Comics are Awesome III

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Shockwave
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Re: Comics are Awesome III

Post by Shockwave »

Dominic wrote: a different Earth 2 than the modern Earth 2 that the upcoming series will be named for.
Earth 2B?
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andersonh1
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Re: Comics are Awesome III

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The impression I got from those two page spreads was that originally (assuming the plan changed at the last minute) they were simply comparing the old multiverse with the new and showing the updated worlds and similarities.

But given statements by King and Didio, and given the fact that resetting the multiverse makes no sense if it just gives us what we already got in Multiversity, and given the way the plot plays out, I think we have to assume that the original multiverse has been restored.

- Brainiac takes control of the temporal energy to send everyone home, back to their original timelines
- he says it is the only way to reset the multiverse
- he is prevented from sending them home because of the "First Crisis" - if it isn't changed, the multiverse will again collapse into one universe
- he sends Supergirl and the Flash back, and they're joined by post-Crisis Superman, Parallax, Lois and the baby (who looks like he's a year or two old rather than the newborn he should be!)
- the task they are assigned is to prevent the collapse of the multiverse
- if they succeed, Brainiac says "everything will reset and return to what it was before I brought you all here"
- and they succeed, as we find out.

So what we're seeing in in those spreads is not the old pre-Crisis/post-Crisis/Elseworlds etc. multiverse being replaced. We're just seeing a comparison between the old and modern versions of similar worlds. I think when he says they're "evolved" he has to be comparing the old and new version. It's badly worded, but it's the only way to reconcile it with pages and pages of plot and exposition.

There are plenty of opposing viewpoints on what exactly happened at CBR and elsewhere, which proves that the end result should have been spelled out more clearly. But Superman, Parallax and the others were charged with preventing the collapse of the multiverse, and they succeeded, so the old one never ceased to exist. They really should have taken more time to work out plot mechanics and explain the implications than they did, which to me is another sign that they probably changed things at the last minute.
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Re: Comics are Awesome III

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And considering CoIE and subsequent Crisis' were now prevented, then any cities destroyed in Convergence should have been undone and restored along with their home universe.
That may well end up being the case.

DC's next step is to clarify what they did and just organize what they have. Then, they still need to do something with their new status quo, which has consistently been their weak spot over the last few years. Referring to another Earth 2 as "Earth 2B" is as good a way as any.

Things like Guy Guarder being a Red Lantern in one issue and then suddenly shown as a Green Lantern in the next was certainly a mistake.
I think the idea was that some characters were duplicated (being drawn from different timelines).

There are plenty of opposing viewpoints on what exactly happened at CBR and elsewhere, which proves that the end result should have been spelled out more clearly. But Superman, Parallax and the others were charged with preventing the collapse of the multiverse, and they succeeded, so the old one never ceased to exist. They really should have taken more time to work out plot mechanics and explain the implications than they did, which to me is another sign that they probably changed things at the last minute.
I would go with statements from Didio and King. But, author statements and intent to not mean significant long-term planning.
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Re: Comics are Awesome III

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Shockwave wrote:
Dominic wrote: a different Earth 2 than the modern Earth 2 that the upcoming series will be named for.
Earth 2B?
Earth Not 2B.
Dominic wrote: too many people likely would have enjoyed it as....well a house-elf gang-bang.
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andersonh1
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Re: Comics are Awesome III

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Jeff King explains Convergence. Not that I don't appreciate it, but all of this should have been apparent from the narrative. Still, it does answer some questions.

http://comicbook.com/2015/05/27/decodin ... he-finale/
At heart, Convergence is about redemption. For Dick Grayson, a father of a missing son and murdered wife, Thomas Wayne who lived when his son died; and to a greater extent all the Earth 2 heroes; Val Zod, Alan Scott, Jay Garrick and Yolanda Montez who 'lost' a fight for their Earth. They all get a second shot to make things right in Convergence. In the same way, heroes from pre-Flashpoint and in some cases pre-Crisis get a shot at redemption too. The battle to save not one, but two multiverses in Convergence provides it.
So it's not one multiverse evolving into another. It's both the old and new being illustrated.
What do you see as Brainiac's ultimate endgame?

The Brainiac in Convergence is a hologram of the entire DCU. The Ultimate Brainiac we meet in Convergence that is a living record of every story that one of his iterations has, or will, experience. He possess knowledge of every hero, villain, city or time line that has or will ever exist.

His goal as god machine was to be a receptacle of that knowledge starting with the beginning of time and extending out forever, in every universe and every time line. But Crisis changed that, derailed it if you will. This uber Brainiac became obsessed with restoring the balance of creation and destruction that was present at the beginning.

So he began collecting the doomed cities and timelines in an effort to understand them and use that knowledge to reverse the Crisis and restore the natural order of the Universe. That change from observer to player corrupted him, because the timelines that he absorbed to gain the knowledge of them were corrupted themselves. The convergence of all time lines back into one has been his goal since Crisis. His endgame if you will.
Is there a story to be told in the adventure of the "doomed" heroes who went back to Crisis on Infinite Earths?

Absolutely. I'd look for at least one, maybe more.
That asked, do you see them as being basically like the survivors of the first Crisis? Particularly with the Superman/Lois coupling, I could be happy with those characters still being out there somewhere.

They are. Post-Convergence, Superman, Lois and Jonathan Kent are on an Earth somewhere, right now, resuming their lives that were on hold since Flashpoint.

Is it safe to assume that there is an infinite mutliverse again rather than just 52 worlds? And if so, even if the primary worlds are "evolved" into their New 52 counterparts, does that suggest that there's probably another one just like it out there somewhere?

Yes, In Convergence #8 we reference Multiversity and show you some of the Post-Convergence worlds that make up the reconstituted DC Multiverse. In many ways, the number of Worlds is now infinite. There may even be more than one Multiverse.

"I have knowledge they existed," says Brainiac of the Earth-2 heroes as he tries to wipe them out. Is that a bit meta? When DC wipes out a world from the multiverse the response of creators is often "nobody took those books off my shelf; it's still there."

Convergence speaks to that directly. In his way, Brainiac represents a collected experience of all the creators, and by extension readers, of DC Comics. Ever. I've said this a few times during panels and interviews and his is what I meant: Post-Convergence, every character that ever existed, in either Continuity or Canon, is now available to us as storytellers. You may not see them right away, but they are out there. And of course, when you get to the end of Convergence you understand that is more than meta, it is concrete as well.

There are two covers to Convergence #8 with heroes on them. Andy Kubert's wonderful Superman, Lois, and Jonathan Kent with Supergirl, Barry Allen and Hal Jordan Parallax cradled in the palm of Brainiac. And then Tony Daniel's variant with Telos and the survivors of Earth 2, Green Lantern, Flash, Superman, Wildcat and Dick Grayson who is on his way to becoming his new world's Batman looking off past camera into a new, hopeful future. You will see them next in Earth 2: Society from Daniel Wilson and Jorge Jimenez. I will let you draw your own conclusions about the pre-Crisis characters on Andy's cover ;)
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Re: Comics are Awesome III

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Dominic wrote:I think the idea was that some characters were duplicated (being drawn from different timelines).
Certainly there were multiple versions of the same characters on Talos, but that's not what I'm talking about. This was the New 52 version of Guy that was watching Telos breaking into their reality. There's no reason he would have suddenly gone from Red to Green between issues like that.
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Re: Comics are Awesome III

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Sparky Prime wrote:
Dominic wrote:I think the idea was that some characters were duplicated (being drawn from different timelines).
Certainly there were multiple versions of the same characters on Talos, but that's not what I'm talking about. This was the New 52 version of Guy that was watching Telos breaking into their reality. There's no reason he would have suddenly gone from Red to Green between issues like that.
For what it's worth, Jeff King says...
I've noticed a few apparent continuity errors. When we last saw the Guardians in Green Lantern #40 they were in their green and brown outfits; however, in Convergence #6 they make a cameo wearing the red and white robes of the old Guardians. Also, in Convergence #6, Guy Gardner is a Red Lantern, but in Convergence #7, he's in his old Green Lantern uniform. Are these simply things that the artists and editors missed or is it a sign of some of the changes that Convergence is going to have on Prime Earth? - John Baumeister

When Convergence*#6 and #7 were being drawn, the Red Lanterns were still alive! They aren't now but might be again. Guy Gardner is certainly a fan favorite. Our plan always was the breakdown of reality the arrival of planet Telos heralds was already subtly affecting the heroes on the Watchtower, Guy Gardner in particular, hence the subtle variations in their appearance and of course, we really see it deeply affect those three heroes in #7 (Martian Manhunter, Superman and Supergirl).
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Re: Comics are Awesome III

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andersonh1 wrote:For what it's worth, Jeff King says...
I can understand Convergence was written before the end of Red Lanterns so those characters would have still been alive at the time (as I suspected), but even 'reality being in flux' still doesn't explain everything. Changing from a RL to GL is hardly just a "subtle" variation in appearance. I mean, maybe if some of the other characters had some more significant changes like Guy did that'd be more believable... Nor would it explain why the Guardians are in the traditional robes in the issue before that, or why Jediah Caul is there and alive when he was killed off long before Convergence was being written.
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Re: Comics are Awesome III

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I think they just got it wrong during the editing process, and King is trying to explain it away after the fact. Someone over at CBR called the editing of Convergence as a whole "sloppy" and I have to agree. As much as I've enjoyed it, a lot of errors have slipped through that someone should have caught.

On to the other books of the week. I still need to read Booster Gold #2, but otherwise my Convergence buying is done. It's been good to revisit these old characters.

Convergence Detective Comics #2
I continue to find Red Son Superman to be an interesting character. He's pretty close to the real deal, and he spends this whole book trying not to fight Robin and the Huntress. I enjoy seeing these two "siblings" work together, though Huntress is almost frantically trying to take on Superman the whole time, something the character herself says is uncharacteristically violent for her when the issue ends. Along the way, she and Robin run into Red Son Batman, who gives them some Kryptonite to fight Superman. He has no clue what it is, and he's down for the count when Robin decides that he just can't do it. His mentor didn't kill, and neither will he. That's enough to gain him Superman's respect, and the contest ends in a draw, with Robin and Huntress sent back to the Batcave.

In the end, it's Robin who takes up the Batman identity for Earth 2, something Huntress thinks he should have done long ago. Good art, good story, and good interaction between Earth 2 Bruce Wayne's children make this a strong issue. And I'll definitely have to track down Red Son and read it now.

Convergence Action Comics #2
In what may be a welcome bit of coordination between books, Red Son Superman does not show up in this book, presumably since he's busy with Dick Grayson and Helena Wayne. Instead we get Power Girl versus Wonder Woman, and given how short-tempered both characters can be, the conflict is easy to believe. Earth 2 Superman shows up over halfway through the book to talk some sense into them and stop the fight. He's really a secondary character in the book. Power Girl is the focus of the story. She's quite a bit less of a straw feminist than she was during the 70s, thank goodness, but otherwise she's pretty much in character.

There is some conflict between Stalin and Lex Luthor, but it's hard to care about who might win since they're both as bad as the other. Lois Lane married to Luthor is just wrong. She ought to have more sense than that. Having not read the original story, there may be a good reason for it that I'm not aware of.

Superman and Power Girl head for Telos at the end of the issue, but I don't think they showed up in the main series. They might be in a crowd shot somewhere, but that's about it. Not a bad issue, but not great either.

Convergence Blue Beetle #2
Blue Beetle seems to bring out the best in whoever is writing him these days. He, Captain Atom and the Question end up facing off against the Legion of Superheroes, who I'm quite sure can't be in character at all. Beetle provokes the fight, but it's a cover while he confers with three of the Legionaires to fake the destruction of Hub City so it looks like the fight is over. Captain Atom takes on just about everyone else, and the Question faces off against Brainiac 5 and stumps him with some kind of logic problem. The plot has a mild current of humor running through it, so it's fun rather than deadly serious. I appreciate the variety of tone among the books I bought this week.

Convergence Shazam #2
It's the Marvel family versus Gotham by Gaslight Batman. I actually had Gotham by Gaslight at one point years ago, and it's interesting that they chose a pretty obscure one-shot Elseworlds book to give Captain Marvel an antagonist. I was always partial to Batman: Holy Terror myself since I prefer Norm Breyfogle to Mike Mignola when it comes to art. Anyway, Victorian era characters versus the Marvel family doesn't sound like a fair fight, and it really isn't. Thankfully there's nothing remotely ruthless about Captain Marvel, who does what he can to reason with Batman, and after taking one or two hits is able to do just that.

Interestingly, there is one point where Captain Marvel actually feels like he's genuinely threatened, and that's when he's electrocuted. He and Billy Batson have a conversation, and the current isn't the same as the wizard Shazam's magical lightning, but it's close enough that it's threatening to turn him back into Billy, who would of course be killed by the electricity. The two of them manage to stop the transformation. That is one of the things that differentiated pre and post-Crisis Captain Marvel. During the Fawcett days and pre-Crisis DC, Billy and Marvel were often seen as separate personalities. Post-Crisis it was always Billy, even when he changed to Captain Marvel.

He and Batman team up, fight Mr. Atom a second time, and discover that Mr. Mind is behind the plot with Sivana and Ibac in the first issue. And with that, Jeff Parker has managed to include a ton of classic Captain Marvel villains and references in just two issues, all while including a Monster Society of Evil plotline AND the standard Convergence plot. Between Shazam, Hawkman and Batman '66, I'm beginning to think quite a bit of Jeff Parker's writing abillties when it comes to classic DC characters.
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Re: Comics are Awesome III

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I am going to straight-up call bull-shit on everything King says in that interview. It is not fair to blame King himself. He is working from what DC has given him. But, that does not make what he is saying any more sensible.

At heart, Convergence is about redemption.
Bullshit.

"Convergence" was a fight book published as filler while DC moved. DC really rana two month series, complete with tie-ins, for the sake of some c-listers and old iterations of characters? Really?

Is there a story to be told in the adventure of the "doomed" heroes who went back to Crisis on Infinite Earths?

Absolutely. I'd look for at least one, maybe more.
And, despite this being the big plan of "Convergence", none of the previews of solicits we have seen (which look forward about 3 months) indicate that anything from "Convergence" was meant to be used again?

I have no doubt that DC is going to try to follow up from "Convergence". But, I refuse to believe that these plans predate the end of April, maybe even the beginning of May.

Yes, In Convergence #8 we reference Multiversity and show you some of the Post-Convergence worlds that make up the reconstituted DC Multiverse. In many ways, the number of Worlds is now infinite. There may even be more than one Multiverse.
Oh for....

He has no answer. He does not know. DC does not know.

"There may even be more than one Multiverse." What the hell is that supposed to mean? A multiverse is a collective designation that tied multiple, dis-similar, thing together. Why would there need to be more than one?

You may not see them right away, but they are out there.
And, what plans are there to use the old characters? What are those plans? Why is nothing ready to go afte the big event? (Yes, we know the real answers to these questions. But, i would love to hear DC/King's take on them.)

I think they just got it wrong during the editing process, and King is trying to explain it away after the fact.
I think that is something we can all agree on.


In the long term, I hope that DC can get things sorted out. As much as Marvel has been inpressing me over the last few years, the best thing for everybody (including both Marvel and DC) would be for both companies to compete hard against each other.

At the moment DC is maintaining their spot in second place (which is impressive given their lack of success with movies relative to Marvel). Marvel, on the other hand, has been recruiting talent and making bold moves in terms of direction and tone while DC seems to be unable to carry off even basic plans.

Unless somebody is a hardcore partisan for one company or the other (and those fans do exist), everybody should want Marvel and DC to be at the top of their respective games. The lead company should be doing everything possible to stay on top and the secondary company (to say nothing of indie companies) should be doing everything possible to take the top spot.



Convergence Detective Comics #2
It definitely read better than the first issue.

Millar's point with "Red Son" was to present as powerful a case as possible against an overly protective state by making the state look as favourable as possible. Millar's Superman was not a tyrant. But, he created the ultimate moral hazard by being to protective. Despite his benign intentions, Superman created a situation that invited disaster. It is possibly the best Superman story every written.

Lois Lane married Luthor in "Red Son" because Luthor was America's last line of defense against the tyranny of the Soviet Superman.
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