns out Superman, Lois and Jimmy were covering a news story in Gotham while Flashpoint happened - I'm assuming this is the same Gotham that Speed Force is set in because there is still crime in this one and there isn't in the Batmang family Gotham books. Anyway, Superman gets his powers back as Uncanny Braniac pulls back his dome covering. Which raises more questions than it answers to be honest, given that we know Supes' powers come from being under a yellow sun, does that mean Uncanny Planet is also under a yellow sun? Historically, also, we've seen lack of exposure to the sun leave Supes <choke> as weak as a kitten. So why wasn't he here? And was the dome a giant UV filter, in which case why didn't everyone under it develop Vitamin D deficiency during the One Year Later? Not that Supes has noticed because he's only gone and got aloud up the duff while he could now, inn'e?

Dan Jurgens then gets hideously confused as the panel advising us a scene happens in the "Flashpoint Universe" has Captain Thunder and an unknown Batman (although we don't find out who it is, it's stated Bruce is dead). To seem to know they're from a collapsed continuity, which I thought only the Psycho Pirate was able to comprehend? Did nobody have to ACTUALLY READ ANY COMICS to understand what they were supposed to be writing?

Let's just have an 80 Page Giant Action Figure Playset Special instead, somebody might actually be able to write that.

Convergence Atom #1 is Ms Marvel in disguise. Red and blue costume, one giant hand. What else could it be? In this Gotham (which I'm guessing is the same one as Speed Force and Superman are in) Atom is a laughing stock who wanders round claiming to solve crimes and help people influenced by the voices in his head talking to him. Deathstroke turns up out of nowhere to stab him and/or blow him up when he gets transported away as the city's champion by Uncanny Braniac (which means it can't be the same Gothm as Batgirl Pissypants was picked as the champion of, although no Uncanny Magic Metal was involved this time, just a FWASH) where he fights a giant crocodile from The Extremists by punching a supersonic hole through both sides of his mouth. Then it turns out the voices in his head were the now-not-dead Ryan Choi.

Two books to read and this has been the closest issue this week to being a real pleasure to read. Not quite as good as All New Atom was, but a solid effort. Why weren't they all this good? Or any of them even close?

Convergence Question #1 is a real curio. Montoya, whose has had the Mark of Cain but is now missing it, has teamed up with Two Face to break up petty crime and steal medicine for themselves. She lives with the Huntress who tells her she can't trust Harvey and when she next sees him there's a long conversation about why his coin always comes up good recently. Then Uncanny Braniac appears in the sky, which convinces Harvey there must be Two Two Faces and, finally able to throw a scarred face, he knocks out Montoya. The Huntress says "I told you so" and Batwoman turns up on the last page in time for the conclusion next time. This appears to be using the Convergence umbrella just to allow them to tell a story out of continuity and I say SO FUCKIN' WHAT. The whole point of the multiverse is supposed to allow you to tell these if that's where the story lies, and I'd rather read this than Sinestro any day.

Convergence Titans #1 is just a complete mess. In the same Gotham as B&R, except the Titans are the only ones fighting the Extremists who we saw turn up and start to fight B&R on the last page of that book. So, nothing in common with the other books it shares physical space with (in the literary sense) and in fact ignores them, poorly and just... no. I can't think of anything else to say about it. I've just finished reading it, and I've forgotten everything about it already. With so few books to publish this week and 75 years to pick from is there REALLY any excuse for a filler book like this?

Still, at least no HOT PISS ACTION in these pages.

That feels like damning with faint praise, like congratulating someone for not being a murderer.

I think it's mostly just a campaign to Mark Waid cry.

This is the first thing I've read that makes me want to read Convergence.

i just flipped through a stack of these #1s: Suicide Squad, JLI, Superboy, Catwoman, Aquaman. They are one and all, utterly unredeemable. Bad art, bad story, unified in their bad connecting "ONLY ONE SHALL SURVIVE" threadline. it's amazing how these guys have some of the best known fictional characters of the 20th century at their disposal and they are doing fuck-all with them.

the bumper at the end of the first issue of aquaman promises "NEXT: SURF AND TURF... TO THE DEATH"
and that's what passes for humor

these clearly aren't for children; the violence and overt sexuality (done poorly) nix that.
they're clearly not for adults; the art and soporific plot guarantee that.
i'm fairly certain there's not a massive teen audience for this shit.
who the fuck is this for? collectors, completists and the damaged?

well, yeah

who the fuck is this for? collectors, completists and the damaged?

Certainly feeling the latter two thirds of that description.

these clearly aren't for children; the violence and overt sexuality (done poorly) nix that.
they're clearly not for adults; the art and soporific plot guarantee that.
i'm fairly certain there's not a massive teen audience for this shit.
who the fuck is this for? collectors, completists and the damaged?

Weirdly, Bleeding Cool ran a story on how Convergence was the most kid-friendly stuff DC had published in years and was obviously their big play to get their core books back to all-ages.

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2015/04/15/dcs-convergence-the-return-of-all-ages-comics/

the bumper at the end of the first issue of aquaman promises "NEXT: SURF AND TURF... TO THE DEATH"
and that's what passes for humor

I mean, I am lolling but possibly not for the right reasons

bloody beatings, torture, murder and ears being torn off all certainly fall within my definition of fun for all the family! xp

that bleeding cool link is insane
"with softcore sex, light torture, murder, dick jokes and a panel of a hyena ripping a man's ear off, comics truly are for kids again!"
xxp!

At least Converge #2 explains why some cities are invading another in the first batch of connected b.s. aldo wrote about. Probably not the best idea to explain it a week later but hey, it's something.

To be fair to them, I can see the point they're trying to make. Compared to the last 5+ years of comics, probably from the start of the Superhero Sadface era and certainly since Tiny Footprints/Rape Mindwipe these are like Saturday morning cartoons.

No rapes, no eviscerations like we should by awestruck by dc's brave new direction

god am i glad i've skipped the last five years of dc
the marvel unlimited app has made it clear that they are doing interesting things, by and large, with their characters with some decent creators. this nonsense with convergence is just pap.

To be fair to them, I can see the point they're trying to make.

the point they're trying to make is totally idiotic though

Is it too simplistic to blame DC's years-long stint in the toilet on Bob Harras? The timeline certainly lines up.

so THAT'S how Lobdell got his gig

i'd be tempted to put a fair amount of blame on the creeping influence of geoff johns

that's always been my take. "it worked once"

I agree the pioont they're trying to make is idiotic, but in the land of the blind the woman in the refrigerator is dead.

I'd point at Geoff Johns too, his Tiny Handprints are all over the worst excesses of the Sadface Era.

(wtf is a pioont and can we eat it)

Let us not forget Meltzer

The era of Meltzer and the ascendancy of Johns feels like a veritable golden age these days.

The sadface era aligned with some pretty great other DC comics -- Catwoman, 52, Gotham Central, Secret Six, Y The Last Man, Brave&Bold -- plus a pretty amazing run from Grant Morrison, from Seaguy and The Filth through Final Crisis.

And Darwyn's Spirit book...

But then also Identity Crisis, Blackest Night, Countdown Arena... etc.

I cut orders of the second half of these series by an average of 50%. Every one I've flipped through has looked like complete shit, it's been tough to even give my staff pointers on how to sell it.

This is doing even worse than the Future's End special event from last fall (with the weird covers), which, itself did about half as well as the previous year's special event with funny covers.
DC cannot get anything right - last fall it was five new Batman titles because Bat-shit was the only thing they could reliably sell, two or three of those have already been 86ed.

I love that DC keeps trying to make a better Countdown: Arena. Adorable. Rao bless 'em.

http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2015/04/grumpy-old-fan-when-not-to-cross-over/
I loved Mazing Man; it was the Louie of comix at teh time

I just submitted forksclovetofu's post to Best Comics Writing 2015.

Wasn't it someone at DC who openly admitted comics were mostly for collectors in their 40s now?

Writeups will be very late this week, broadband has failed and won't be back till at least Monday.

Just in case you thought I'd given up, or gouged my eyes out.

Mazing man was great
Xxp

i still got the full series somewhere...

So, in the week since the above posts the solicits have come out for the first post-Convergence (or, more importantly, the NEW post-Convergence titles) and I am filled with even more contempt than before. Fuck you DiDio, fuck you Geoff Johns, fuck you all. But in the interests of you lot I will continue...

Convergence #2 has our Earth 2 heroes trapped in Uncanny Braniac's frozen metallic spunk. My first thought is, as last week implied it should be, whether Batgirl has been for a pee yet. We get about 10 pages of flashback to Earth 2: World's End, since nobody was reading it, to explain why the people here are important then Uncanny Braniac tells them he wants them to fight the Johnsiverse Future's End who he picked up by accident and doesn't know what to do with. Obamaman is able to crack the spunk which lets Alan Scott meditate again and attack Uncanny Braniac with the full power of The Beige. This makes him run away (although Batgirl Pissypants assumes this means he's dead, which probably explains why she never actually finally defeated anyone) so Nightwang takes Batman to a Batcave - because, like water divining, all you need is instinct and a stick - where Babs Gordon and Alfred introduce Batman to Batman then they take a car back to the surface where they meet Deimos in an OBVIOUS BAD GUY FAKE-OUT. Needless to say, Batgirl Pissypants doesn't get it.

Once more with feeling, fuck you Geoff Johns.

It will come as no surprise to any of you that Convergence Aquaman #1 is utter bollocks. After finding out last week that EVERYONE was in Gotham pre-Flashpoint it now turns out that EVERYONE was in pre-Zero Hour Metropolis including the ENTIRE Justice League. But we don't care about them because Aquaman is the only one that's any good at all, as we find out near the beginning because he's the only one doing any crime fighting. Unfortunately, being Aquaman he fucks his own life us big style by dumping Chemo in the bay and poisoning his house, and as a result his best new buddy Dane Dorrance lets him live under his shower. He turned up with both hands but as the dome went FWASH he only had one and the magic hook from the grim 'n' gritty era. Anyway, we get the Floating Uncanny Braniac Head that appears in every book explaining the plot then somebody he knows turns up and starts killing people in a grim 'n' gritty way. Mmmmm. TASTE THE GRIM.

Still, it's Saturday morning cartoons compared to Convergence Batman: Shadow of the Bat #1 featuring characters I could give a shit about being grimmer 'n' grittier just like they were bitd. And of course the more observant of you will have spotted that means Batman was in Metropolis too! And maybe also that him and Azrael did nothing about crime for an entire year until the exact moment when YOU GUESSED IT Uncanny Braniac appears in the sky no reads his script. Then there's an argument about whether he causes a time shift or not, because detecting that is a new super power. Nostalgia and literally nothing else. And nostalgia for a dreadful comic at that.

Hoo-fuckin'-ray, Purple Suit Catwoman was in Metropolis as well! And so Convergence Catwoman #1 tells the completely uninspiring story of how she became the only crime fighter in Metropolis and blah blah blah fuck all happens blah blah Uncanny Braniac in the sky blah blah then Kingdom Come Batman turns up to beat the crap out of her next month and I lose the will to live.

So, the Goatee Green Arrow was ALSO in Metropolis as detailed in Convergence Green Arrow #1 , which is pretty odd because a different Green Arrow was there as part of the Justice League as shown in Aquaman. Which would be confusing were it not that this GA is a lazy twat who has done nothing for a year except stop angry mobs because Metropolis is doing the aul' racism now Father. The issue retells the meeting of Ollie and Connor Hawke - because HEY! that ashram was in Metropolis too - then Braniac Riders In The Sky and they bump into a one eyed Black Canary or something and a book of GA kids' daddy issues beckons next month. I CAN'T WAIT.

Convergence Green Lantern: Parallax #1 is basically a Wikipedia entry about How The Grinch Stole Christmas, or more likely, How The Hal Killed His Little Blue Buddies. Oh yeah, him and Kyle Rayner are in Metropolis too. So then they both get their green back when Ghost Braniacs In The Sky remove the dome, then some woman from a Dean Motter Image book turns up and kicks Kyle's arse without breaking sweat which allows Hal to act like a knob. No change there then. Dreadful stuff.

Convergence Justice League International #1 features the thrilling adventures of the only crime fighters in, unlikely as it sounds, Metropolis. They have a fight with Metallo then Blue Beetle turns down a definite shag to tinker with Archimedes the Owl Ship and talk to Rorschach. Or maybe it's fix The Bug and talk to the Martian Manhunter, but you get the drift. Ghost Braniac does his turn then the skies turn all funny coloured - which is cool, because it only happens in this book and not in any of the other hundred set in Metropolis at the same time - when Kingdom Come WW and Shazam turn up to kill everyone. Looks like I have no memory of even more dogshit comics than I thought.

So, Louisiana in in Metropolis now, is it? And Gotham is too? They must be, because not only does Babs Gordon/Oracle turn up at home in Convergence Suicide Squad #1 but Belle Reve is there too and thankfully it's full not only of the regular SS but also Cyborg Superman, Bane, Black Manta and Deathstroke. Despite this, nothing happens except explain what's going to happen next month. BASICALLY Kingdom Come Alan Scott is the Bestest Green Lantern Ever (which must have made Geoff Johns feel physically sick, such heresy) and is so powerful he has created a whole new planet which the Kingdom Comers are using now the domes are down and the plan is to blow shit up. There might be something happen next time round. I wouldn't hold your breath though.

I really couldn't give a shit about Converence Superboy #1 and I'll be amazed if anybody else did. It feels like it rips off Miracleman at various points, but once Kon gets his powers back various Kingdom Comers smack him about, including Red Robin. Imagine the embarrassment of being beaten by The Dick. Glowy Eyes Superman turns up at the end and they are going to fight next month. I think we're supposed not care about any of the rest of it and get excited by the notion of a Man/Boy fight. I can't, to be honest.

At least Convergence Supergirl: Matrix #1 understands that it's a bullshit book nobody is going to read and has been dealt a shitty set of cards. It says it up front right at the beginning and dispatches the Floating Head of Uncanny Braniac really early on to it can get on with FIGHTING. The blob of something which is in the shape of Supergirl (really?) has a Who's More Ludicrous with Lord Volt and Lady Quark (which is weird because Earth 6 - which may now be Earth 48 - isn't supposed to be in this). We're all supposed to cheer at the end when Ambush Bug turns up, aren't we. One of the more blatant grabs for publicity of recent years.

Convergence Steel #1 is a weird one. It contradicts pretty much every other book, not least because everyone else in every dome is complaining about resources running out but Steel is happily wasting stuff on experiments and he needs to because lots of other people in Metropolis have managed to make powered suits and they are forming gangs and fighting with each other. That's ok though, because Steel has managed to turn a real cat into a robot pussy that he's going to team up with, probably. Gen 13 From Liefeldverse appear and they have the start of a fight but not enough to care about. I'm just waiting for another glimpse of Steel Pussy.

Not going to lie, this is one of my worst experiences in reading comics. Every single thing sucks and only exists to make nostalgic fanboys of a very specific age cream themselves. And none of it does anything for me. The two issue structure doesn't work either - these first issues don't get anything done and set up a scenario which has to be replied next time in as few pages as possible. I don't think I'm looking forward to any of them based on two weeks of #1s. A weaker man would give up on DC forever as a result of this.

This is the point in the hotdog-eating competition where the cheers directed toward an impressive undertaking that none of us actually want to personally undertake start to fade as we all become increasingly concerned for your health and well-being.

These books really do suck.

This is the point in the hotdog-eating competition where the cheers directed toward an impressive undertaking that none of us actually want to personally undertake start to fade as we all become increasingly concerned for your health and well-being.

^^^^^^^^

The striking thing to me is how ugly they are.

Convergence #3 continues to tell the secret truth about this book, that it's SPOILER ALERT only an Earth 2 book to deal with the events of Earth 2 World's End and hand wave them away so the Earth 2 book could continue after the DC move and the non-reboot reboot. Just don't call it a reboot!

So, continuing what is supposed to be the main storyline of the book Deimos shows the Earth 2 heroes his secret medieval kingdom underground where it transpires all the time manipulator so that have ever existed are kept in a spinny vortex thing. Back on the surface, Uncanny Braniac captures Obama Superman in a metal net before he gets set free two pages later - in other words, with no opportunity for any dramatic tension to have been raised by the capture rendering it pointless. Anyway, Ghost Braniac In The Sky tried to capture him because (as I speculated last week) the fact there's a yellow sun means his powers all still exist; which means, somewhat ridiculously, that in all the captured cities the Superfriends were still powered up so JUST COULDN'T BE ARSED FIGHTING CRIME in the year under the dome. Thanks Superman Family! Thamily!

So, Uncanny Braniac explains all this to the Kandorians (who were presumably in one of the Metropolises?) and are now unbottled, but because they are so pure of heart they don't want to be part of SecretConBattle so he kills them all. Three pages after introducing them to the script. I'm not only confused to why that happened, I'm also nearly halfway in and still have no idea WHY any of this is happening (in the comic I mean). NO IDEA what the end game is.

In the other part of the 'plot' all the Batman villains from the other cities have teamed up into a giant anti-Bats team-up squad club and confront Earth 2 Batman, who's obviously the most important one because he's in the main book and not one of the two issues plot/fight car crashes. He resolves this in a very simple way. Batman becomes a suicide bomber and blows them all up. (Although in a weird way his body is still intact after the blast despite being at the centre of it. Hmm.) The Joker is the only bad guy team up club guy that survives and takes Dick Grayson (the surviving Bat hero dude) then does a Killing Joke to him. NOSTALGIA! DO YOU SEE? Then, in a way which is clearly nothing like Doom Tears 9/11 Special Uncanny Braniac turns up and kills him because some things are just so bad that even the bad guys are disgusted by how bad they are, conveniently ignoring what evil they have wrought in the past.

This really is a total mess, and considering it was supposed to have been planned is even more baffling why it's so incoherent. The nicest thing I can say about it is that it's better than the miniseries books, and it's probably better than Earth 2 World's End was. Faint praise.

Convergence Adventures of Superman #1 has Supes and Supergirl in Gotham City immediately before the Crisis. And why not? Metropolis was probably full of everyone else. Anyway, this gives them the opportunity to work with Lucius Fox to build a Phantom Zone projector because OBVIOUSLY the Phantom Zone was contained inside Uncanny Braniac's Magic dome. So they go in and fly about for a bit (proving the Superdickery point I made while I was talking about the parent title) then the Crisis sort of happens and Supergirl finds out she should be dead, but clearly isn't which gives her the power to be the strongest Kryptonian ever and she rescues Supes and beats up all the Phantom Zone villains. Supes responds to this by telling her how jealous of her he is because he thinks she's the best Kryptonian ever too. Then back in the real world, Braniac/sky/you know the deal and some animals on horseback turn up in Gotham and Lucius Fox looks scared. That's always confused me - why do horses get the shitty end of the stick? Other animals learn to speak, shoot, drive, whatever; horses get to be horses. EQUAL RIGHTS FOR OUR EQUINE BRETHREN!

Convergence Batman & The Outsiders #1 is, at least, very nearly an entertaining read. In Gotham, and not "my homeland of Markovia" (which might get mentioned once or twice), the Outsiders are all either powered (Geo Force) or de-powered (the rest of them) and coming to terms with their life. Someone asks Black Lightning the question I was wondering myself during the first week, if he's some kind of weird cosplay fetishist because there's no real need for him to keep dressing up now he's just a regular guy. The one person this is all working out for is Metamorpho because he's managing to have a normal life with Sapphire Stagg. Braniac/sky happens with a couple of pages to go and he changes back his multicoloured self just as OMAC turns up to fight. Much better paced than other books, this at least attempts to tell a story and isn't just a pointless nostalgia fest. I'm sure that won't be allowed to continue in #2.

Convergence Green Lantern Corps #1 tries to play the same trick, concentrating on Guy Gardner's new life as a teacher but also taking in John Stewart's Gotham job as a gardener (I'm sure that's supposed to scream OH THE IRONING but I can't be bothered) and Hal's job as the world's biggest arsehole. Eventually the cover comes off and Hal recharges his ring then takes the lantern away so nobody else can. Guy is, probably understandably, upset about this and rides off on a motorbike with a baseball bat to find a fight. John Stewart is, as ever, forgotten about since he's irrelevant to the plot. Like I give a shit.

Gotham is also chock-full of Thanagarians, as Convergence Hawkman #1 shows. Kate and Shayera uncover a Thanagarian sleeper villain cell in the city that has build an - I shit you not - "absorbacon". That's about it. This sort of has nothing to do with Convergence and there is no indication that #2 will either. Are there really that many Hawkman fanboys out there to constitute a market for this?

Maybe as much a market there is for the Detroit Convergence Justice League America #1 who, wait for it, we're in Gotham too. At least this book dispenses with the ConDome shit and gets straight to them all with their powers back - you have to at least think that's partly because it's the only way to make Ralph Dibny interesting. An alternate Secret Six turn up at the end claiming they are there to win the fight but immediately run off. Then Vibe pulls a heroic pose. OOOOOH NOSTALGIA.

Convergence Superboy & The Legion of Super-Heroes #1 wants to be Scott Pilgrim. A lot. I wish it was too, but instead it's more like Saved By The Bell. Because there are 3000000 of them they all get a couple of panels to explain what they've done. Brainiac 5 is a Braniac therefore able to speak to Uncanny Braniac's Sandpit which is just about to tell him the plot when Superboy and Lightning Lass nearly kiss which is the trigger for Ghost Braniac in the sky and the dome disappearing, just in time for some Knights of Olde to turn up on giant dogs. Yes, really. (It's an Atomic Knights thing.)

Convergence Swamp Thing #1 is pretty unique amongst these books in that it ACTUALLY HAS A TANGIBLE PLOT. It has a handful of pages explaining Swampy to people that have never read it before, then tells what happened in order to credibly have Alec & Abby in Gotham at dome time. It then deals with them almost exclusively, and the difficulties of keeping Swampy alive for a year with no useful vegetation and next to no rain. At the end some vampires turn up from a Batman Elseworlds book to give us a familiar 'Alec punching at waves of enemies' picture and I don't even care that I've seen such an image many times before. This was that rare thing these days, a GOOD DC comic book. Maybe it seems better than it is because of the paucity of talent around it, but without a multiverse Earth where DC are a worthwhile publisher we'll never know.

Convergence Flash #1 has a powerless Flash coming to terms with not being connected to the speed force. Barry meets Bruce Wayne for a coffee and then the ConDome comes down; he can tap the speed force again so he runs about a bit then somebody who may or may not be Superman from an Elseworlds I haven't read turns up for a fight. I think the biggest problem is that NOTHING happens in the book, it's a bog-standard "Flash loses his powers" story like I'm pretty sure has happened every decade, and in the Silver Age probably used to happen every 6 months. C+ maybe, which makes it one of the better parts of this endeavour.

Marv Wolfman teaches us in Convergence The New Teen Titans #1 that the Titans used to be fun before the Johnsiverse, even if Nightwang and Starfire are bickering like and old married couple for most of it. Braniac's Dome is pulled back about halfway through and the Doom Patrol from the Tangent Universe come in to fight but it soon becomes clear they've only done that because they thought it was what Dan DiDio wanted them to do so they soon go back to their bedrooms to play Minecraft. Eventually their leader hits Nightwang up on Snapchat but it cliffhangers before they start sending noods. Maybe things really were better those days.

Convergence Wonder Woman #1 shows that Diana's dress sense is inexplicably linked to her powers, because de-powered she ends up wearing turtleneck jumpers like in the 60s powerless secret agent era. Etta is involved with a cult in a plot IN NO WAY influenced by the one in The Leftovers who tie up Diana with her own lasso JUST LIKE IN THE GOOD OLD DAYS. This means Diana isn't about when vampires turn up and eat the cult, but also means when Braniac pulls back his covering Diana is tied up when all her clothes fall off. JUST LIKE IN THE GOOD OLD DAYS. We learn that Joker Vampires are better/worse than other vampires (although Uncanny Braniac doesn't seem as bothered by there being a joker here as he is in the central book) and we are treated to the sight of Diana squishing her boob sideways so that it sits properly in her costume. JUST LIKE IN THE GOOD OLD DAYS.

Convergence #4 advances the overall plot along by ignoring anything that's going on in any of the miniseries and concentrating on telling the story of how the Earth 2 heroes got given a new planet and won Convergence. Uncanny Braniac is won over by the power of Batman the Suicide Bomber and decides he should become a convert to BatISIS because of it. Because Dick Grayson got Killing Joked last week, Uncanny Braniac decides to use his magic metal spunk to make him a new exoskeleton because if Dick can walk then Uncanny Braniac can cheat at his own game and let Dick win the planet. We then get a huge amount involving the Warlord, who clearly isn't popular enough to warrant his own book and in the end we find out that the core of the planet is ANOTHER Braniac (who may be Most Important Ever Braniac, but we don't see any more than one panel to find out) and Deimos has been capturing time travellers to free him. I suspect this will make Uncanny Braniac cry when he finds out, because he thinks he was mates with Most Important Ever Braniac and he wasn't this one. I really couldn't care less.

Convergence Action Comics #1 isn't any better. We get the stories of the pre-Crisis Earth 2 Metropolis and the Red Son Moscow, intertwined in a slightly hamfisted way around the story of Lois and her relationship with Clark and Lex in the respective cities. There's lots of whining by Power Girl about how her eyes have bags now and if she eats too much pasta she'll be too fat for her boob window. Uncanny Braniac doesn't even turn up in the sky until the final two pages. The most exciting thing that happens in this is Lois, Clark, Kara and her boyfriend having dinner. Really. And it's clearly supposed to be the most exciting thing too. I can't say I'm overly enthused.

The Charlton heroes on Earth 4 are explored in Convergence Blue Beetle #1 . Well I say explored, they all sort of talk a lot while saying nothing. Multicoloured Captain Atom gets his powers back briefly and Booster Gold appears for literally two panels so that people can go HAHA DO YOU SEE BLUE BEETLE GOES "WHO IS THAT GUY" HAHA THAT IS SO FUNNY BECAUSE WE REMEMBER A DIFFERENT COMIC HAHA. Transformer Braniac makes himself out of a house and tells everyone the plot so that they can fight the Legion next month. Will we be around to read it? YOU DECIDE!

Convergence Booster Gold #1 taps exactly the same nostalgia vein as Charlton Convergence, only more so. It spends the first three quarters of the book trying (and failing) to explain the main Convergence book and the last couple of pages going OMG BEETLE AND BOOSTER WE REMEMBER THAT EVEN THOUGH IT WAS MAYBE A DIFFERENT BEETLE AND A DIFFERENT BOOSTER! The only useful thing we get out of this is that Booster was responsible for FiddyToo. And even then there are differing values of "useful". Revealing a secret about a 5 year old comic that was already all resolved really isn't that useful in the grand scheme of things.

Convergence Crime Syndicate #1 must work, right? I mean, they were the big bad in Forever Evil and everyone liked that, right? So if we get them to face off against the Justice League from DC One Million - because everybody loves Grant Morrison, right? And he's a supercool hot ticket, right? Do people even say supercool any more? Well no, RONGOPEDIA. This is as dull as shit and doesn't actually go anywhere. And nobody likes the Crime Syndicate really, do they? The trope of a bad Justice League works once, maybe twice, but then very soon becomes pointless shock value especially if it doesn't mean anything afterwards. And for what it's worth nobody actually liked Forever Evil, did they?

Can anybody that's been reading DC these the past two years say whether or not they've gotten significantly worse?

Nothing I was reading before I stopped seemed as mind numbingly convoluted, yet insubstantial as these do.

who is writing and drawing any of these apart from Marv Wolfman teaches us

To answer tsrobodo's question, taking these event books as an example isn't really a good one. There's no reason why this should work really, as it's a convoluted sticking plaster. The main book is maybe the only one you're supposed to buy and the others are a 'fun' exercise in nostalgia or a 'fun' experiment in writing characters that don't have their own book/aren't in continuit any more. Definitions of 'fun' may not be he same.

The more nuanced answer is that DC have always produced some dreadful shite over the years, it's just that we've never bothered reading them. We focus on the successes and forget the rubbish. We barely even talk about it. But doing this (and the Nu52 experiment) showed that there are good books published, sometimes quite a lot of them, but they're weighed down by the torrent of crap that accompanies them week in, week out. The simple answer, and the one that makes the most business sense, would be to stop publishing 90% of it and concentrate on the things that bring in the revenue. The problem with that is that DiDio and Johns have lost sight of what that is and think the answer is "whatever Geoff Johns wants" and/or MOAR BATS/SUPES/GL FRANCHISE BOOKS. the other problem, of course, is that this would reduce their business to a fraction of what it is and probably not make it viable for them to carry the many staffers they have, which they need to make Dan & Geoff feel important.

I know I'm simplifying this and there are a thousand other reason why comics aren't as good as we used to think they were, but honestly a lot of the problem is our own, and our selective memories of how good we thought they were. The rest of the problem is Geoff Johns.

sic,

CONVERGENCE #1

Written by JEFF KING and SCOTT LOBDELL

Art by CARLO PAGULAYAN and JASON PAZ

Foldout cover by IVAN REIS and JOE PRADO

Variant cover by TONY S. DANIEL and MARK MORALES

1: 25 Variant cover by BRIAN BOLLAND

1: 100 BATMAN sketch variant cover by GREG CAPULLO

Blank variant cover

This is it! The entire DC Universe, from the dawn of time through The New 52, must fight to survive against a threat that bends the Multiverse to its will. Your favorite characters from every era and every forgotten series are all here! But are you going to say hello again just to say goodbye forever? The stakes have never been higher as the heroes of Crisis, Zero Hour, Elseworlds, and more are brought together for Convergence!

In the first issue of this weekly series, Brainiac has collected cities of doomed and forgotten worlds, who must battle each other – and the losers will be destroyed! But why is he forcing this conflict? Join the refugees from Earth-2 as they unlock the truth behind this world that exists outside time and space and is very much alive! Is Brainiac really in control – or is this planet named Telos an unparalleled force of evil?

This extra-sized issue is packed with twists and turns and appearances you NEVER thought you’d see – including the heroes from the hit series INJUSTICE!

CONVERGENCE #2

Written by JEFF KING

Art by CARLO PAGULAYAN and JASON PAZ

Cover by IVAN REIS and JOE PRADO

Variant cover by TONY S. DANIEL and MARK MORALES

1: 25 Variant cover by JAE LEE

1: 100 WONDER WOMAN sketch variant cover by DAVID FINCH

As Telos, the Planet Incarnate, easily defeats the survivors of Earth 2, Thomas Wayne and Dick Grayson set off to find help in the pre-Flashpoint Gotham City. The emotional implication of these worlds colliding comes crashing down when Thomas Wayne confronts this world’s Batman, as father meets son!

Plus, Alan Scott’s attempts to connect with The Green yield unexpected results, setting our team on a quest to escape the planet. And the cyborgs of Futures End engage in a battle to the death against the reimagined heroes of the Just Imagine Universe, while the city of Superman Red and Blue takes on the opposing forces from GENERATIONS!

CONVERGENCE #3

Written by JEFF KING

Art by STEPHEN SEGOVIA and JASON PAZ

Cover by IVAN REIS and JOE PRADO

Variant cover by TONY S. DANIEL and MARK MORALES

1: 25 Variant cover by DAVE McKEAN

1: 100 AQUAMAN sketch variant cover by JIM LEE

Death comes calling as an injured Telos takes out his rage on the people of Kandor, while the Earth-2 team endures another brutal casualty. And major plans are set in motion as Green Lantern and the others follow Deimos into the lost city of Skartaris to find Rip Hunter and the missing Time Masters, who could be their only hope of escape from this apocalypse for Infinite Earths!

CONVERGENCE #4

Written by JEFF KING

Art by STEPHEN SEGOVIA and JASON PAZ

Cover by IVAN REIS and JOE PRADO

Variant cover by TONY S. DANIEL and MARK MORALES

1: 25 Variant cover by FRANCIS MANAPUL

1: 100 GREEN LANTERN sketch variant cover by JIM LEE

Inside Skartaris, the heroes of Earth-2 must face the only man who can stop them from finding the missing Time Travelers – but why would Travis Morgan, aka The Warlord, want to kill them?

Meanwhile, Telos takes the captive Dick Grayson to several of the battling cities to prove the futility of challenging him. And whatever you do, do not miss the final page, as the surprising return of an unexpected villain could crush all hope for salvation and seal the doom of everyone on the planet!

CONVERGENCE: THE ATOM #1

Written by TOM PEYER

Art by STEVE YEOWELL and ANDY OWENS

Cover by STEVE DILLON

Variant cover designed by CHIP KIDD

STARRING HEROES FROM THE PRE-FLASHPOINT DCU! There’s a mysterious voice in Ray Palmer’s head! Does that mean The Atom is going mad? To find out what’s really going on, he’ll have to go down a road that will pit him against the ever deadly Deathstroke!

CONVERGENCE: BATGIRL #1

Written by ALISA KWITNEY

Art by RICK LEONARDI and MARK PENNINGTON

Cover by RICK LEONARDI and DAN GREEN

Variant cover designed by CHIP KIDD

STARRING HEROES FROM THE PRE-FLASHPOINT DCU! After a year living under the confinement of the dome, Stephanie Brown isn’t sure she wants to be Batgirl again. But when she’s attacked by Catman and Gorilla Grodd from the world of Flashpoint, she’s forced to put on the cape and cowl to fight alongside Red Robin and Cassandra Cain!

CONVERGENCE: BATMAN AND ROBIN #1

Written by RON MARZ

Art and cover by DENYS COWAN and KLAUS JANSON

Variant cover designed by CHIP KIDD

STARRING HEROES FROM THE PRE-FLASHPOINT DCU! Being trapped in a domed city makes for a tense, inescapable family reunion as Batman struggles to keep the friction between Damian Wayne and Jason Todd from exploding!

CONVERGENCE: HARLEY QUINN #1

Written by STEVE PUGH

Art by PHIL WINSLADE and JOHN DELL

Cover by STEVE PUGH

Variant cover designed by CHIP KIDD

STARRING HEROES FROM THE PRE-FLASHPOINT DCU! Life for Harley Quinn has become downright normal over the last year. Will she be ready to go nuts when Catwoman and Poison Ivy draft her to fight – Captain Carrot?!

CONVERGENCE: JUSTICE LEAGUE #1

Written by FRANK TIERI

Art by VICENTE CIFUENTES

Cover by MARK BUCKINGHAM

Variant cover designed by CHIP KIDD

STARRING HEROES FROM THE PRE-FLASHPOINT DCU! The Justice League story you never expected to see begins when Supergirl, Zatanna, Vixen and Jade attend Jesse Quick’s baby shower, which quickly turns into a life-and-death struggle with Flashpoint Aquaman!

CONVERGENCE: NIGHTWING/ORACLE #1

Written by GAIL SIMONE

Art by JAN DUURSEMA and DAN PARSONS

Cover by JILL THOMPSON

Variant cover designed by CHIP KIDD

STARRING HEROES FROM THE PRE-FLASHPOINT DCU! Just as they’ve finally been reunited, the romance between Dick Grayson and Barbara Gordon is sentenced to execution by Flashpoint Hawkman and Hawkwoman!

CONVERGENCE: THE QUESTION #1

Written by GREG RUCKA

Art and cover by CULLY HAMNER

Variant cover designed by CHIP KIDD

STARRING HEROES FROM THE PRE-FLASHPOINT DCU! Two-Face is fighting another world’s Harvey Dent, and it’s up to Renee Montoya as The Question to help him beat the odds.

CONVERGENCE: SPEED FORCE #1

Written by TONY BEDARD

Art by TOM GRUMMETT and SEAN PARSONS

Cover by BRETT BOOTH and NORM RAPMUND

Variant cover designed by CHIP KIDD

STARRING HEROES FROM THE PRE-FLASHPOINT DCU! The fastest family alive loses its powers as Wally West and his kids face an uncertain future while trapped away from home. Will they be able to outrun the chaos that follows the arrival of Flashpoint Wonder Woman? Plus, don’t miss the most unexpected Zoo Crew character of all!

CONVERGENCE: SUPERMAN #1

Written by DAN JURGENS

Art and cover by LEE WEEKS

Variant cover designed by CHIP KIDD

STARRING HEROES FROM THE PRE-FLASHPOINT DCU! A powerless Superman is called upon to protect Gotham City…and his pregnant wife Lois Lane!

CONVERGENCE: TITANS #1

Written by FABIAN NICIEZA

Art RON WAGNER and JOSE MARZAN, JR.

Cover by EMANUELA LUPACCHINO

Variant cover designed by CHIP KIDD

STARRING HEROES FROM THE PRE-FLASHPOINT DCU! Starfire and Donna Troy track down Arsenal, who had retreated after the loss of his arm and the death of his daughter – but what they find is more terrifying than they ever could have expected!

CONVERGENCE: AQUAMAN #1

Written by TONY BEDARD

Art by CLIFF RICHARDS

Cover by BECKY CLOONAN

Variant cover designed by CHIP KIDD

STARRING HEROES FROM ZERO HOUR! Aquaman has lost his home, his powers, and his hand – but now he faces his most difficult challenge: a battle to the finish with Deathblow!

CONVERGENCE: BATMAN: SHADOW OF THE BAT #1

Written by LARRY HAMA

Art by PHILIP TAN and JASON PAZ

Cover by PHILIP TAN

Variant cover designed by CHIP KIDD

STARRING HEROES FROM ZERO HOUR! Fresh out of recovery from a broken back, Bruce Wayne infiltrates the organized crime underworld, but the outlaw sent to test his mettle is none other than Azrael!

CONVERGENCE: CATWOMAN #1

Written by JUSTIN GRAY

Art by RON RANDALL

Cover by CLAIRE WENDLING

Variant cover designed by CHIP KIDD

STARRING HEROES FROM ZERO HOUR! A year under the dome can change anyone – even Catwoman. She’s set aside her life of crime to become the protector of Suicide Slum, but when the dome falls she will face her greatest challenge: Kingdom Come Batman!

CONVERGENCE: GREEN ARROW #1

Written by CHRISTY MARX

Art by RAGS MORALES and CLAUDE ST-AUBIN

Cover by RAGS MORALES

Variant cover designed by CHIP KIDD

STARRING HEROES FROM ZERO HOUR! Don’t miss the first meeting between Oliver Queen and his son, Connor Hawke! Father and son may be united, but is their world about to end?

CONVERGENCE: GREEN LANTERN/PARALLAX #1

Written by TONY BEDARD

Art RON WAGNER and BILL REINHOLD

Cover by STEVE LIEBER

Variant cover designed by CHIP KIDD

STARRING HEROES FROM ZERO HOUR! A powerless Kyle Rayner visits a Metropolis prison to see a devastated Hal Jordan who believes he has murdered the Green Lantern Corps. But if the dome falls and powers are restored, will Parallax return to defend the city or destroy it?

CONVERGENCE: JUSTICE LEAGUE INTERNATIONAL #1

Written by RON MARZ

Art by MIKE MANLEY

Cover by PAUL RENAUD

Variant cover designed by CHIP KIDD

STARRING HEROES FROM ZERO HOUR! Ted Kord, Martian Manhunter, Fire and Ice star as the levity of the JLI team collides with the severity of the world of Kingdom Come!

CONVERGENCE: SUICIDE SQUAD #1

Written by FRANK TIERI

Art by TOM MANDRAKE

Cover by JOHN PAUL LEON

Variant cover designed by CHIP KIDD

STARRING HEROES FROM ZERO HOUR! When Kingdom Come’s floating fortress of New Oa threatens Metropolis, it’s up to Amanda Waller to assemble a team of Metropolis’s deadliest villains to stop it.

CONVERGENCE: SUPERBOY #1

Written by FABIAN NICIEZA

Art by KARL MOLINE and JOSE MARZAN, JR.

Cover by BABS TARR

Variant cover designed by CHIP KIDD

STARRING HEROES FROM ZERO HOUR! Has Kon-El earned the right to be the new Man of Steel? Kon will have to prove his mettle in battle against the Superman of Kingdom Come! But what if the only way to save Metropolis is to lose the fight?

CONVERGENCE: SUPERGIRL: MATRIX #1

Written by KEITH GIFFEN

Art by TIMOTHY GREEN II

Cover by HOWARD PORTER

Variant cover designed by CHIP KIDD

STARRING HEROES FROM ZERO HOUR! What do Supergirl, Lady Quark, and Ambush Bug have in common? Well...nothing, really. But that doesn’t stop them from appearing in this story together. You are SO welcome.

CONVERGENCE: SUPERMAN – THE MAN OF STEEL #1

Written by LOUISE SIMONSON

Art by JUNE BRIGMAN and ROY RICHARDSON

Cover by WALTER SIMONSON

Variant cover designed by CHIP KIDD

STARRING HEROES FROM ZERO HOUR! Superman is missing, so now it’s up to Steel to defend Metropolis from the GEN13 kids!

CONVERGENCE: ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN #1

Written by MARV WOLFMAN

Art by ROBERTO VIACAVA and ANDY OWENS

Cover by MIKEL JANIN

Variant cover designed by CHIP KIDD

STARRING HEROES FROM CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS! Superman and Supergirl attempt to free their city via the Phantom Zone but learn that if they succeed, a terrible fate awaits Supergirl in Crisis on Infinite Earths!

CONVERGENCE: BATMAN AND THE OUTSIDERS #1

Written by MARC ANDREYKO

Art CARLOS D’ANDA

Cover by ANDY KUBERT

Variant cover designed by CHIP KIDD

STARRING HEROES FROM CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS! After a year under the dome, the Outsiders have gone their separate ways, but when OMAC attacks, Batman must find out if they have what it takes to still be a team.

CONVERGENCE: THE FLASH #1

Written by DAN ABNETT

Art by FEDERICO DALLOCCHIO

Cover by MICHAEL ALLRED

Variant cover designed by CHIP KIDD

STARRING HEROES FROM CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS! Trapped in Gotham City, Barry Allen has nowhere to run. He fights on, seeking justice as well as a way to save the city, but he faces a Tangent Universe foe who thinks faster than even The Flash can run!

CONVERGENCE: GREEN LANTERN CORPS #1

Written by DAVID GALLAHER

Art by STEVE ELLIS and ANDE PARKS

Cover by TONY HARRIS

Variant cover designed by CHIP KIDD

STARRING HEROES FROM CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS! Say the Oath, save the world! If only being in the Green Lantern Corps was that easy. Hal has resigned, John is busy, and Guy is pissed. Together for the first time, they’ll save Gotham City or die trying!

CONVERGENCE: HAWKMAN #1

Written by JEFF PARKER

Art by TIM TRUMAN and ENRIQUE ALCATENA

Cover by RAFAEL ALBUQUERQUE

Variant cover designed by CHIP KIDD

STARRING HEROES FROM CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS! Hawkman and Hawkgirl put their Shadow War on hold as they face the might of anthropomorphic rat-men and bat-men in the deadly land of Kamandi!

CONVERGENCE: JUSTICE LEAGUE AMERICA #1

Written by FABIAN NICIEZA

Art and cover by CHRISCROSS

Variant cover designed by CHIP KIDD

STARRING HEROES FROM CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS! With their heavy hitters sidelined, Elongated Man must lead the much-maligned “Detroit Justice League” against the overwhelming power of the heroes from the Tangent Universe!

CONVERGENCE: NEW TEEN TITANS #1

Written by MARV WOLFMAN

Art by NICOLA SCOTT and MARC DEERING

Cover by NICOLA SCOTT

Variant cover designed by CHIP KIDD

STARRING HEROES FROM CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS! Titans Together! The greatest Titans team of them all takes on the might of the Tangent Universe’s Doom Patrol!

CONVERGENCE: SUPERBOY AND THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #1

Written by STUART MOORE

Art by GUS STORMS and MARK FARMER

Cover by PIA GUERRA

Variant cover designed by CHIP KIDD

STARRING HEROES FROM CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS!! While Brainiac 5 struggles to break through the dome, Superboy tries to keep the Legion of Super-Heroes’ spirits up – until the Atomic Knights ride into town to cause mass destruction!

CONVERGENCE: SWAMP THING #1

Written by LEN WEIN

Art and cover by KELLEY JONES

Variant cover designed by CHIP KIDD

STARRING HEROES FROM CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS! The dome has cut off all the heroes from their powers – but what happens when Swamp Thing is cut off from his life source in The Green?

CONVERGENCE: WONDER WOMAN #1

Written by LARRY HAMA

Art and cover by JOSHUA MIDDLETON

Variant cover designed by CHIP KIDD

STARRING HEROES FROM CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS! Diana Prince is in the grip of a Domesday cult when Steve Trevor leaps into the fray! But can he save Etta Candy from vampires of Red Rain?

CONVERGENCE: ACTION COMICS #1

Written by JUSTIN GRAY

Art by CLAUDE ST-AUBIN

Cover by AMANDA CONNER

Variant cover designed by CHIP KIDD

STARRING HEROES FROM CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS! Superman teams up with Power Girl, but can they stop a nuclear strike by Lex Luthor and Stalin of Red Son Moscow?

CONVERGENCE: BLUE BEETLE #1

Written by SCOTT LOBDELL

Art by YISHAN LI

Cover by BRET BLEVINS

Variant cover designed by CHIP KIDD

STARRING HEROES FROM CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS! Hub City is on the brink of collapse and anarchy! But its heroes – Blue Beetle, Captain Atom, and The Question – find inspiration and strength from a most unlikely source.

CONVERGENCE: BOOSTER GOLD #1

Written by DAN JURGENS

Art by ALVARO MARTINEZ and RAUL FERNANDEZ

Cover by DAN JURGENS and DANNY MIKI

Variant cover designed by CHIP KIDD

STARRING HEROES FROM CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS! Trapped with Rip Hunter and other time travelers, Booster Gold and his future self must work together to get out of prison and off the planet.

CONVERGENCE: CRIME SYNDICATE #1

Written by BRIAN BUCCELLATO

Art and cover by PHIL WINSLADE

Variant cover designed by CHIP KIDD

STARRING HEROES FROM CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS! The Crime Syndicate’s absolute control over their city of a bygone era comes crashing down when Superwoman is on death row while the rest of the team fights the One Million Universe’s Batman and Superman!

CONVERGENCE: DETECTIVE COMICS #1

Written by LEN WEIN

Art by DENYS COWAN and BILL SIENKIEWICZ

Cover by BILL SIENKIEWICZ

Variant cover designed by CHIP KIDD

STARRING HEROES FROM CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS! Helena Wayne and Dick Grayson fight side by side in memory of Bruce Wayne as they decide who will become the next Batman.

CONVERGENCE: INFINITY INC. #1

Written by JERRY ORDWAY

Art and cover by BEN CALDWELL

Variant cover designed by CHIP KIDD

STARRING HEROES FROM CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS! The young heroes of Infinity, Inc. must choose between the path set for them by their parents or the one they’ve set for themselves as they face postapocalyptic Jonah Hex.

CONVERGENCE: JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA #1

Written by DAN ABNETT

Art by TOM DERENICK and TREVOR SCOTT

Cover by DAN PANOSIAN

Variant cover designed by CHIP KIDD

STARRING HEROES FROM CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS! Older and in full retirement under the dome, members of the Justice Society get the chance to regain their youth to stave off forces from the Qward Universe. But the promise of youth comes with a deadly price!

CONVERGENCE: PLASTIC MAN AND THE FREEDOM FIGHTERS #1

Written by SIMON OLIVER

Art by JOHN McCREA

Cover by HILARY BARTA

Variant cover designed by CHIP KIDD

STARRING HEROES FROM CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS! You have to see this story to believe it! Plastic Man and the Freedom Fighters are on the gallows in a New York City taken over by Nazis, when robot super heroes attack from Futures End and enemies become allies.

CONVERGENCE: SHAZAM! #1

Written by JEFF PARKER

Art and cover by EVAN “DOC” SHANER

Variant cover designed by CHIP KIDD

STARRING HEROES FROM CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS! It’s Shazam versus Steampunk, as the world of Gotham by Gaslight takes on the Captain Marvel family and friends!

CONVERGENCE: WORLD’S FINEST COMICS #1

Written by PAUL LEVITZ

Art by JIM FERN, JOE RUBINSTEIN and SHANNON WHEELER

Cover by AARON LOPRESTI

Variant cover designed by CHIP KIDD

STARRING HEROES FROM CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS! Read the most unusual tale in all of Convergence! The Seven Soldiers of Victory regroup to defend their city against the Qward invasion, while cartoonist Scribbly Jibbet transcribes their adventures.

My copy of Convergence Detective Comics #1 only has two pages. One of them is in Red Son Moscow, the other has Babs 'n' Dick in the BatCar driving to Metropolis. I am not sure I want to find a working version to finish it. That's how the scratchy grim 'n' gritty art makes me feel. I'll see. Denys Cowan and Billy the Sink feels like it should look better.

Convergence Infinity Inc #1 is where I begin to lose it. It's just a stream of words and colours and none of it makes any real sense. Depowered, they put on a school play which nobody likes and look a bit sad about it. They're all a bit bullied because they're all a bit crap but before we get a chance to actually examine the topic the dome comes down and despite being all peaceful and nice they decide what they need to do is get in fights like Uncanny Braniac wants so go and meet up with Jonah Hex from the future, who shoots at them. Blah blah blah.

OMG! Convergence JSA #1 is actually really interesting! On Earth 2, and without their powers, the Golden Age heroes are now old and dying. Doctor Fate is in a coma, The Flash is growing plants on his roof, Alan Scott is drinking tea. Then the dome comes down, Qward comes in, and the peace is interrupted. The heroes call on their powers for one last time, knowing it will kill them but they want to save the city. It strikes me the successful books in Convergence have been the ones that haven't been trying to appeal to nostalgia or revelling in fanwank but have just, you know, tried to be good? Because people like good comics. Or most of them do.

Convergence Plastic Man #1 is on Earth X, where it's still WWII and the Germans are in New York. We get an explanation of what Earth X is actually about for the vast majority of the comic, bookended with some shots of the depowered Plas/Freedom Fighters in a dungeon. Can you be nostalgic for something you clearly don't remember, because you have to have it explained to you? Or is it just a chance for the writer to do something he's always wanted to and you'll buy it through name recognition? I can't work out who this is supposed to sell to, but I quite like it I suppose. It feels like Astro City, or that JMS/Chris Weston book (The Twelve?) and then in the last page Future's End gets trailed as the Big Bad for #2. This is is technology Bad that destroyed and entire world and defeated all the heroes. ALL of them. It's impossible that some crap ones that can't even beat some normal soldiers can win this. The fact they will has a crushing inevitability about it that puts me off reading it already.

Convergence Shazam #1 feels like it want to be GRITTY at the outset, featuring a suicide bomber (sadly not the BatISIS) but sort of settles down into the GOSH GEE WHILLAKERS comic that something set in the Fawcett Universe should be. It's no CC Beck, it's not even Jeff Smith, but it's better than Geoff Johns' version. There's a bit of fighting between the heroes and the Monster Society, although it's arguably an attempt in box ticking. Uncle Dudley! Talky Tawny! Etc! Next issue has them fighting the Batman from Mike Mignola's Gotham By Gaslight. That feels like a bit of a mis-step.

Convergence World's Finest #1 is the most obscure of all these titles. It stars Scribbly Jibbet, who is the Earth 2 version of the photographer guy in Marvels. Him and the Shining Knight get trapped and depowered then repowered and then Uncanny Braniac gives them the cheat code to win Convergence because they're the best ever and the writer of this hasn't read the main book so doesn't know that's supposed to be Dick Grayson. <excised long rant about editing and how people get paid to do it> Ho hum.

Atom by Peyer and Yeowell, Harley & Catwoman & Ivy vs Captain Carrot by Pugh & Winslade, and Plastic Man Vs Nazis drawn by McCrea could have drawn my attention if these had actually been marketed, but then I would have expected them to be fun stand-alones, not disconnected tie-ins to a beyond-moronic crossover.

also mmmmaybe Giffen on Ambush Bug & Lady Quark but no-name artist isn't promising after the last Bug fiasco, and Swamp Thing by Wein & Jones would have but Before Watchmen scabbing is gross even when you don't gloat about how you're getting your comeuppance by doing it

interesting how many are still done by regular nu-52 hacks. (and it would help if you mentioned the creators to blame in the reviews!)

They're probably the best books, yes.

So, I read Convergence Detective Comics #1 in the end and I was wrong ^^^, because it was The Huntress in the car, not Babs. It's actually much better than I gave it credit for and deals mainly with Red Son Superman's coping strategies at being powerless. Dick and Helena talk a lot. Then Sky Braniac opens the domes and it turns out Red Son Man is the good guy and Huntress is the asshole. You know what would make this better and more complete? SUICIDE BOMBER HUNTRESS BITCHES. I can't work out if they've done that deliberately having read the main book, or accidentally having not read the main book. The main selling point of this is undoubtedly supposed to be the art, which is really entertaining in an early Moon Knight way. This could be pulled round next issue into one of the highlights tbh.

So what's the deal with the Convergence solicitations? When I was picking up FCBD stuff this weekend I overheard the employees complaining about DC dumping a bunch of stuff on them. Did DC just say 'eight mystery Convergence crossovers released each week!'? Because, if so, that's some straight bullshit and I would not blame shop owners at all for doing a hardcore DC purge once this is all over.

Dunno, the solicits were all well in advance - the C&P I did above was from January - but there was iirc a quite convoluted Sale Or Return deal just for Convergence bundled in with it? ISTR a news story from the beginning of the year that stores were deliberately over-ordering to get specific retailer incentive covers which they started scalping before even receiving them? I'm guessing DC plugged the hole in their plan by cancelling the returns?

DC paused 95% of ongoing series for two months (while they moved to Burbank, I assume) in favor of this shit, but when they presented it up front it was... less half-assed than it turned out to be. DC wanted retailers to believe this was the short-term equivalent of Secret Wars.

Okay, I knew all that. I just wasn't sure if they were playing those "CLASSIFIED!" games with this stuff in Previews or something.

How many of the Convergence writers are (ex-)Marvel and DC editors? At first glance, it looks like roughly 90%.

By short term, did they mean cramming 8 months of crossover books into two months?

The big unforgettable event of the year! World's collide! Nothing will be the same!

The DC Divergence Free Comic Book Day book was the only one I had leftover.

Ha ha. Yeah, I didn't even bother to pick up the thing DC was giving away for free.

I find the DC universe totally incomprehensible at this point

Last fall's DC strategy of launching six new Bat-titles pretty much shit the bed so I don't know what they'll do now.

What happened?

I'm genuinely curious because I haven't been paying that much attention to DC of late: is there any sense that they're taking the pulse of what their audience actually wants? I mean, there's a lot of obvious fan service going on of late, but are they checking in to see if it's legitimately serving anyone? It seems like the folks at Marvel have at least some interest in what people want to buy but DC seems intent on doubling down on stuff that many people have been vocal about not digging. And while I applaud the stones it takes to launch Bizarro and Prez titles without really testing the waters, it feels more than a bit like there's a crazy person at the wheel.

http://cdn.bleedingcool.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Geoff-Johns-Rings1.jpg

xp - they launched a new young adult Gotham title (Gotham Manor, IIRC), a horror one (Arkham something?), relaunched Batgirl and Catwoman, did a weekly series and there's one other title that's slipping my mind. None were hits, the horror title has already been cancelled, I think.

Batgirl was exciting for month one with a new costume/concept, but DC didn't make her as interesting as, say, the new Ms. Marvel (of which new-Batgirl is something of a rip-off)

I'm genuinely curious because I haven't been paying that much attention to DC of late: is there any sense that they're taking the pulse of what their audience actually wants?

DC maybe needs to do less fan-service and more "establishing a coherent universe" and bring the fans along with them - build Superman and Wonder Woman into something interesting again, etc.. When they do stuff(like Multiversity with a clear voice, it works pretty well.

I haven't read any non-Morrison big 2 titles in longer than I can remember but I feel like every time I pick something up to glance through I'm thrown in the middle of some nigh-incomprehensible continuity EVENT nonsense... I kinda wish superheroes would just go back to, like, solving bank robberies and fighting on top of giant appliances and occasionally worrying about someone figuring out their secret identity

It was cool when Marvel had the regular 616 books and the Ultimate stuff and the Marvel Adventures stuff and various other non-continuity series and miniseries running at the same time so that there was always a jumping-on point with a relatively low barrier to entry. The Big 2 seem to have gotten away from that, which is a shame. And there's the dumb stuff they regularly do which ignores the obvious synergy they could be exploiting in a given moment, like, ohhhhhhh I don't know, maybe not cancelling every last one of the Avengers titles at the exact same time that a new Avengers movie is being released.

Bat titles were Gotham Academy (a quite interesting teen book by Becky Clooney set in a spooky old school, w/ fleeting glimpses and hints of Bat-villains - although Killer Croc has more of a role towards the end and Damian Wayne shows up at the conclusion - which probably deserves better and would be just as viable with no Bat-connection tbh), Arkham Manor (a mini-series imo, which is why I would speculate it's not continuing beyond #6, where Bats goes undercover in the Asylum to find out who's killing the inmates), Gotham By Midnight (The Spectre in spooky cop shit capers, drawn in a very Ben Templesmith style) and reboots of Batgirl (as said, an inferior Ms Marvel up until the Babs/computer mindswap shenanigans which didn't really work at all and was all a bit rushed in the headlong rush into Convergence) and Catwoman (more of a crime drama, probably too early to call it). Plus Batman Eternal, which was a weekly story (when DC were already publishing two other weekly titles and this was clearly the red-headed stepchild as far as they were concerned) and is far too fast paced and has a bloated and oversized cast, changes to continuity that come out of it don't get a chance to ripple through it before they have to change character arc. That said, the Cluemaster arc was REALLY good. Best to think of it as a tv series, with plot threads that run thoughout but basically a collection of short stories linked by a character set. There's a Season 2 coming later in the year.

There are post-convergence Bat titles of Batman Beyond, a Damian Wayne book and a kind of Anonymous/hacktivist Robin book featuring normal kids who wear the mask and call themselves "Robin" (scarequotes not mine). Oh, and a Bat-Mite mini by Dan Jurgens. Yes, really.

Super-weardown was as bad, if not worse than Bat-weardown tbh, we've had Action, Batman/Superman, Superboy, Supergirl, Superman, Superman/Wonder Woman, Superman Unchained, Superman: Lois Lane and Superman: Doomed, with a new Doomsday book as well as a Bizarro book coming out after Convergence. On top of this, Power Girl has been the dominant character in Earth 2 and World's Finest, plus are LoSH still considered Superman Family?

I feel like DC are kind of willing to take a chance from California, as you can see from solicits of Levitz on Doctor Fate, Omega Men, Conner and Palmiotti on Starfire, giving Alisa Kwitney a book and the aforementioned minis of Bat-mite, Bizarro, a Harley Quinn/Power Girl mini set between two panels of the regular HQ series, Prez and a Ennis/McCrea Hitman spin-off. Although the fact so many of them are deliberate minis might show a lack of commitment.

Challop here, but Marvel are even more guilty of flogging their prize assets into the ground. They may well have had great recent books like Black Widow, Hawkeye, All-New Ghost Rider and Iron Fist, but in the Marvel Now era (which is not yet 3 years old) they have also had no less than 16 different Avengers titles, and 21 different X-books including an entire Wolverine wing and not counting Kitty Pride being all over GotG (which itself has had 4 different books and a full-on crossover event). Let's not go near the Spider-titles because there have been about 30 of them.

I feel like DC are kind of willing to take a chance from California

your nu-52 stockholm syndrome is so bad! those bold chances in full:

Levitz on Doctor Fate

a 40-year DC employee and long-time second-highest executive on a revival of a 75-year-old property

Omega Men

a revival of a 34-year-old property that spun off one of DC's biggest earners of the 90s

Conner and Palmiotti on Starfire

bad/good-girl artist draws and her blokey boyfriend writes a former nuanced and admirable female character from 34 years ago, reinvented three years ago as a mindless slut

giving Alisa Kwitney a book

DC writer from two decades ago gets a few months work

and the aforementioned minis of Bat-mite

revival of a 56-year-old parody of DC's biggest property

Bizarro

revival of a 57-year-old parody of DC's second-biggest property

a Harley Quinn/Power Girl mini set between two panels of the regular HQ series

former chin-to-toe clad comedy character reinvented as arse-hanging-out slut three years ago, teamed up with character best known for boobs, and having boobs

Prez and a Ennis/McCrea Hitman spin-off.

buying this tbh, but revival of an 18-year-old property who first appeared in a 22-year-old property's comic, and last appeared in another spin-off 15 (f.i.f.t.e.e.n.) years ago

Oh how my standards have dropped.

I totally agree that Marvel's gone the same direction. I've mentioned elsewhere that I fell off buying Marvel stuff a few years back (I always kept up with all of the X-books, at least), and the prospect of catching up with that little stretch of missed time is incredibly daunting.

The same direction in terms of the glut, is what I mean.

I'm not sure it's more job as a comics reader to be invested in Marvel's synergy practices (or lack thereof) between the movies and monthly comics. For one thing, I like the comics, and I'm not really into the movies! And shouldn't their lack of synergistic exploitation be a *good* thing? But, yeah, I do see frustrating missed opportunities.

Don't forget though, if you like the Ultron movie, there's a big number one comic with Avengers and Ultron in the title (written by Al Ewing!) right there in the comic store this week. And I imagine new readers coming from the movies (should they exist) are better served by trades than floppies anyway. I always direct comics-curious friends to collections (e.g. Hawkeye) over individual floppies.

Agree Marvel are flogging their prize assets too - just that, creatively, their asset-flogging is much better than DC's asset flogging.

Sorry, "I'm not sure it's *my* job", I mean

I'm just speaking from a business perspective. It would seem to be in their best interests to try to sync up their publishing concerns with their film concerns rather than cancelling titles and killing characters simultaneous to those characters' attendant movie releases. I actually am glad that they tend to avoid that, aside from their nonsensical attempts after the fact to shoehorn elements from the movies into the comics (see: organic web shooters). But you're correct that trades are probably the better route for the casually curious.

thanks for the info rundown guys - i had no idea about this stuff. still kind of fascinated, if afraid to touch these books

I looked at all of these on the shelf of my comic book store the other day and literally had a moment where my skin began to crawl

Also to note that Marvel appear to have synced up between the publishing concerns and their films because they have a blanket ban on creators inventing any new X-characters and stopped publishing Fantastic Four this month "for good". In addition they de-powered Wolverine at the same time as Hugh Jackman did which led to his death in the comics (and 4000 books about it).

There have certainly been suggestions that the post-Secret Wars Marvel Universe will bear a much closer resemblance to their cinematic universe.

I will be sad to see the gonzo Avengers roster they currently have now go away, particularly now that they've started actually telling Cannonball and Sunspot stories (Roberto in particular recently got a massive bump in prominence/importance and basically rules)

HALLELUJAH! SEXY DARKSEID IS WEARING POUCHES!

(Jog reviews the DC FCBD Divergence comic)

** Time Runs Out spoiler ** Didn't Cannonball and Sunspot get blowed up a few weeks ago? Admittedly the art makes the stories hard to follow, plus Secret Wars reboot, so I guess it don't matter anyway.

I've really enjoyed the Hickman run, but glad it's winding down. Probably it's outstayed its welcome by about 6 months or so. Love the guy they've got doing the Secret Wars art (normally I am not super-bothered about artists).

Yeah basically every character death leading into Secret Wars is getting a big "lol whatever" from me until further notice

Oh my god. Convergence Atom #2. All I'll say is "tiny hands" Deathstroke.

What does that mean

You'll have to read it to find out. It's so stupid I can't do it justice.

the shazam issue was well drawn? that's the first good thing i have to say about this whole clusterfuck.

I liked the Shazam issue. But I like both the team of Parker and Shaner and the Marvel Family so it was right up my alley.

I look forward to Tiny Hands.

Convergence #5 (Wr: Jeff King P: Andy Kubert Ink: Sandra Hope) brings us up to speed with the core plot. Deimos reveals that Uncanny Braniac is in fact another hero that Braniac has mindwiped and gives him his memories back, but not to the point where anybody actually tells us who he is. Travis Morgan then turns up riding a dinosaur to fight him but is easily dispatched, as is Main Braniac. Dick Grayson decides he needs to be the new BatISIS, then Deimos does Uncanny Braniac In The Sky and tells the heroes in all the cities they don't need to fight and this whole exercise - including what Uncanny Braniac told them in their #1s - was all an utter waste of their time and they don't want to bother with any of it. I wish he'd told us that a few weeks ago tbh. Dick clearly had a flash forward on this very topic, because he makes this observation on one of the early pages:

https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7678/16837652763_c9d9d46baa_o.jpg

Oh Dickpaws.

Convergence Batgirl #2 (Wr: Alisa Kwitney P: Rick Leonardi Ink: Mark Pennington) fails to answer the most important cliffhanger arising from all the first issues. DOES BATGIRL PISSYPANTS STILL NEED TO PEE?

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You're the lucky one Catman. This book is really about Tim Drake's love life and whether he's with Stephanie Brown or Cassandra Cane. Because it's got a girl central character so must be a romance comic secretly, huh? There's very nearly a fight with Grodd but not really because it's Catman that Batgirl Pissypants is supposed to fight so they pretend to and it fools Uncanny Braniac into thinking Batgirl has won - presumably because he's distracted by dinosaurs and shit, and because the fight's over everyone gets to go back to their own city and live happily ever. What's that you say? That means there was no point in any of this? WELL DURRR.

Given just happened in Batgirl Pissypants, you can't help agreeing with Batmang when he says on the first page of Convergence Batman & Robin #2 (Wr: Ron Marz P: Denys Cowan Ink: Klaus Janson and Joe Rubinstein) that he's not going to fight and take part in SecretVergeBattles. But of course they do fight with whoever the obscure villains that turned up on the last page of #1, in a routine that goes very much 'panel with punch'/'panel with limited dialogue'/'panel with punch'/'panel with limited dialogue' etc. Superman appears once the villains are dispatched and taunts Batmang that he had a dad and Batmang didn't. He doesn't take it very badly though, because they both smile and reminisce. In fact, the most important thing that happens in his is ANOTHER FACET OF THE GOTHAM/URINE CONUNDRUM:

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5330/17458697295_baaba2c600_o.jpg

Remind me never to go round to Jason Todd's for brunch.

While #1 was kind of a laff and started out with Modern Harley Quinn, Convergence Harley Quinn #2 (Wr: Steve Pugh P: Phil Winslade Ink: John Dell) takes us back to Old Suit Harley and makes it all a bit grim. IT'S LIKE THE SOCIAL MEDIA REACTION TO MARGOT ROBBIE PHOTOS IN REVERSE. Harley kills Captain Carrot's Pig Mate at the outset and paints taunts on walls with his blood. Except of course it is eventually revealed that wasn't what happened at all and it was oil from one of Uncanny Braniac's fighting enforcement robots. WHERE WERE THEY WHEN BATGIRL PISSYPANTS AND CATMAN WERE PRETENDING TO FIGHT, EH? Anyway, they all decide not to fight and sit down and eat carrots, and the plot just peters out. Then Catwoman decides Harley can't have nice things and refuses to let her go back to her boyfriend because then she might be happy. So Sadface Harley GD driven off by Catwoman and Ivy to fight crime, or maybe just open a florist. Plus, since this book is set in Gotham, OBLIGATORY URINE PANEL:

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There's definitely a trend going on.

The all-girl Convergence Justice League #2 (Wr: Frank Tieri Art: Vicente Cifuentes) have a giant fight many fathoms under the sea. In the river outside Gotham. On a desert planet. I'm not sure there's much more to say about it than that. Especially since nobody in Gotham has any bladder control so God only knows what state the water is in. Baquaman has a kryptonite trident he can use to thump Supergirl but then Mera stabs him so they all decide to stop fighting and go home for. Nice cup of tea, or in Baquaman's case a bit of a brood on the throne (NOT A EUPHEMISM).

Convergence Nightwing & Oracle #2 (Wr: Gail Simone P: Jan Duursema Ink: Dan Parsons) is a stereotypical Gail Simone book. Babs can't help admiring Bad Hawkman and Bad Hawkgirl because they're a bit regal and majestic and are obviously egalitarian at heart. But then she decides they're fascists because they're fighting her boyfriend which means they must be REALLY bad. At one point she gets in a helicopter, but is eventually knocked out of it when Hawkwoman makes it crash VERY CONVENIENTLY EXACTLY NEED TO A SPARE WHEELCHAIR FOR HER TO GET INTO. Black Canary now has a scream that can level cities, but only works where the plot needs it to. Babs swoons over Dick. Her wheelchair must be made out of Gravitronium, because Hawkgirl hits her full on while she's sitting in it and it doesn't tip over. She somehow ends up with Hawkgirl's mace which makes her give up, and Dick has beaten her hubby. It also comes to light that Black Canary is as good, if not better, at computering as Babs is and makes all the Absorbacons blow themselves up saving the city. To celebrate, Babs & Dick get married some time later ("delayed by that earthquake"). It'll be interesting (THIS MAY BE A LIE) how the Gotham BattleConSecret surviving for at least a couple of months is reflected or, more likely, ignored in the other books and/or once Converence is rebranded as Earth 2: Society. Not sure how many people will be checking.

Nothing really happens in Convergence Speed Force #2 (Wr: Tony Bedard Art: Tom Grummett), or at least nothing of note. It turns out the Wonder Woman that turned up to fight Wally is also super-fast, which means everything happens at the same relative speed so The Fastest Man In The World just becomes A Guy Dressed In Spandex. The turtle doesn't help either, because WW made some Count Vertigo bombs after Baquaman dumped her for Mera, and Wally eventually beats her because, as a woman, all you need to do is make her think about children and she's incapable of doing anything rational. Then everyone decides to stop fighting and goes home, then there's an earthquake (which can't be the one from the end of Convergence Dick & Babs, surely, because the wedding in that was delayed by it and Dick & Babs surely weren't going to walk straight off after Hawkfight and get married?) and all that's left to do is squint into the middle distance looking heroic.

Convergence Superman #2 (Wr/P: Dan Jurgens Ink: Norm Rapmund) exists for one reason only and that is so Lois can give birth. There's some trivial punching nonsense at the beginning but that's conveniently forgotten because the Batcave (where the baby delivery is supposed to take place) is "the one place he {Shazam, the puncher} can never find us. Despite the fact both Lois and Supes managed to find it without looking very hard, something Lois boasts about. So in this, not only does the fighting just stop so everyone can play happy families, the fighting stops and just gets discarded as a story - despite being, you know, THE EXACT POINT OF BATTLEVERGEWARS - and everyone LITERALLY plays happy families. Also brief mention of earthquake, but hours before Lois gives birth. Hopefully the editor is paying attention to that.

Words fail me trying to describe Convergence The Atom #2 (Wr: Tom Peyer P: Steve Yeowell Ink: Andy Owens) but it shows more inventiveness than the entire rest of the DC line put together. When I first heard Tiny Hands Deathstroke I did have visions that he was going to get refrigerated by mini brain punches but no, LITERALLY TINY HANDS DEATHSTROKE. To try and summarise, Ray finds out that Ryan Choi ended up in the space/time dimension where all the Atom's extra mass goes to/comes from and this has left him a bit like Firestorm. He then gets his giant hand sliced off by Crocodile Guy and it turns into Ryan Choi who shrinks down and bursts Crocodile Guy's shoulder muscles from the inside. Ray is then in hospital, one handed, when Deathstroke comes to kill him so Ryan beats up Deathstroke and gives Ray a new hand by making Deathstroke's smaller and transferring the mass to Ray. The public then tell Ray how much they love him and both Atoms take the smiling bus to happy ever after land. Am I the only one that followed that?

Convergence The Question #2 (Wr: Greg Rucka Art: Cully Hamner) is, more than anything else, about Montoya getting to her Dad's bedside in time for him to die and her to look a bit sad. Along the way the Question/Huntress/Batwoman team argue about who gets to sleep with who else, and there are a couple of punch-ups as they try and stop Harvey Dent from shooting Harvey Dent which succeeds when Montoya takes Harvey Dent's bullet that was meant for Harvey Dent. Which is enough to fool Uncanny Braniac because he assumes the fight is over. I'm sure this was all well and good as part of a lengthy ongoing story, but as a snappy one-off story it just doesn't work. And no earthquakes either.

In Convergence The Titans #2 (Wr: Fabian Nicieza P: Ron Wagner I: Jose Marzan) Gar Logan is the only person that isn't me that seems to have noticed that Gotham was packed to the gunnels with heroes at the time it was taken yet none of them are anywhere to be seen:

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Anyway, this is a pointless bit of punching which gets miraculously resolved when Roy Harper hacks into Batmang's city-wide hidden remote controlled gun programme and uses it to shoot all the bad guys. Then they all fly off to find somebody else to fight, because the Titans are still following Uncanny Braniac's orders THE IDIOTS.

And I didn't even mention DC turning a black character white (until now).

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2015/05/07/whitewashing-a-dc-character-before-their-death-convergence-5-spoilers/

tiny hands Deathstroke needs his own book.

pics

Ray Palmer has his Ms Marvel One Giant Hand cut off

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And it turns into Partick Off Of SpongeBob SquarePants Ryan Choi.

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THE ATOM IS THE 99%

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MINI JAZZHANDS CONFUSION!

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Ryan Choi looks particularly smug at having done this. LET'S SEE YOU PLAY THE GUITAR NOW, BUDDY!

I feel like I have been drinking, and I have not been drinking.

this fucking thing

i'm not gonna lie, i love this

Amid reports that because sales numbers haven't been as appalling as DC expected, so "there's clearly a market for these characters" and we do have a Multiverse after all, so let's not have any cities destroy each other and everybody can win and we can just abandon the entire premise halfway through AREN'T I CLEVER GEOFF YES YOU ARE DAN; we get Convergence #6. LUCKY US. Jeff King and Scott Lobdell write, Ed Benes and Eduardo Pansica pencil, and Ed Benes, Trevor Scott, Scott Hanna and Wayne Faucher ink. That seems like a lot of people. Like, David Finch levels of people. Anyway, about the actual comic... the Braniac Battle Planet suddenly pops into being in the Johnsiverse, or rather is shat into it like a particularly awkward post-curry poo and heroes stand around looking at it going "Is that a thing?" "Yes, I think that's a thing." "Should we do something about it?" "Let's not bother." Even Darkseid can't be arsed. Meanwhile on BattleVerse all the heroes have decided they should hang up together and the bad guys are all suddenly in on Deimos' plan. Supes decides they should work as giant Good Teams and Bad Teams because all the Braniacs are gone and the plot has evaporated and announces to everyone that Dick Grayson is the best most important hero of all time ever and will save everyone, coming from Earth 2 and all. Dick tries to do this by asking Uncanny Braniac, who we learned last week wasn't a Braniac after all but a hero that had been mindwiped and forgotten who he is, to help make the planet beat Deimos up. Deimos lines up the Good Team and the Bad Team for Action Figure Playtime and yells 'start'. Geoff Johns would be proud.

Convergence Aquaman #2 (Wr: Tony Bedard Art: Cliff Richards, not that one) has Deathblow from some Wildstorm comic nobody read climb out of a toilet to kill Aquaman. Because it has to be water-related somehow, do you see? They have a very boring fight, then some super-dehydrator gets turned on that was a secret doomsday weapon because Aquaman is secretly the most powerful hero of them all don't you know, so he gets dehydrated, but survives by stabbing Deathblow lots of times in the neck and absorbing all his blood. Because blood is "the chemical equivalent of seawater". ::boggles:: That's Silver Age sciencesplaining right there.

I couldn't have given a flying one about the first issue and Convergence Shadow of the Bat #2 (Wr: Larry Hama, P: Rick Leonardi, I: Dan Green) is no better. A tour guide and her son save Batman and Azrael from being beaten up, and then Batman convinces the bad guys to join him in fighting Uncanny Braniac since nobody has told him that Convergence didn't count, no take backs.

Convergence Catwoman #2 (Wr: Justin Gray A: Ron Randall) isn't much cop either. Cats 'n' Bats chat and chat and then team up to fight the normal people of Metropolis who have decided handing Bats over to Uncanny Braniac, and then once beaten decide to shoot Bats anyway. Since Cats secretly is in love with this new Bats, and thinks he is the best hero in the world ever, she jumps in front and takes the bullet and dies. Bats literally shrugs and says NO BIGGIE. That doesn't feel right you know.

It's a travesty that trees died to make Convergence Green Arrow #2 (Wr: Christy Marx P: Rags Morales I: Claude St-Aubin). Really it is. I've read less than half the books this week and lost the desire to read any more. In short, Uncanny Braniac makes Metropolis lost into the sky under threat of destruction because he hasn't been reading any of the other books and so has no idea what the plot is supposed to be. I think I genuinely am the only person reading all of this.

Convergence Green Lantern Parallax #2 (Wr: Tony Bedard P: Ron Wagner I: Bill Rheinhold) is a bag of shit too. Mad Hal Jordan puts Kyle Rayner in a missile and fires it on Metropolis then kills everyone in Electropolis so Uncanny Braniac declares them the winners of Convergence and evaporates some of them. I don't care enough to work out how, but Kyle Rayner survives because he gets a group hug from the grateful citizens of Metropolis. Presumably not the same citizens of Metropolis that have just shot Old Batman.

Converence JLI #2 (Wr: Ron Marz, Art: Mike Manley Additional Inks: Joe Rubinstein, Mike Manley, Brett Blevins) is just... fucking hell... I don't know. The JLI and whoever they've agreed to fight turn up behind the bike sheds outside of Metropolis and then have Action Figure Playtime. The JLI get knocked unconscious but Uncanny Braniac's enforcement robots (last seen in some other fucking book, but only the one, mind) try and even up the score for long enough to meet the page count. But the real problem is the back. Booster Gold turned up off-camera to prank Beetle by using his now-accurate time travel powers. To a planet outside of space and time which was not even part of the Multiverse and nobody knows anything about or can get to, or off. Just for fan service. SEE GEOFF I CAN MAKE PEOPLE LIKE ME.

I have a question

What is Uncanny Braniac?

Uncanny Braniac is what I have been using as a nickname for Telos who is just a guy or is a creation of the planet or is a God, depending on which book you are reading.

Uncanny is a weak joke based on the similarities between the plot of Convergence and Secret Wars/Battleworld. I needed a way to refer to him to separate him out from all the other Braniacs that were appearing early on, because there were a lot of them.

Potted history: Braniac is definitely behind Convergence. Lots of Braniacs from different eras taunt Superman (Convergence #0) about the leaked plot of the series. He smashes his way through all of them until just one is left standing (Uncanny Braniac) who says he is the perfect creation and embodiment of his master Braniac unlike all the other Braniacs (various Johnsiverse books have established that Braniac is only a giant consciousness that builds and discards bodies as it chooses). Uncanny Braniac tells all the characters the plot in the minis, raises and lowers the domes by his will, becomes a giant sand monster because he's part of the planet which is the real host of Braniac and Uncanny Braniac is just the avatar it uses to deal with the cities it has kidnapped, and has an army of plot enforcer robots that are part of his consciousness.(Convergence 1-4, all the mini #1s, some of the mini #2s) This avatar starts getting called Telos. (Convergence #2)

It then turns out there is a proper Braniac at the centre of the planet/in a stasis field who has been trapped by someone and Deimos is capturing time travellers to free him. (Convergence #4) It is explained that this is in fact the master Braniac and Telos is in fact a missing hero who has been brainwashed into thinking he is Telos/a Braniac and can't remember who he is. No explanation given for the powers he has shown since he was there. Deimos then kills the master Braniac with a wave of his hand and Braniac is removed from the plotting of convergence and effectively retconned away so the plot never had anything to do with Braniac. (Convergence #5) Telos just mopes about trying to remember who he is. (Convergence #6) It's also worth noting that only some of the #2 mini issues reflect the state of affairs post-Convergence #4 and still have Telos as a God figure and all-powerful.

Remember, ALL OF THIS HAS HAPPENED IN A 7 WEEK PUBLISHING WINDOW.

hahaha dear god!!

All-Braniac

i can't understand any of this even a little bit

if the plot of 'secret war' is "there's some kind of cosmic level threat with a huge backstory you don't have to care about, but basically that led to a battle between the ultimate and regular marvel universes which ended with them merging with every other marvel alternate earth" what is the plot of 'convergence'

I like to imagine the 'plot' being cobbled together by an assistant who's writing down the distracted and disconnected ideas that pop into the half-interested editor's head throughout the day and night while he's engaged in other activities (moving, golfing, using the toilet, drinking to excess, reading stories about the coherent crossover the competition is putting out).

what is the plot of 'convergence'

With two issues to go, I have no idea. The things I have listed above have happened, and because Braniac is not the plot any more there is no need for any of them to fight and they are not being made to (in nearly all the books) and there are no consequences to not fighting.

The two plots that seem to be possible ones:

When Telos remembers who he is, he is someone important that we haven't heard mention of in the Multiverse and is much missed/much loved. Hopefully it'll be Snapper Carr or similar.

The planet was outside the Multiverse and has managed to get into it. Since the Multiverse hasn't been properly explored at all apart from the map in Multiversity and a couple of the spin-offs this seems redundant.

Neither of these plots needed any of the issues prior to #5, or any of the minis.

In a world of dreadful comics, Convergence Suicide Squad #2 (Wr: Frank Tieri, Art: Tom Mandrake) is merely mediocre. There is some pointless fighting, which Black Orchid wins by blowing herself up as Cyborg Superman is just about to beat her. Fair enough, although alongside BatISIS that's the second blow up = win in ConBattleWars. Then Captain Boomerang shoots Lex Luthor through the head while he's chanting his own name in a victory song, before a tl;dr speech about having cancer. He then goes to kill Waller, who suicide bombs herself to take Boomerang out. wtf is the obsession with blowing yourself up in SecretVergeWorld? Waller even gets a statue out of it, which can't be just a day or so later and so seemingly proves that the cities taken out of their own continuity live forever. They're going to learn how to fly high! FAME!

Convergence Superboy #2 (Wr: Fabian Nicieza P: Karl Moline I: Jose Marzan Jr) is one of the books where they're still labouring under the old Convergence plot. So we get page after page of Superboy fighting an elderly Superman, until Lois (who may or may not be elderly, you can't work out where/when she's from since she's different in every book even if she's the same Lois) gets hit in the head with a rock and Superman suggests the old 'pretend to be knocked unconscious to confuse Uncanny Braniac's enforcement robots' trick, even though we haven't seen the enforcement robots. And then Superman decides to actually knock Superboy out anyway. Superman, you're a dick. We then don't actually find out whether the strategy works, the issue just finishes. Utterly pointless.

At least Convergence Supergirl Matrix #2 (Wr: Keith Giffen P: Timothy Green II I: Joseph Silver) has fun with it. Ambush Bug scoots round the cities that haven't appeared in any of the books yet, just so they actually show up and DC technically have featured them. Basic there are a series of jokes about how shit the comics of the late 80s/early 90s were compared to the creative pinnacle they now find themselves at. Keith Giffen clearly enjoys writing Ambush Bug, but... this book doesn't make a whole lot of sense and not only doesn't claim to but boasts about how retarded it is. Amidst the never-ending waves of shit that have constituted DC's output this month it's a brave and entertaining change, but I strongly suspect it actually isn't any good.

Superman Man of Steel #2 (Wr: Louise Simonson P: June Brigman I: Roy Richardson) might as well be string. Wibble wibble wibble punchy "hang on, what if we all stop?" "Yeah let's all stop." "Oops we been sucked through a teleport by Uncanny Braniac!" "Hahaha, what hijacks will we get up to next time?" "I don't know, but I bet it's more exciting in other comics!" "Yes, HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

Anyway, next week will be late as I am travelling until Saturday,

i can't understand any of this even a little bit

cosign

I mean I recognize some character names and that's it

i think somebody got into under the dome in a big way, went insane and became editor in chief at DC
in that order

You want an incoherent stream of badly written shite? Well maybe Convergence #7 (w: Jeff King & Scott Lobdell p: Aaron Lopresti i: Mark Morales) is exactly what you're looking for. In the Johnsiverse, people have finally started paying attention after last week's nonplussed looks at the new planet, but mainly at the Floaty Guy Who Is Definitely Not The Watcher Honestly from one of the last Superman arcs, and Superman doesn't want to tell anyone who he is. Probably because he's as embarrassed as he should be for having been in them. Back on ConWorld Telos is powerful again and then isn't, and then is, and then isn't, then all the heroes decide that should all just work together to beat Deimos and the bad guys they were fighting on page 1 get dropped from the plot. Then Deimos gets evaporated by Parallax which starts Crisis On Infinite Earths (red skies, the works). Confused? So am I. I am also guessing that we won't find out who Telos is since we were told multiple times Deimos was the only one who knew who he was. He couldn't be The Monitor, could he?

Convergence Adventures of Superman #2 (w: Marv Wolfman p: Roberto Viacava i: Andy Owens) ended with the Phantom Zone emptying all the worst ever Kryptonian baddies onto Supes and Supergirl, remember? They punch each other until everyone gets bored and Kara destroys the phantom zone projector with her laser boobs (or lasers from somewhere, the art is too bad to tell) and ends the plot. Kamandi is outside with a gorilla doing scenes traced from Dawn of the Planet of the Apes then Supes turns up to "help" and ends up changed to a Minuteman missile which he eventually destroys with his laser boobs (the second time, so it must actually be deliberate). Then there's an earthquake; find out what happens next in Convergence #6! Out in just -2 weeks!

Set in the first couple of minutes after everyone's powers come back on, Convergence Batman & The Outsiders #2 (w: Marc Andreyko a: Carlos D'Anda) very quickly becomes a tedious punch 'em all vs OMAC. Then there's an earthquake (so somebody has won) then a bit more of the fight until Uncanny Braniac appears in the sky like the referee out of Gladiators and announces Bats and the Outsiders have won and so are the champions, which means this book is either set before Convergence 4 or Marc Andreyko has been stiffed by DiDio. I'm thinking the latter though because the bad guys don't get removed by enforcer robots or anything. Metamorpho gets a bit of quality sad face time then everyone wonders what's going to happen next. I can hardly wait to find out! Except we won't, obviously, as there aren't any more issues. Except the issues I have with such shitty writing. DO YOU SEE WHAT I DID THERE.

My favourite part of Convergence Green Lantern Corps #2 (w: David Gallaher and Steve Ellis i: Ande Parks) is on the last page when John Stewart's ring summarises in a single speech bubble what the writers had been told what the plot of the main book was, which isn't what happens in the main book. And what happens in the main book has nothing to do with anything that happens in these pages in any case. The Warrior era Guy Gardner knocks a dragon out with a baseball bat then beats Hercules in an arm-wrestling competition, despite Hercules being strong enough (as shown a couple of panels later) to throw a grown man several miles. He then gets Lanterned up again by Hal, because Guy is the best GL ever of all time ever always and throws the bad guy into the sun so it explodes, killing them both. Which sun? Depending on when this is set, is it the Johnsiverse sun? If so, how does the Johnsiverse survive? I know, im expecting too much for it to ACTUALLY MAKE SOME FUCKING SENSE. And I have no idea who the penciller is, because it's not credited. I'm not sure I'd want my name on it either.

I can't even be bothered writing about Convergence Hawkman #2 (w: Jeff Parker p: Tim Truman i: Enrique Alcatena) other than to say it's absolute carnage. Unlike in other books, where people are punched about a bit, hundreds are gunned down, blown up and stabbed in this with no consequence because all that happens is that the absorbacon (yes, still really) explains the universe they were front was destroyed in the Crisis and now... erm... isn't. And that's ten times the effort that was put into writing this book.

Literally nothing happens in Convergence JLA #2 (w: Fabien Nicieza a: chriscross). The heroes stand around discussing why they're not going to fight, then Zatanna shows up and teleports the bad guys away. Then they all congratulate themselves on a job well done. That's it. No link to any of the other books, just a nostalgia trip; as if anyone is nostalgic for the Detroit JLA.

A little more happens in Convergence Superboy and the Legion #2 (w: Stuart Moore layouts: Peter Gross art: Mark Farmer) but not that much more. There's a lot of talking between various heroes and the Atomic Knights, before they pull out their chemical weapon and threaten to suicide dirty bomb the city. Then IN ACTUAL CONVERGENCE PLOT the LoSH Braniac explains that there are two ConWorlds but you can't see them both because they are in separate multiverses and that means everyone should just stop fighting because something might happen at some point in the future (but it had better hurry up because there's only one issue of the core book left. Do you think LoSH Braniac was asked to join all the other Braniacs on ConWorld or is he Red Headed Step Child Braniac? Does he even get a Christmas card or a phone call on his birthday? Although I guess he won't any more that Deimos killed them all. Except Telos, who I suppose is kind of his cousin by marriage or something? Shit is complicated.

Having Len Wein and Kelley Jones doing Convergence Swamp Thing #2 has shown what happens when you get actual talent on me of these books - it becomes readable. Swampy and Gotham After Midnight Batman are supposed to fight, but Bats thinks his Gotham sucks and offers to sacrifice himself in the fight. In return he wants to have one last crack at the vampires throughout the city in the hope of taking out the queen. They eventually achieve this between them then Bats watches the sun rise in a moving last couple of pages, knowing the light will kill him. Comics, they're not hard. Although DC of course make it very hard indeed, because in their rush to give us a Dick 'n' Babs book nobody is clamouring for all the cities will live; this means there will be rampaging powerful vampires on Braniac planet that will need suppressing. Luckily there will now be an all-conquering plant God too - remember this Swampy is at pre-Crisis strength levels. Well I'll remember, even if nobody at DC will.

Convergence Flash #2 (w: Dan Abnett a: Federico Dallocchio) straight up calls Dan DiDio a horse's arse. So, outside of being a lengthy resignation letter is it actually any good? Surprisingly, yes. It's very talky, but Tangent Superman has a giant humblebrag then basically explains Barry Allen's place in the Multiverse and lets him know he has to die in the Crisis but has to be back for the God Killer Bullet. Barry reacts badly to this and gets punchy for a bit before Superman gives up in order to let Barry survive. Then they all wait around to see what shit Geoff Johns is going to throw at them next. Barry doesn't seem very happy at the outcome, but then he has just been told he's going to die soon. I look forward to a future issue where he's thrown himself completely into booze and hookers since he has nothing to look forward to.

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2015/05/20/is-that-really-telos-that-superman-is-talking-about-in-todays-convergence/

THE POWER OF LOOOOOOVE A FORCE FROM ABOOOOOOOOOVE HEALING MY SOUL goes Convergence New Teen Titans #2 (w: Marv Wolfman p: Nicola Scott i: Marc Deering). Seriously, when the most exciting thing in your book is a man painting a tree then there's something seriously wrong. I was sure this came out a different week; I definitely read a #2 with Starfire and Nightwang in it. What did I do to deserve another one? The Titans and a Doom Patrol avoid fighting for the main, until Uncanny Braniac decides he's had enough and removes the Doom Patrol placing the end of his book about 3 weeks ago. Kori and Dick celebrate by making goo-goo eyes and having a bit of a kiss. Just wait until she finds out Other Dick (not to be confused with Other Other Dick or Other Other Other Dick) has just got married to Babs Gordon. This planet is covered with Dicks. Everywhere you look, Dicks. And since they all survive, and ConWorld moves into the Johnsiverse, all DC's books could be fill of Dicks from now on. That's a sobering thought.

Convergence Wonder Woman #2 (w: Larry Hama p: Aaron Lopresti i: Matt Banning) is a lengthy punch-em-up with Diana fighting Vampire Joker and Were-Catwoman. I wish I was making that up. Steve and Etta both get turned into vampires (because that's a power of werewolves now) and everybody that isn't Diana gets sucked down to Hell through a giant hole in the ground. That's to Hell, mind, and not to Deimos' chamber which is what we know from elsewhere should be at the bottom of the hole. Still, why let continuity get in the way of a rotten story nobody cares about, eh?

Thankfully just one more week of this shite left.

Aldo, thanks for all your hard work. I'm sorry this has been so awful and also so simultaneously joyless.

but joyful for us to read! :D

I'm not getting much joy from this, it's Requiem for a Dream - Aldo you do have other things to look forward to in outer life, right?

Seeing David Haig in Penny Dreadful gave me a terrible desire to watch The Wright Way again.

― the bowels are not what they seem (aldo), Tuesday, 26 May 2015 12:24 (34 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Sending professional PTSD counsellors now.

Maybe go back and do Countdown

I'm going to do the core book at the end because it's the last of the series and I don't want to spoil them, although it's pretty much impossible to 'spoil' anything DC are putting out. YOU CAN'T RUIN A TURD, RIGHT? DO YOU SEE WHAT I DID THERE? And of course even though these individual issues are set around Convergence #4, of course.

So let's kick off with Convergence Action Comics #2 (w: Justin Gray p: Claude St-Aubin i: Sean Parsons) because who doesn't love Power Girl? Red Son Wonder Woman tries to kill her with missiles from the invisible plane but fails, which really pisses Stalin off. He is quickly distracted though, because Lex Luthor has made secret assassin robots that look like friendly GIs to kill him. They are presumably not called Call-Me-Brad, Call-Me-Chuck and Arsequake as the comic would improve immeasurably if they had been. Golden Age Superman then turns up and talks to everyone until they're too bored to fight. He flies off into the pages of Convergence #6, which might be for the best mainly because I don't have to read it (again). There were a lot of Supermen in it right enough.

Convergence Blue Beetle #2 (w: Scott Lobdell a: Yishan Li) doesn't help my mood, as I had forgotten how bad the first one was. The Charlton heroes remind us all they don't have any real powers (yes, even Captain Atom) then face of against the Legion of Super Heroes. WAIT A MINUTE. They were in their own book fighting someone else. So are there two sets of the Legion, both from the same 30thC Metropolis? Had one of them travelled back in time just beforehand so one was taken by the old Metropolis and one by the new? At least the two Braniacs can hang out together and call themselves the Legion of Substitute Braniacs? Telos can join them, because we now know he's a substitute Braniac come Convergence #5 except this must be set before then becaus Ted Kord, being so clever, makes a hologram of Hub City collapsing which makes Uncanny Braniac float in the sky and look down wistfully at how Ted has outwitted him. I give up.

Convergence Booster Gold #2 (w: Dan Jurgens p: Álvaro Martinez i: Raul Fernandez) features a different Blue Beetle and a third different LoSH and is really about how old Booster helps his son Rip Hunter by letting young Booster make time jumps until they end up in the wreckage of Deimos' secret machine, last seen when it was still working back in Convergence #6. Then Waverider appears, says he's going to fix it all, and leaves for Convergence #8 (let's just see whether he actually plays a part, shall we?) with everyone just standing round like spare pricks waiting for something to happen that means anything. I'm not even sure this could have looked all right in Dan's head, to be honest.

I really couldn't care less about Convergence Crime Syndicate #2 (w: Brian Buccellato a: Phil Winslade). Two sets of Justice League analogues, one of whom was recently in Forever Evil, fight each other in a direct powers to power match up, until one of them has won. They're either both the good guys or both the bad guys, except Ultraman, and even then I don't know what side he's supposed to be on. And because they're both analogies. When one of the Wonder Women crawls out of the wrecked city saying she's won you have no idea which one it is. LIKE IT MATTERS. Dire.

Convergence Detective Comics #2 (w: Len Wein a: Denys Cowan and Bill Sienkewicz) is at least entertaining. Ignoring what's happening in any of the other books, The Huntress and Robin are going to get killed by Red Son Superman when they're rescued by Red Son Batman. He takes them to a hut on a small farm where they all bond because they haven't seen a Batman in ages and he gives them a box to open in front of Superman. Eventually Supes catches up with them and it turns out the box has SURPRISE some kryptonite in it which nearly kills Superman but eventually they decide to just all work together instead. This infuriates Uncanny Braniac who appears in the sky and tells them THERE WILL BE CONSEQUENCES! The consequences seem to only be resetting people into their own cities with no fighting, so Dick indulges in some Batman cosplay to finish off the page count. I'd criticise all this in the other books, but being pretty well written and with art that doesn't want to make me gouge my eyes out I'll blame everything that's wrong with it on the other books. GO ME.

Sorry for lateness, been away, awesome metal show hot chick etc. IT WASN'T BECAUSE I WAS PUTTING THIS OFF, RIGHT? WHO SAID IT WAS?

Convergence Infinity Inc #2 (w: Jerry Ordway layouts pages 1-9: Ben Caldwell p: June Brigman i: Roy Richardson) is not an auspicious start. It reads like bad Silver Age filler, full of sentence constructions "I WILL DO SOMETHING, CHARACTER NAME" "THAT WAS GOOD, OTHER CHARACTER NAME". It's wearying. It plods along and WHOOPS THERE IS A FUSION REACTOR THAT MIGHT BE IMPORTANT LATER. WOW, WAS THAT A GIANT SPACESHIP? It contradicts nearly everything happening in other BattleVerge books until they all ask Uncanny Braniac to let them off fighting because they have the sniffles. Then the city blows up anyway because fusion reactor. They then meet up with the JSA because they've won the fight in a book I haven't read yet who say because they're old they can't be the JSA any more so maybe they should have (I shit you not) A CORPORATE MERGER. Then they all stare off heroically into the middle distance AS YOU DO.

So, having had Convergence JSA #2 (w: Dan Abnett p: Tom Derenick i: Trevor Scott) spoiled for me, is it worth reading? Well it certainly delivers on the promise of the first issue with the old-timers clearly enjoying one last time around as they defeat a Qwardian weapon. The promise was a bit one note though and it all kind of peters out until Uncanny Braniac declares the fight over and destroys Qward. Then, weirdly, the JSA lose their powers again and go back to being old men, like they were when the dome was up. Now I accept that plays well for the storyline in this mini, but this wildly inconsistent with the rest of ConWars. WAIT, WHY AM I EXPECTING ANY BETTER? Let's just enjoy this for what it is. A competent comic.

Convergence Plastic Man & The Freedom Fighters #2 (w: Simon Oliver a: John McRea) has a large number of ConSecret tropes; a city floats into the sky, suicide bomb kills everyone. In short, Plas teams up with the Nazis to beat Future's End then the Nazis try to double cross him because they want their own cyborg Superman. Plas throws away some fake suicide bombs that turn out to be real bombs which blow up the floating NYC killing millions. Plas is the only survivor and genuinely dgaf about the victims. No cryingeagle.jpg, no Doom Tears, nothing. Bye bye millions of people. Bye bye.

Convergence Shazam #2 (w: Jeff Parker a: Evan Shaner) is all kind of great in a GOSH GEE WILLAKERS Fawcett way, with steampunk Batman analogues woven in like they've just stepped out of The Goon (and the direct Killer Croc/Goon steal is undeniable). There's not a lot to explain about it, it's just dumb fun. In the shitstorm that this entire event has been, I'll take that. COMICS, THEY'RE NOT JUST FOR IDIOTS ANY MORE!

Convergence World's Finest #2 (Paul Levitz and 7 (SEVEN) art assets) is as impenetrable as #1. The Tenth Doctor continues to be the bloke out of Marvels, Telos is directly intervening in people's lives and the fight that happens in this is also with Qward. So was it this or JSA that was the fight that decided the fate of Qward? You'd think this one, given that Uncanny Braniac is definitely watching this one, but at the conclusion Qward still exists and everyone goes back to being cavemen, maybe. David Tennant draws a cartoon which shows he had fun. The Qwardians don't care, because all they want to do is eat celeriac (which they call greens) and drink grape soda. I wish I was from Qward, it would be a better life than reading this.

NOT A DREAM! NOT A HOAX! THE END OF THIS UTTER DISASTER LIES WITHIN MY HANDS!

Countdown #8 (Jeff King and Scott Lobdell write while 9 (NINE) different artists are used in only 23 pages) finally sees completion of this sorry mess.

As we remember, Parallax killed Deimos and he tries to explain the plot but fails to on page 1. Telos is now a giant God again, forgetting the plot of the last two issues, and he explains that it is ZERO HOUR and the COUNTDOWN has started. The scenes in the previous issues of the planet moving into the Johnsiverse haven't actually happened yet and it is still outside of time and space but luckily Waverider has a plan. PUT BRANIAC IN CHARGE!

Yes, Braniac wasn't actually killed by Deimos 50 pages ago, but even though there seems to be a plan that involves him the heroes don't believe that could be the case and decide to attack him anyway. Braniac is far too powerful though and everyone stands around while Sadface Braniac tells his story of how a FLASHPOINT made a FINAL CRISIS of the MULTIVERSITY 52 times and how he always wanted to be a Monitor when he grew up, and it makes him cry to think of other Braniacs being baddies. Cancer made him punch people, just like Jeremy Clarkson.

Johnsiverse Superman and Supergirl stand (or whatever the word might be for floating in space) by idly watching the planet enter the Johnsiverse, contradicting the dialogue of a couple of pages ago and Braniac decides to take Telos' powers away for him to keep them for himself; and we see the cities floating in the sky again with their domes (mainly) intact.

Braniac tries to send everyone that he stole back to when he stole them from but CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS stops him so he has a backup plan - just send back Superman, Supergirl and Barry Allen and hope they can do something different this time, or maybe just die. Parallax is gutted because nobody applauded when he killed Deimos (or indeed when he fired Kyle Rayner at a city in an ICBM) so he decides to go back with them as does Lois and Superbabby.

AND, IN A SHOCKING TWIST SO STUPID I CAN'T BELIEVE I'M TYPING IT, CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS IS RETCONNED OUT OF DC HISTORY.

Everyone gets returned back to where they started, and Braniac leaves the planet which miraculously gets moved to the universe of Earth 2 and gets instantly terraformed to being a suitable planet for the Earth 2 heroes to live on so they decide to. Telos appears in the sky like Mufasa and tells Alan Scott where the ships that left Earth 2 are so he can go and find them and everybody can act like Earth 2 World's End was only Earth 2 Interregnum. That's right, this whole exercise existed to undo a weekly series that ended THE WEEK BEFORE CONVERGENCE STARTED.

And to rub salt into the wound, Telos says he remembers who he is THEN DOESNT TELL ANYBODY.

I think this whole thing has pushed me over the edge and maybe I'm done with DC. Maybe.

Thanks for putting up with my rambling. It's been emotional. Until next time, MAKE MINE READABLE!

wait

hahahahahahaha

So, if COIE is erased, does that mean Superman can do super-ventriloquism again?

Yes, Tuomas, that was the first thought that went through my head too. OBVIOUSLY.

Serious answer, which Superman? The Earth 1 Suoerman probably always had it.

so... nothing happened, essentially?

Yup.

it felt like that's where they were headed even when you were reading individual random issues.
marvel has problems but dc is so completely clueless right now.

From what I've been able to gather, the entire point of the exercise was to free DC from the shackles of continuity so that their creators can tell shitty stories that don't have to make any more sense in the context of a larger narrative than they do in a vacuum.

When, really, it seems like they've done an excellent job of inadvertently freeing themselves from the shackles of continuity over the past several years.

I've also just realised I just threw in Waverider without explaining who he is. From someone else's summary:

Multiple versions of Booster Gold enter the fray. Booster Golds… oh boy. Okay, in order to understand the significance of this moment, you will need to have read the following series: 52, Booster Gold, Justice League International (vol 2), Futures End: Booster Gold, and Convergence: Booster Gold. So if you haven’t, ya know, read 10 years worth of comic books about Booster Gold, here’s what ya need to know: the Pre-New 52 Booster Gold is the protector of the time stream (this Booster Gold shall hereby known as 52 Booster). Think Dr Who except American. When Flashpoint occurred, a new Booster Gold was created with the New 52 timeline (this Booster Gold shall hereby known as N52 Booster).

Okay, so both of these versions of Booster meet upon Telos. Brainiac abducted both of them (along with 52 Booster’s sister and son – Rip Hunter) trying to find the location vanishing point (a floating fortress that exists at the end of time, where time is catalogued). N52 Booster spilled the beans about it to Brainiac, and that’s how Brainiac has been able to abduct different timelines. Meanwhile, 52 Booster has been bouncing around different timelines, and therefore, has contracted a bad case of temporal radiation poisoning: in short – he’s ageing really quickly. So N52 Booster, Rip Hunter, 52 Booster’s sister, and Ted Korg – the Blue Beetle – take 52 Booster to the vanishing point where he is healed of his condition and transforms into Waverider – a entity who is connected to all moments of time (Phew… that was tiring to explain).

Back to Convergence #8 – N52 Booster and Waverider show up right as Telos stops Parallax. Waverider then says that the only person who can stop the destruction of the Multiverse is Brainiac. So Waverider uses his powers to access the Futures End timeline where Brainiac was trapped and frees him.

Got it? Good.

That source ( http://whatculture.com/comics/6-mega-universe-changing-spoilers-from-dcs-convergence-8.php ) does point out that it thinks that the Johnsiverse sort of still does exist but merges with the pre-CoIE multiverse and it'll all get harmonised out once someone writes a story that needs it. This was covered by the line in the comics "the worlds evolved".

I actually go with Old Lunch's first take there - the major point of this seems to be to remove the same universe constraints that irritated me so much about the Johnsiverse and to handwave continuity errors into 'another universe'. It's a superhero version of "don't ask, don't tell", if you assume it's the same then well and good, if you find a problem there's a pre-packed solution.

i kinda remember waverider... he's basically the 90's metron, right?

Serious answer, which Superman? The Earth 1 Suoerman probably always had it.

I'm not well-versed on DC Earths, but isn't Earth-1 the "main Earth" that pre-crisis stories mostly followed? And Earth-2 was the one were WWII era superheroes had aged in real time? But with COIE all the Earths merged, and several characters were retconned, including Superman, who lost many of his pre-crisis powers, including the super-venriloquism. So after COIE, there was no Earth 1/2/etc, just one single universe and one single Earth. So I don't get how "the Earth 1 Superman always had it", if there was no multiple Earths, and there was just one Superman without ventriloquism? Anyway, what I meant to ask is, if COIE was retconned, does that mean that the "main Earth" Superman is now the pre-crisis Superman, and that he has all of his pre-crisis powers? Or does the pre-crisis Superman now live on some other Earth?

Yes. (not a sarcastic answer)

When you say Johnsiverse are you referring to the post-Flashpoint New 52-era? Or the one before that following Infinite Crisis?

Post-Flashpoint.

ah k

this thread is giving me a migraine

wtf dc

Dan Didio punched the universe

donkeypunched the universe, more like