After New Earth was deposed as the home of DC’s mainstream characters and titles by Prime Earth after 2011’s Flashpoint, the New 52 brought in a darker and gritter world. The New 52 was simply a reboot, one which launched a brand-new era and world for many characters, while retaining some of the most famous and well-regarded tales from New Earth. For example, while Scott Synder and Greg Capullo relaunched Batman and effectively scrapped Miller’s Year One out of the history books – replacing it with their own Year Zero – other events like The Killing Joke, A Death in the Family, and Knightfall, were retained. Prime Earth and New Earth are simply two worlds of DC’s expansive Multiverse, and with Flashpoint, many Earths were erased or replaced – Earth-2 for example, has always been the home of the Justice Society of America, but now there is a pre-New 52 one and a post-New 52 one. While it’s impossible to disagree that writers made the whole affair confusing, in 2015 the next tale in the story of the Multiverse was unveiled. Enter Convergence, seemingly a return to an epic on the same scale of Crisis on Infinite Earths and Infinite Crisis…
Convergence 0, 1-8 was a weekly title published during June and July 2015. Written by Dan Jurgens, Jeff King, and Scott Lobdell, it was drawn by Ethan Van Sciver, Carlo Pagulayan, Jason Paz, Stephen Segovia, Mark Farmer, Jonathan Glapion, Julio Ferreira, Rob Hunter, Mark Roslan, Andy Kubert, Sandra Hope, Ed Benes, Eduardo Pansica, Aaron Lopresti, Mark Morales, Scott Hanna, and Trevor Scott. Additionally, DC published about eighty tie-ins. Yes, eighty titles all in the space of four weeks. And none of these tie-ins are ongoing titles – instead they are two issues of previous DC titles relaunched just for this event. We’ll get more into this later, but as a warning, the relaunched title was the only thing that enticed me to Convergence in the first place.
So, what’s the story of DC’s Multiverse so far? It all still goes back to The Flash 123, the issue where Barry Allen’s Silver Age Flash meets Jay Garrick’s Golden Age Flash. With this, Earth-1 and Earth-2 are established – the first one being the home of the Justice League of America, while the second one is enjoyed by the Justice Society of America. Over the years, these two teams of different worlds meet, but then with Crisis on Infinite Earths, where the Anti-Monitor attempts to destroy the entire Multiverse, most of DC’s continuity is converged into New Earth – the remaining Earth. DC is no longer a Multiverse, but a singular universe. However, writers like Mark Waid and Grant Morrison quickly grew bored without the limitless creativity of the Multiverse, and it temporarily returns with Zero Hour: A Crisis in Time, where Hal Jordan’s Parallax attempts to remake the universe in an insane fit. But a decade later, you get Infinite Crisis which brings the Multiverse back, after Alexander Luthor Jr’s despair that the DC Universe between 1986 and 2005 grew dark and violent. With the Multiverse back, its heroes united to fight Darkseid in Final Crisis, and then Flashpoint occurred and due to the Flash’s journeys in the Speed Force, New Earth is altered and tampered with, thereby creating Earth Prime. The writers certainly don’t make it easy to understand, but up until Convergence, the story could be digested and understood fairly well with a brief summary like the one above. How does that change with Convergence?
Like all modern events in comic books, Convergence was teased for quite some time. In titles like Earth-2 and Futures End (featuring Batman Beyond as the star!), there have been mentions of war in the Multiverse. But its with Convergence 0 where the threat becomes obvious. Appearing deep in space, the Superman of Earth-Prime (the regular New 52 Man of Steel who appears in all the mainstream titles) is met with Brainiac, one of his arch-villains. Brainiac has created an experiment. To increase his already astonishing knowledge of the universe, he has been travelling across the Multiverse witnessing different timelines and variants of Superman. Brainiac has been collecting inhabitants of the Multiverse – mainly heroes or villains whose worlds are on the brink of extinction or destruction – in order for them to fight one another in a battle to claim a deserted planet as home. It’s a neat idea for a Multiverse tale – pitting different worlds and heroes together has a lot of potential not just for surprising appearances of niche characters, but also for shocking deaths and moments of tragedy. Dan Jurgens and Jeff King – the writers for this prelude issue – tease this already not just with the variants of Superman present, but also the constant transformation of Brainiac. He appears in all variants, from his modern New 52, to his eighties robotic android look, and lastly the organic alien intelligence who first appeared back in 1958. Although annoyingly Superman’s memory of this encounter is wiped – meaning that there is little sense of urgency for the heroes – Convergence 0 is a great introduction to a story with brilliant potential.
For the bulk of Convergence, Jeff King and Scott Lobdell are the scripters, and with such a huge number of characters who could potentially be present, Convergence 1 launches with the ghastly and grim world of Injustice. Launched in 2013, Injustice is a world where the Joker destroyed Metropolis and killed Lois Lane, leading Superman to transform from hero of the world to villain of the universe. These characters have been stolen from their world and placed here by Brainiac – and they all perish quickly, very similarly to the fate of the Crime Syndicate at the start of Crisis on Infinite Earths 1. The Injustice heroes are not the stars of Convergence. Neither are, strangely, the Justice League. The main heroes are… the Wonders of the World from Earth-2? Surely, it should be the Justice Society? Well, they are, and they aren’t. Created after the New 52 by James Robinson, the Wonders of the World – consisting here of Batman (Thomas Wayne), The Flash (Jason Garrick), Green Lantern (Alan Scott), and Superman (Val Zod). They have echoes of the JSA, but on the whole they are a very new creation. With Earth-2 dying, Brainiac has stolen it and its inhabitants to fight against other survivors of the Multiverse. Sadly, they make for pretty ordinary protagonists. Even Thomas Wayne’s hard-headedness is no unique inclusion – simply a poorer copy of the Flashpoint Batman. But we also have Dick Grayson too. He is the star of the piece, with several hints of tragedy placed into the mix. For starters, his wife Barbara Gordon is dead, and his son is missing. It adds flair and drama to his otherwise dry and fairly dull personality. But Lobdell and King’s faults here is that little else is said about these Earth-2 characters. We aren’t given much information about them, which is a great handicap for those who haven’t read the title. That complaint would be irrelevant perhaps if this were an Earth-2 tale, but it’s not. It’s meant to be the next great event of the Multiverse. Some explanations would have been welcome. Either way, it’s here when we’re introduced to the antagonist of the tale. Enter Telos, a biproduct of Brainiac who is behind this madness. With the end of Convergence 1, the whistle is blown, and the tournament begins – only one character from the endless Multiverse can survive…
With the fight between Multiverse characters commencing, this where you’d expect appearances from hundreds of heroes and villains from across the decades. Sadly, there isn’t much of it from Convergence 2 onwards. The Wonders of the World fight against Telos, in vain. Meanwhile, Batman and Dick Grayson’s relationship is a very troublesome one, and I suppose that makes for a difference to us readers. But it all builds up to Thomas Wayne’s Batman meeting the pre-New 52 Batman. A scene with much potential, it’s somewhat emotional but also wasted. Their meeting lasts but a mere two pages, and lacks any of the same emotional resonance which Flashpoint did – and the two Dark Knights didn’t even meet in that tale! Thus far, Convergence is a simple disappointment. With very few Multiverse non-Earth-2 characters appearing, and also combined with endless fight scenes, it’s rather underwhelming. But I am jumping the gun, aren’t I. Yes, it gets worse.
With Convergence 3, the Wonders of the World meet Deimos. First appearing in 1st Issue Special 8 – the story in which Mike Grell created Warlord – he takes the Wonders of the World to Skartaris, an underground kingdom. Before this, Convergence was a fairly simple if underwhelming and badly delivered story. But here it becomes more confused than four sets of Christmas lights knotted together. Deimos basically wants to depose Brainiac/Telos and become god of the game. Why? Mainly because he just likes being evil. Somehow, all of this revolves around Yolanda Montez, who became Wildcat during Crisis on Infinite Earths. Jeff King springs up so many questions and leaves many of them unanswered that it all becomes a jumbled mess. Why is a former Wildcat so important? Why do we have to go to Warlord’s world to sort this out? Questions like these become more unanswerable as the story progresses, especially when writers begin attempts to explain the science and intricacies of the Multiverse. Marv Wolfman and George Perez didn’t write a best-seller because it was full of tripe. They succeeded because the story had drama, shocks, and presence. Convergence does have its share of deaths I suppose some of which come at the end of the third issue. Dick Grayson is confronted by Doctor Simon Hurt and other villains of the Dark Knight from New Earth, still living in the last days of Grant Morrison’s run. The Batman of Earth-2 nobbily sacrifices himself, killing Hurt and many villains in the process, to save Dick Grayson, but then the young hero is crippled by the pre-New 52 Joker. It’s followed by another great twist – Telos appears and kills the Joker!
Telos begins to feature as a focus point from Convergence 4 onwards. Although he is meant to be strictly non-interventionist in the games, not only does he kill the Joker, but he rescues Dick Grayson, rebuilding his damaged spine for him. While King writes Telos quite clumsily on occasions, perhaps it’s all part of Telos’s fight against Brainiac. Telos is something of a prisoner to Brainiac, an idea from which I can see much creative attraction, but surely Brainiac can do better. Telos was once a man with a life who begged Brainiac for help, thereby becoming his minion. As Brainiac is the most intelligent AI in the Multiverse, why can’t he just duplicate himself to watch over the game. Why does he need to have Telos? For now, Telos says the games must continue, but Jeff King returns to that.
For Convergence 5, Deimos summons Brainiac (who knew AI could just be summoned against its own dominant will?) This is where Telos’s backstory is hinted at. I do like how Jeff King doesn’t reveal all the details. Instead, we’re given a glimpse of the freedom that Telos once had, which makes for more powerful reading. But to make up for these scenes of dialogue, we’re treated to pages and pages of fight scenes, mainly consisting of Warlord and his chums. Since Convergence has degraded into such a confusing mess of a story by now, you’d think much of it would be to do with the verbose dialogue. But there is no verbose dialogue. If anything, there needs to be more dialogue to just explain what’s going on! It’s a huge overriding problem with the whole series – it consists of pointless fight scenes or incomprehensible dialogue. Somehow, Deimos becomes overlord of the fights and orders all the remaining inhabitants to give up their duels and become his servant. With that, the charming idea for a story is replaced by a dull one – the heroes unite to beat a delude baddie.
Thankfully, Convergence 6 is where the Justice League finally pops its head around the door! You would have thought they would have got involved earlier, but still better late than never. The heroes of Earth-Prime notice a giant planet emerge in space – inside is the Multiverse fighting away. But all the heroes of Earth-Prime can do is watch, wait, and hope for success inside. This is yet another tragic disappointment. Can you imagine if the Justice League were absent from Crisis on Infinite Earths, or Infinite Crisis? Sure, only the Flash was present in Flashpoint, but what made that story great was both a new earth in the Multiverse and the fascinatingly unique characters present inside. Here, there is very little of that. However, in the sixth issue onwards, with the infighting over, we do see more of the Multiverse and some great blasts from the past, such as the Supergirl who died in Crisis on Infinite Earths, Parallax, and the original Crime Syndicate from Earth-3! The characters unite behind the Superman of New Earth – the mainstream Superman from 1986 to 2011. From here, the story becomes very pedestrian. In some ways this is preferrable to the complete mess of issues three through five, but to say there is a feel of tensity or drama is incorrect.
Convergence 7 is – yet again – another big fight. Once more, it’s great to see characters like the Kingdom Come Superman, New Earth’s Oliver Queen, the Extremists from Giffen and Dematteis’s Justice League International, and some of the Pre-Zero Hour Legion of Super-Heroes members. But really, it’s all eye candy. There really isn’t much plot throughout the issue until Telos – finally severing his links with Brainiac – captures Deimos with his mystical powers. And then all of a sudden, King and Lodbell provide us with another twist – Deimos is vapourised by Parallax. A great shock. But since Deimos’s power gave him some weird link to the Vanishing Point, a dimension whereby all of time and space is bound or some guff, now all of reality will crumble. Trust Parallax to mess up the universe again!
Convergence 8 provides us with a fairly unoriginal conclusion. With Parallax, time and space, and the end of this temporary nightmare, it feels uncannily like a knock-off of Zero Hour. After some more pointless fight scenes – this time against Brainiac – everyone realises that fighting is pointless since they are all going to die anyway. However, Telos does find a solution. As Brainiac has control over this realm, he can send the heroes back to their original timestreams and therefore resolve the entire problem. There are just so many questions. If Brainiac has always had control, then why did Deimos take over briefly? Also, how can Brainiac just create universes and worlds for these homeless heroes now? They’re questions which would require an entire issue to explain, and frankly, that would be a hellish read. Since it’s the end of the story, it’s best to accept the flaws – if you’re in a hole, stop digging. I do like how some of the heroes accept their fates – some like Barry Allen’s Pre-Crisis self are consigning themselves to death, but it’s for the good of the Multiverse. In the end, the Multiverse is rescued, we’re treated to two very nice double-page spreads of different heroes and their worlds, and the dullest protagonist in Dick Grayson is finally reunited with his son. Oh, and Telos returns to his old life away from Brainiac. The conclusion is almost too good to be believable. Since it’s the Multiverse and everything has been returned to how it previously was, everyone lives! Sigh…
One of the many problems with Convergence is a complete lack of consistency. While the original idea of heroes fighting one another was far from original, it was a neat idea because of how well it should have incorporated the Multiverse. But, with a dull roster of characters in issues one through three, the story feels flat and sluggish, despite the breeziness of the issues as the writing team don’t exactly fill every panel with verbose balloons. Issue zero sets up the series so nicely, hinting at drama and great unexpected appearances, but with issues three through five, Convergence entirely collapses into the realm of nonsense. Including Warlord is pointless, and Deimos is a typical villain whose overall plan is too confusing to care about. Prospects improve with issues six through eight, but that’s mainly because the story becomes simple again. A total absence of drama or excitement makes the ending of the story boring. It would be grossly unfair to compare Crisis on Infinite Earths, Zero Hour, and Infinite Crisis to this. But sadly, I must as it is the natural next step between 2011’s Flashpoint and 2017-19’s Doomsday Clock. In some ways, Convergence is very similar to Final Crisis, in that the writing teams muster a very confusing plot. However, Morrison’s 2008-9 tale contains humour, mystery, drama, and impact. Convergence lacks more than those powerful elements – it also fails to deliver any entertainment, charm, or interest in terms of characterisation or plotting. Instead of focusing on the creative brilliance of the Multiverse, it focuses instead on the technicalities and intricate details which very few care about. Yes, there are a few redeeming features. Telos’s tale is delivered well, and there are a few shocking moments of death and destruction. But at its best, Convergence’s main series is about average, and at its worst simply dull nonsense.
Previously tales of the Multiverse had such great magnitude because of the artwork which brought such great stories to life. George Perez so intricately and dazzlingly brought Marv Wolfman’s monolithic Crisis on Infinite Earths to reality. Dan Jurgens did the same with his own story, Zero Hour. Like Perez, Phil Jiminez (Infinite Crisis), J.G. Jones (Final Crisis), and Andy Kubert (Flashpoint) transformed scripts so memorably to life. Sadly, but unsurprisingly, the same doesn’t apply to Convergence. With such a huge number of artists present, and with their styles so achingly similar, it’s hard to provide a verdict of much value. What can I say? It never looks terrible. The artists mimic other styles well, and visually it looks suitable for a big Multiverse tale. But the problem is that it fails to be memorable or impactful. It’s too flat and boring really to register. Unlike in previous stories like this, there are scenes which are forever etched into a reader’s memory, like the death of Supergirl, or the erasing of the universe by the hands of Parallax, or the death of Batman (the clone), or the Dark Knight reading an emotional farewell letter from his father from another timeline. These moments of impact were depicted so flawlessly by artists, but there is not a single moment in Convergence which comes close to that.
One aspect that made the likes of Crisis on Infinite Earth so brilliant was the inclusion of so many characters from across the Multiverse. While the nine issues of Convergence don’t take advantage of that much at all, the tie-in issues more than compensate for that. During the four weeks of publication, 60 tie-ins – or perhaps a more appropriate way to put it would be 30 two-parters – were published. Each two-parter were relaunches of old DC titles from the 1970s through to the 2000s, featuring not just the title characters and their worlds, but also guests from the Multiverse. For one week, DC focused on pre-Crisis on Infinite Earth titles like Justice Society of America, World’s Finest, and Infinity Inc. Another week would be titles during Crisis, like Green Lantern Corps, or Batman and the Outsiders, while another would be some of the pre-Zero Hour titles were Batman: Shadow of the Bat, and Green Lantern/Parallax. And the remaining week was for pre-Flashpoint titles like The Question, or Morrison’s Batman and Robin. While I can only admit to having read a handful of these tie-ins, I can say hand-on-my-heart that they are far superior to the mainstream Convergence series. It isn’t just because they are simpler reads, but because DC so flawlessly used their back-catalogue. DC have a rich past, and honestly after the huge disappointment of the main series, basing titles purely on nostalgia is no bad thing. Plus, writers actually use the Multiverse effectively here. For example, in the Swamp Thing tie-ins, the title character is met with Vampire Batman. It should come to no surprise that Kelley Jones draws this story so wonderfully. Meanwhile, Batman and the Outsiders fight against Jack Kirby’s OMAC. Not only does it feel like DC is reusing so masterfully their greatest hits, but it ties perfectly into the Convergence storyline. The characters are literally fighting for their survival – this is what the mainstream series of Convergence should have been about. Really, you don’t need to have read Convergence before heading into these tie-ins. With the basic premise in your head, you can joyfully read DC’s many love-letters to its past.
VERDICT
Overall, Convergence is nothing but a disappointment. Despite its potential and interesting premise, the writers failed to deliver. It’s standard opening issues gave way to a nonsensical middle, and then a tenseless conclusion which cleaned up the arena too perfectly. The tie-ins are undoubtedly better and show more respect to DC’s history. It’s a shame because Convergence could have been brilliant, if there was a better and larger cast, with a more comprehensive story. But in the end, Convergence was a bridge, one which had to be crossed from the New 52 to Rebirth…
This is where the blog was meant to end. 250 posts is a decent achievement, and I’ve reviewed nearly everything I’ve always wanted to. But it wouldn’t be right. At least, it wouldn’t be right to end with Convergence. There are greater stories out there, still to be read, still to be looked at. But that’s for another time, another year…
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