Convergence

Background:
Before 1985’s Crisis on Infinite Earths DC comics had but one continuity. Sure, there were events that DC would conveniently ignore or forget about but mostly it was accepted that there was a continuation of events starting in 1938. In order to get around the radical change of superheroes that started with 1961’s “Flash of Two World’s” DC introduced the idea of a multiverse with Earths 1 and 2. Somehow the original Earth got relegated to the number 2 spot. Crisis started the idea of simply wiping out or changing continuity sometimes coinciding with large crossover events.

The idea of Convergence is that Brainiac had been grabbing up cities prior to them being erased from continuity. Mind you, being removed from continuity doesn’t mean you are destroyed, it means you never existed in the first place which is a pretty frightening concept. It actually seems like Brainiac did a pretty cool thing but for some inexplicable reason decides to hold a winner take all competition between the cities with a being named Telos acting as referee. The winning city will get control of the planet in order to populate it.

Story Plot *** SPOILER ALERT ***:
Brainiac’s plot is sabotaged by the interference of a villain from the Warlord universe named Deimos who has managed to become uber-powerful by tapping into the power of all the time travelling characters of the DCU. Not sure how one would do that since most of these characters simply used technology rather than some innate ability to travel in time. Deimos’s plan is to have all heroes and villains Brainiac has collected fight all the heroes and villains in continuity to the death in order to create a new universe where everyone will worship him. Say what??? How the hell would that work? Deimos orders the characters Brainiac collected to attack those outside their cities saying, ‘Kill them all and this world is yours!” Captain Marvel replies with a chearful, “With Pleasure.” Wait, WHAT??? Why would these heroes obey Deimos apparently with glee? It wasn’t just Cap who appeared happy to commit murder of heroes he clearly knew from previous contacts.

Deimos is then killed him off unceremoniously by a blast from Zero Hour Hal Jordan and reality starts to collapse because it’s not a DC event until reality collapse. So Jeff King builds up an obscure D level villain from a series few comic fans care about into an existential threat on a universal scale and obliterates him with a quick blast from Parallax. The heroes still in continuity take off and Brainiac, who is suddenly a good guy, monologues while still not explaining the point of Convergence. In order to stabilize the universe the characters are sent to their doom back to their respective time lines in order to cease existing sorta how they didn’t exist prior to Convergence. As Batgirl states, “Oh, God. This is confusing”

At this point I have no idea what happens. Superman, Parallax, Flash and 80’s headband Supergirl fly off to what I assume is Crisis on Infinite Earth to “save the universe” despite the fact that the Crisis was resolved decades ago. Then we get 4 pages of images of various planets with their original character versions standing behind the newer versions; for instance the Golden Age JSA and the new Earth 2 version. What this is supposed to represent escapes me. The planet is engulfed in a maelstrom but emerges lush and beautiful and vibrates itself to the Earth 2 universe where it becomes the new Earth 2. Imagine that. The entire planet… vibrates itself into the Earth 2 universe… and presumably plants itself in the exact same orbit as the destroyed Earth 2. As the Church Lady would say, “How Conveeenient.”

Analysis:
During the story Robin asks himself, ‘is there NO POINT to any of this chaos?” The answer would be yes. Brainiac’s motivation is never explained. Based on the events it’s hard to imagine Deimos was capable of succeeding in the least. Telos seemed like an entirely superfluous character. King could have simply replaced Telos with Brainiac and cut out the middle man. The heroes were fighting for nothing and in the end went back to non-existence.

The other problem is the sheer volume of characters. When Superman is talking you have to consider which Superman because there are so many versions. When Brainiac arrives he is attacked by three Supermen and in another panel we have five. Such is the case with many of the characters. Telos breaks The Jokers neck but which Joker? A short time later there is another Joker. How can you care about characters when you have different iterations all over the place? It is not impossible to juggle a large roster of characters but Jeff King doesn’t juggle he just spills characters all over the place. There is no structure. I can only imagine the confusion of a casual fan. One moment Superman is telling Supergirl it’s time to leave and on the very next page an indistinguishable Superman is still on the planet facing off against Brainiac. Oh wait, his belt is slightly different from the Superman who took off.

Of all the DC Comic Crossovers that have occurred Convergence was the one I looked forward to the most but when the comics started hitting the shelves the professional reviews were devastating. Unfortunately the reviews were spot on. My least favorite DC Crossover was Grant Morrison’s Final Crisis and that’s coming from a big Grant Morrison fan. Final Crisis felt like a complete overindulgence of a great writer but some readers loved it and an article on IGN actually had it as the greatest DC Crossover ever. Convergence fails in a whole different way.

Perhaps the main problem is that Jeff King, who is not a comic book writer, was handed the job of writing. Different mediums require different writing styles but in many cases it’s hard to imagine where this story would be successful. We have characters like Telos who seem to change temperament at the drop of a hat. In one comic he’s brutally killing Kandorians and then looks like he’s threatening to kill Robin on the final panel. Next comic he’s all cool and nice. Issue four ends with Deimos vowing to release Brainiac but that’s yet another false cliffhanger as he never even attempts to do so. This one simply does not work and the professional reviewers nailed it with their low grades.

Convergence is the series that set out to put the Infinite back into the DC’s multiverse. Because, back before 1985’s Crisis on Infinite Earths, there existed all these infinite worlds with innumerable versions of all the DC characters as well as less well-known characters for writers to use in their stories. And since the New 52 reboot wasn’t living up to plans, DC decides to reinstate the infinite earths multiverse to allow creators to tell whatever stories they wanted to without having to be so concerned with continuity.

Sounds like a decent idea, right? At least in theory. But before those new stories from the new-old infinite earths could start rolling out, DC needed to reboot everything with this Convergence multi-volume crossover event of the century . . . the year . . . the month . . . well, the one DC just did – until they start the next one.

As for story itself, Convergence starts out fine if not spectacular. The heroes from Earth-2 escaping their soon-to-be-destroyed planet only to find themselves whisked away by some strange alien being called Telos who works for Brainiac.

Quickly, our Earth-2 heroes discover that Brainiac has trapped entire cities on a living planet, where Telos is suppose to be the zoo keeper until the big Brain needs these test subjects. Naturally, Telos gets bored when his boss leaves for a while and decides to entertain himself by forcing cities and their superheroes to fight against one another in battle royal-style conflicts. The losers and their city paying the ultimate price for defeat. (No, I’m not going to mention how this sounds eerily like Secret Wars or Galactus and the Silver Surfer or anything like that.)

Out of this chaos, the Convergence creative team is able to parade dozens and dozens of DC characters across the pages; each one getting a little face time before being pushed to the side. Fight after fight follows each new hero introduction until finally the tale turns into a roller coaster ride of team-ups, twisted motives, god-like monologues, and eventually an ending where things turn out exactly as you imagined: the infinite earths of the DCU reestablished in heroic style.

As to whether I liked Convergence or not, I guess I’d say it was okay. Not much different than every one of these massive reboot series. And while I’m glad the infinite earths are back (including the New 52, I might add), I think a huge series to accomplish that wasn’t really needed. But then again, I’ve never been a big fan of these things. Honestly, I didn’t love Crisis on Infinite Earths back in the mid-1980s either.

But should you read it?

Totally up to you. You don’t have to read it to understand the new DCU. But it might gain you some closure on a few titles or characters and get you ready for the new infinite earths DCU. So use your best judgment.

I received this book from DC Comics in exchange for an honest and unbiased review. The opinion you have read is mine alone and was not influenced by anyone else.

My understanding was that the Convergence series was to bring back the DC multiverse (and maybe it does), but the series is basically a tie-into the New 52 Earth 2 series with cameos from a number of heroes from alternate and/or deleted Earths. It is not a bad story, though it is a bit overloaded with villains (Brainiac, Telos,and Deimos). Also, the new Earth 2 was not one of my favorite series, and I was hoping, instead, for more interaction with the various players (I think this occurred in the various tie-ins to Convergence). There is also some attempt to link the event to the mainstream DCU, but it is very tenuous. Instead of acting (or reacting) to the crisis, the heroes are merely watching the Convergence events unfold. The final pages suggest--in a two sets of double splash pages--that the multiverse has been reborn, but it is an updated multiverse and not the one familiar to readers of past DC comics.

I generally enjoy the big comic event stories every year, so I was looking forward to reading Convergence by Jeff King. The description of including various characters from all of DC's history in one story sounded pretty cool. It also sounded like an opportunity to get away from the New 52 continuity and return many of the characters to their more classic iterations. I mean, DC started this whole thing with the Crisis on Infinite Earths storyline, and I was hoping for something along those lines.

However, I found Convergence kind of a mess. To start with, the main characters were a few leftover heroes from the New 52 Earth 2, including Green Lantern, Batman (Thomas Wayne), Dick Grayson, Superman (Val-Zod), the Flash, and Yolanda. Other than a nice meeting between two different Batmen (both Thomas and Bruce), there was not really any emotional investment in what happened to these characters. Secondly, the story itself was hard to follow. First they were fighting Brainiac. Then Telos. Then Deimos. Then Brainiac again. Very little in the way of motivation was given for any of the villains. Thirdly, there were major gaps in the story. I'm not sure, but it seemed that there were multiple tie-in stories to Convergence that filled a bunch of plot holes. Because I didn't read these, I found myself being jumped around a lot without much explanation as to what was happening, or what happened elsewhere. Finally, I'm not really sure what the end result of this "multiverse changing event" was. Are we back to the old continuity? Is the New 52 still going on? Is there something all together new happening? It's really not clear.

All told, I was disappointed with Convergence. An event comic needs to have a self-contained story. The tie-ins should support the story, but not be essential. To this end, the Convergence comics should probably be collected into a book with the tie-ins included, and not on their own. Because of all this, I can't really recommend Convergence. I suppose die-hard DC Comics readers may enjoy it, but I sure didn't.

I received a preview copy of this book from DC Comics and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

When the single issues came out all I heard was negative this, and negative that. Basically this event wasn't getting good reviews, so naturally I was expecting the worst when I pre-ordered this, hoping it wasn't a mistake, and to my surprise I enjoyed this event very much. I think why people hated on it so much was that the main event wasn't what it promised. The event was supposed to be realities fighting each other to gain dominance, and that's in Convergence a bit, but ultimately this trade is all about the heroes from Earth 2 (New 52 Earth 2) trying to stop Convergence and set everything alright. If you were expecting actual fights between realities happen then I'd advise you check out the companion books that actually focus on smaller stories within Convergence.

The Good:
I'd say 80% of this event was good to great. I didn't need to know who anyone was from any reality, they either filled you in on a certain major character's back story, in this case Earth 2 Dick Grayson, or they were just fodder and quick cameos for long time readers that only served as sprinkles to Convergence's ice cream. For the most part the art was consistent, even with all the different artists, and clear as to what was going on. And the story itself was much more....well not complex, but had more depth than I thought this would have. I figured this would just be DBZ fighting scenes, but it has covert alliances, good guys turning bad, bad guys turning good, and double crosses coming around corners. This was a very enjoyable event to say the least.

The Bad:
The beginning basically. I just finished reading this trade and I can honestly say that I have no idea what kind of relevance issue 0 has to the overall story. It was written well, but just didn't see how it needed to be told. Issues 1 and 2 were shaky, and made me question if this event would even be enjoyable, but once issue 3 hit I was hooked. Then there was this one issue drawn by Andy Kubert I believe, and his artwork just sort of stood out against the rest of the book, even though I figured it was so the regular artist could have a break. So basically the beginning was bad, but if you pay attention to the people and the weak and questionable resolves of the villains then you'll enjoy this.

Overall:
This isn't a perfect event, but what is? As far as I know this was sort of last minute and I think they did a fine job. The story got better as you keep reading, and you don't need to know anything really about all the Crisis stories. It certainly puts an extra flavor into the story, but overall this event was enjoyable, and not was I was expecting so I have to give this a good review. If you ARE looking for the characters you knew and loved that are no more now, then I highly recommend to check out the companion books, because they sure as heck ain't in this.

This book tries really hard to be a popular cross-over like Flashpoint, Crisis on Infinite, Zero Hero, etc. Except that's the problem, it tried too hard. The book felt rushed, which wasn't good when you are trying to explain why/how a bunch of cities from major timelines exist on a planet. The book spent a lot of time building up to a final battle that then felt rushed and anti-climatic.

That being said, the art was great and it was a joy seeing old characters back. I didn't hate it, but I did find myself happy that I was done with it. I really thought it would be needed to understand what's happening in the DC Universe, but it doesn't appear to be that important (like Flashpoint was).

That is the best thing to say about this collection unfortunately. Convergence was the event book/storyline for DC in April/May 2015. This book contains just the actual miniseries #0-8. The storyline itself gets two stars as it really makes no sense as it is written. Perhaps the other collections in this series expands upon the plot but a casual reader will get lost. Even a consistent reader will find this book is so full of holes like swiss cheese.

The breakdown is as follows: The zero issue has the new 52 Superman fighting against multiple iterations of Brainiac, but turns out to be Telos who is a servant to Brainiac. This world (also called Telos) lies at the frontier of the multiverse. Brainiac, the version that existed pre-Flashpoint, found this world and was somehow able to use it's power to save/collect various bits and pieces of former timelines and place them in cities.

The pre-Crisis (1985) era as well as the post-Crisis (1986-1994) era along with the Flashpoint universe and others (the original Earth 3, Kingdom Come timeline etc..) are represented alongside the pre-Flashpoint (1995-2005/10) timeline. The new 52 has a few characters towards the end but they are simply bystanders with no knowledge what is going on. The exception are the new 52 Earth 2 heroes. They seem to be the main focus of setting things right again.

The whole idea is that Telos plans to place one of these "cities" into the new 52 universe. Why? Faulty programming? And there is little to none in the way of consistency either in plot or characterization. Things just happen. So, read this if you are already familiar with the DC multiverse and/or wanting to see former favorites but even then don't expect too much. Not totally bad though agree with many points made by two star reviewers. Upgraded to three stars as it does have Telos evolve as an interesting character and other minor points of interest. Just don't pay more than half price and know going in that it is not a good story overall.

So I really Enjoyed this graphic novel. Compared to some of the other review being thrown out there I thought it was really well done, if you're just starting out reading comic books though you might want to try something a little lighter than this it could be a little confusing trying to follow all the switches and who came from what universe and what not.

Should you read this graphic novel?
I say totally for me this ranks in one of my top couple graphic novels that I've read.

what can I say about convergence. It's a weird one of sure, but it's also entertaining, confusing, incomplete, a big crisis level event, and also kind of a wasted opportunity in some ways. I did find this story a bit entertaining and I do like it. It's just the way they planned it frustrates me, so they do a big event with tie-ins a bunch of tie-ins. The hardcover I bought is only the main series of nine issues (0-8) and that's what frustrates me cause throughout the issues some characters go do their own missions and we only see small teases of it cause then they continue that in the tie-ins. So maybe they should've included a tie-in or two in this collection, but also they could've extended this event from nine to like twelve issues and that way a few of the tie-ins could've been spread out across every issue and I guarantee the story would've been better. Also they could've at least added a prologue at the very beginning to let the reader know what they are getting into.
For a story that isn't very well liked it's always sold out. I bought this hardcover from a third party seller cause everyone that hates it keep buying every copy. Taking the cover off reveals the convergence logo and the hardcover is a softer more fragile cardboard that could break easier.
Overall do I recommend it? No as much as I found this enjoyable I'd recommend different titles and events. Go for ( Flashpoint, darkseid war, dc rebirth, sinestro war, court of owls, injustice gods among is).

I would say borrow this from someone if you are wanting to read it. The story is a little weak overall and it really doesnt have the impact I was lead to believe from DC. Brainiac is of couse his usual self and it all really plays out like you would expect throughout the story.