 |
| [ CASH THOSE COMICS ] |
To QUOTE Marlene Dietrich's
daughter, Maria: 'Whenever anyone
asks me how my father is, I always have to ask them, "Which one of my
fathers are you referring to?"'.
THE STORY:
Somewhere between the beginning and the end of time there
was this cosmic event called Convergence. Essentially, it involved a Mad God
and his pet side-kick who harvested the remnants of dying planets on a world of
their own devising. But then, one day, as the old story goes, tragedy struck. First
the Mad God was seemingly vanquished by a usurper to his throne. Then the side-kick hastily formulated a plan where the people living on these dead planets were pitted
against each other for the sake of survival. And yeah, you know, that sort of
thing: same old fistycuffs yet on a more cosmic scale.
However, within the last couple of moments a very strange
thing has occurred. The usurper was killed. The Mad God has been resurrected.
And a task has befallen on to him to make everything alright once more.
But can he do it? And if he can, will the heroes and
villains standing by his side help or hinder the situation? Let's see, shall
we? Let's see...
THE GOOD:
Now if you were hoping for this final part of Convergence to
be one massive action pact finale, well, I'm afraid to say you will be very sorely
disappointed. Very sorely disappointed. Basically this is one of those stories
where the main players show up, tell you where they've been and what they'll be
doing next, before actually showing you what they're doing next, them, plus other
people they've instructed.
Of course, I can't go into too much detail or else I may
spoil this conclusion. Saying that, though, what I can say is that I did enjoy
how this tale relayed its own history, pertaining to how Mega-Brainiac first came
into existence (where's Earth 0?), as well as acknowledging the fact that
certain heroes sacrificed themselves for a greater good during Crisis On Infinite Earths (you know who I'm talking about).
Another thing about this issue I was also intrigued by was
the final fate of the Earth 2 heroes. Now I know that a lot of people out there
don't like them very much, and prefer their original counterparts (same here),
but in the same breath, a part of me is somewhat curious about what they'll be doing
next, and if it is in any way connected to that new book, Earth 2: Society (looks like it, eh?).
Oh! And before I forget, a massive shout out goes to all those great artists that have worked on this series, as I particularly liked the way they created
those splash pages depicting the many heroes from the many-many universes. Well done.
THE BAD:
As some of you may have gathered from what I've written so far,
I'm not what you would call a big fan of this issue. Not because of the way it
was written or how the majority of it was basically people standing around
talking. What I didn't like about it was, well, what actually happened?
It would seem nothing in the eyes of the New 52. Nothing
happened except that a planet appeared, caused a bit of damage, and then buggered off to a pre-arrange location. No one in the present era DCU died. No
major changes were made to the now-timeline. And the only things that were
accomplished, was a re-classification of sorts, plus a new world taking the
place of an old one.
THE MUSIC:
For this months musical match-up I want to do something
different. Rather than matching-up a specific theme-tune to this specific
story-line, what I'll be doing instead is matching-up DC's obvious motives with
an appropriate musical number. So it's over to you, Liza Minnelli and Joel Grey,
with your song...
THE COMPARISON:
On a very conceptual level this comic book was about re-classifying
certain things that we already knew before, yet doing so with certain other particular
things in mind. So, when I put it in those terms, how could I not compare it to
a politician? Someone who changes previous facts to suit the current
climate!
THE CONCLUSION:
OK. So now we're at the end of Convergence, what have we
learned? No. Don't answer my rhetorical question for me! Please allow me to answer
my rhetorical question in my own amiable way: Bullet point style!
- Crisis on Infinite Earths was the best cross-over event ever devised by DC Comics.
- Sometimes life goes around in cycles. We all may start at the beginning, but whose beginning did we start at?
- Trending is what trending does. Slide.
- Nowadays imagination isn't as imaginative as it once was.
- Old heroes can only maintain being old heroes if they never age.
- Killing people with beards isn't funny.
- Batman always makes for a cool cameo appearance, although generally superfluous.
- Hero's never die because they have too many versions.
- Villains can be nice people when they want to be.
- If you're planet ever gets destroyed, don't worry, another one will be along shortly.
- Crossover events are f*cking expensive.
Nuff said.
CONVERGENCE #8
Reviewed by David Andrews
on
June 15, 2015
Rating:
Reviewed by David Andrews
on
June 15, 2015
Rating:
