Open Mike Night - Convergence #8

By Mike Maillaro and Mike Weaver

This week: A fond(?) farewell to Convergence.  90 reviews in 8 weeks!

Convergence #8

Written by: Jeff King and Scott Lobdell
Penciled by: Stephen Segovia, Carlo Pagulayan, Eduardo Pansica, and Ethan Van Sciver
Inked by: Jason Paz, Scott Hanna, Trevor Scott, Stephen Segovia, and Ethan Van Sciver
Colored by: Aspen MLT’s John Starr with Peter Steigerwald
Lettered by: Travis Lanham
Cover by: Andy Kubert with Brad Anderson

Published by: DC
Cover Price: $4.99

Maillaro: Long story short, the heroes freed Brianiac, whose heart grew three sizes that day.  He decides to restore all of their shattered worlds using all the temporal energy released by Parallax killing Deimos.  BUT, apparently Crisis on Infinite Earths won’t let him do that.  So a brave group of heroes volunteer to go back and reshape the events of Crisis.  Pre-Crisis Flash and Supergirl (who died during Crisis), Parallax, and Superman and Lois (with newborn baby) from right before Flashpoint.  They do something off panel...and Crisis has been undone.  The Multiverse is back, though it might have developed differently than it had last time it existed.    Brianiac restores all the cities to where they belong...but leaves the Earth-2 heroes stranded on a dead and lifeless Telos world.  Telos ends up fixing the world up, and that is where we are left.

I don’t want to hog the mike here, but I did have some major complaints about HOW this issue was told.  I like the idea of bringing the Multiverse here...but when you have 90 comics to tell an event, how can you have the climax happen OFF PANEL?  I expect DC will eventually fill in the gaps with another mini-series or event, but that just feels like a cash grab at that point.

Also, Telos just giving the Earth-2 heroes a new world seems to have make World’s End and Future’s End kind of pointless.  Readers had a lot of time and money invested into those books, and Telos just basically said, “Hey, remember all those terrible things these characters have been through and will go through...I can fix it with a wave of my magic wand.”

Weaver: The off-panel fixing of Crisis was horrible.  Parallax walks up and says that he wants redemption and will stop Crisis, and after a brief discussion...REALLY brief discussion...everyone’s all “Okay then.”  Wonder Woman was the only one who sounded opposed, and she was quickly talked over.  That just doesn’t seem like a natural reaction, just embracing the yellow fear demon and calling it a day.  I feel like there could be interesting stories told about how Superman and Parallax get along, in addition to the slugfest parts, but we were totally robbed.

Maillaro: At this point, we don’t even know if Flash or Supergirl died during Crisis...which were pretty big deals in their tie-ins.   Actually, a lot of the ties in were made pointless by the way this all played out.  So many heroes sacrificed a lot to save their city, but hey, don’t worry...Big Daddy Brianiac made it all okay.

And at this point, I’m still not sure what Telos and/or Brainiac were even looking to accomplish...

Weaver: Many things were pointless.  Booster Gold and company show up just to not be able to do anything, for instance.  That was one of the biggest wastes of a moment in a comic ever.  “I’m bringing all the time travelers here...TO DO NOTHING!”  Also, the end was basically “Let’s party like it’s 1984!”  That’s nice and all, but there was a reason Crisis happened 30 years ago, and despite all the tie-ins, very few current comics fans are going to know what “And then it was all like Crisis never happened” is going to mean, I mean, from a nuts and bolts perspective.  Yeah, here’s a bunch of shots of superhumans in front of globes, all is right in the world.

Allow me to also say that Crisis on Infinite Earths made me stop reading DC for a long time, so great was my multiverse love.  I thought I’d be happy with any return of the multiverse.  I’m not happy with this.  It was such a cop out.

Maillaro: I am definitely happy the multiverse is back...BUT...only if DC has a plan in place.  I have read all the previews DC has put out, and it seems like just about all the books they are doing are set in the New 52 universe.  There is a Prez book...but it’s not the Prez universe featured in Multiversity Guidebook, so I’m not sure what it’s connected to.   

It would be real ridiculous if they start using it as an excuse to get rid of things they change their mind about.  “Hey...we decided Batman should not have a son after all...so any story with Damian is now Earth-D.  We don’t care about how that affects the rest of our books...and neither should you!”

That said, I would love if they did some books set in the various universes like Tangent or the “gender swap” universe.  But they haven’t announced anything at this point.

Weaver: In ye olden days of yore, you’d get relatively frequent trips to Earth-2, I was especially fond of one in Brave and the Bold where Earth-1 Batman teamed up with Earth-2 Robin (who was about the same age as him).  Any other universe would show up maybe in the big summer event, but would be mostly relegated to cameo appearances.  I honestly think that’s the right call, develop one major alternate, then allow for other things to show up, including the Earth-D that Godrobin is relegated to.

Maillaro: You’re probably right...I think the problem is Convergence really reminded me how much I missed certain things.  Pre-Flashpoint Superman for example...the guy who thought it was a good idea to take his human wife and newborn baby to fight Crisis...Did you ever read Convergence 6?  When Superman rallies all the heroes, it was just about my favorite moment in comics in a very long time.  Not this wishy-washy loner New-52 Superman, the real Superman. THAT IS THE SUPERMAN I WANT TO READ ABOUT!

Not to mention Tangent, like I said.  I loved seeing those characters again.

Weaver: Beyond the obvious groups of characters from totally different universes, the one that I really like seeing usually is Wonder Woman.  She’s had so many different interpretations historically, and I loved seeing her be pretty badass in this.  But there’s so many other Wonder Woman styles, everything from the powerless spy era to being basically the JLA’s mother to being the JSA’s secretary to being similar to a female Superman right up to being the vengeful badass.  And there’s room for all those Wonder Women, in my mind.  

Maillaro: Yeah, exactly!  So I am very excited for what this can potentially lead to.  THOUGH, I think they did it in the most tortured possible way.   Another thing that was very odd about Convergence is several times in the last few weeks, we had the New-52 heroes watching Telos world start to push through into New-52...and just staring there slackjawed.  It was almost like they appeared just to remind readers, “Hey, this the is new universe we created...I know a lot of you hate the way we changed, but dammit, that is the statuo quo! So don’t get too attached to seeing all the characters you loved for decades.  This is just a tease.”

Weaver: I hate to describe the New 52 as a failure, but it’s kind of a failure.  There’s good to it, and I won’t deny that, but there are glaring issues, such as the early insistence on publishing exactly 52 issues a month.  I think DC realized that pre-Crisis was a time when just about every comics fan liked the DC Universe, so it’s an easy thing to sell, but I think that there’s a few issues with thinking that way.  First of all, we always look back fondly on things we can never get again, but that doesn’t mean they were actually as good as we remember them being, and they may very well not be as good as they used to be if revived now.  Secondly, it’s like moving back in with your parents.  It’s a tacit admission that the last 30 years were not the best choice.

So I think they stick with the New 52 as the primary universe, but start developing Earth-1 to fill the old Earth-2 slot of “some people we hang out with and team up with a lot.”

Maillaro: You’re not wrong.  BUT, I will stand by the idea of having a “line” of books clearly marked and set in the multiverse.  4 or 5 books to start with, and see how things go.   Or maybe just have Waverider hopping around some more.  That was a real fun idea when it showed up in the Booster Tie-Ins.   

Artwise, I thought this issue was surprisingly coherent considering it had a team of ten artists.  I think think issue 7 was better.  Aaron Lopresti drew some amazing panels there, but this was still appealing.  Though I don’t like all those double page layouts when I am reading a comic digitally.

Weaver: Excessive use of two or more page layouts was a mark I was going to make against the art, but the only mark I have against the art.  It surprises me to see how many people handled the art chores, because it was seamless to my eye.  I’m not sure I can hold the splash pages against them.  I think there was an expectation that we get tons and tons of group shots.  Still, I felt there were too many.

Maillaro:  OH!  One last complaint.  DC still needs to tie all this together.  They did some quick teases of Future’s End still happening, and even Multiversity made a quick cameo...but right now nothing quite all fits together, and that is a huge problem.  The modern comic reader is not going to be so quick to accept “multiverse explains it all.”  

Weaver: The ending practically screams, “A wizard did it.”  Which people haven’t liked as an explanation dating back to the days of the ancient Greeks.  It’s weak storytelling.  Especially when you try to sell all these tie ins that don’t tie in without a wizard did it.  

I’m talking a lot of junk, but there were some things in the comic I did like.  The group shots.  Most people seeming to be in character pretty well with the exception of the reaction to Parallax.  Multiverse being back.  I want to give the story a 3, and the art a 4.

Maillaro: Just because of how they managed to balance out so many artists and characters drawn, I want to give the art a 4.5.  But you’re dead on with the story.  

Maillaro: Well...we did it!  We got through the entirety of Convergence.  And hell month with the overlap of Secret Wars and Convergence.  Howard owes us overtime.

Weaver had to go, but I texted him suggesting that next time we’re going to do Archie #666.  And hopefully we’ll be back doing a retro review too.  This week’s schedule just didn’t allow for it.

Final Scores