Weekly Comic Review for 4/29/15

So many comics with the Convergence event. I figured I better catch up on this and my reading and get in my review of the new Avengers movie too.

Convergence #4 of 8 – The heroes (and Diemos) go into Skartaris and attack the Warlord’s castle. Telos finally figured out where they all went so he takes Dick with him down there in time to catch Diemos steal the power of the temporally based characters. He starts seeing timelines and knows about all sorts of stuff. And to make sure things end evenmore badly, he summons forth Brainiac in a bubble.

Convergence: Blue Beetle #1 of 2 – We’re back with Blue Beetle but it’s different than the one we saw a couple weeks ago. This time, it’s the old Charlton character. Alongside him are the Question and Captain Atom (who is a very militant policeman while powerless under the dome). Ted’s working on a way to break the dome. He thinks he has when Captain Atom’s powers come back but it seem to be a side effect of Booster Gold) getting tossed in the dome. (See Booster’s issue below) Of course, when Booster blinks back out, powers go and the flying characters fall. Then the dome opens and we wait til next issue to see where it leads the characters.

Convergence: Booster Gold #1 of 2 – We start out with Michael stealing some stuff and jumping through time and then Booster wakes up to find Rip Hunter and Skeets. Rip unhooks Booster from some conduit that he’s connected to and they go down into the castle in Skartaris where the time-related characters are. (Monarch, Extant, Chronos, Hourman, Per Degaton, Time Trapper, and others I couldn’t recognize) Once down there, they free Booster (yes, another one) and his sister Michelle. This is the Booster that’s Rip’s father. I can’t remember how we got the other alternate Booster before. The Booster that was in the cage has too much chronal energy and starts teleporting from city to city. (Now the Blue Beetle event makes more sense.) The rest of the team chases after him and end up running afoul the Legion of Super-Heroes. Now, I’ve got a couple questions here. First, why didn’t they free other heroes like Hourman as extra backup while they were hanging out chatting after freeing Michael and Michelle? Second, Michelle was in the bubble that had all the time characters in it over in the main title. Is this supposed to be before or after that? If it’s before, then how could she be in there later? If it’s after, why did they put them all in individual cages and why did Booster have so much energy after being drained of it by Diemos. I know a lot of continuity is getting tossed about and ignored with this event, but can we at least be consistent within this story?

Convergence: Crime Syndicate #1 of 2 – Yes, it’s the old pre-Crisis team, with the Owl Man with the really big goofy looking owl cowl. LOL That laugh was definitely worth picking up the book right there. We get naration from Superwoman about the history of the Syndicate as she’s waiting on death row. It’s interesting to see the Rogues as the guards but Earth 3 was the reverse world. (I enjoyed seeing all the alternate heroes during the 52 event when they were on Earth 3 while looking for Ray Palmer.) Meanwhile, we check in with the Justice Legion Alpha from the DC One Million event. The Syndicate breaks in to the prison to free Superwoman but the is killed in the electric chair just before the dome drops. Then, the two teams are teleported together to fight. This should be one of the more interesting battles.

Convergence: Justice Society of America #1 of 2 – With everyone “normal”, all the heroes are old. Kent Nelson/Dr. Fate is even in a coma. Most of the issue is boring old “We’re old. What can we do?” type stuff while still trying to keep some hope. When the dome drops and Kent regains consciousness, he uses his powers to make them young again for one last battle. Let’s hope issue 2 is more exciting. At least the younger heroes in the domes were fighting for stuff instead of sitting in rocking chairs.

Convergence: Infinity Inc. #1 of 2 – How we get the other side of Earth 2, the younger generation. For most of the team, they are living life as they can. There’s even a hint at Obsidian being gay on having a date even thought that wasn’t something he was ever comfortable or open with before. Brainwave Jr. is drunk and drugged out because of headaches that he got when he lost his powers for some reason. Of course, that’s nothing compared to the overload he gets from all the alien cities when the domes fall. And it looks like the team is going up again the Jonah Hex in the future and his team. Well, I guess there’s been worse choices to include… but not many.

Convergence: Plastic Man and the Freedom Fighters #1 of 2 – Why do we have to give Plastic Man top billing on this? He’s the narrator of the whole thing too. I guess he got bored while chained to the wall in jail without his powers. So, we jump back to find out how they got there after losing their powers in the middle of a battle. Luckily, they come back. They figure they’ll just have to fight some Nazis but I guess they’ll have to fight Big Brothers’ cyborg things from Futures End too. This is going to get messy. (I wonder what a cyborg version of Plastic Man would be like and would it even really work?)

Convergence: Shazam! #1 of 2 – Given the heroes here are just kids without their powers, things are pretty quiet and Bulletman and Bulletgirl are the ones to keep things safe. The kids find Sivana and crew and of course get caught until the dome drops and then the big battle begins in all the Cheesiness you’d expect from an Earth S story. There’s even Mr. Tawney. After all that is resolved, we get the attack on their city…. from dirigibles from Gotham by Gaslight. (See, I told you there were worse choices to be made and futuristic Jonah Hex!)

Convergence: World’s Finest #1 of 2 – This one centers around the Seven Soldiers of Victory. Another nod to the Earth 2 stuff so I’m happy to see this. The story is pretty interesting as it is narrated by a newspaper comic artist. He loves his heroes and tends to get too close to the middle of things. Evidence of this is when Shining Night has to save him and Green Arrow and Speedy end up falling to their deaths because of this. (Ok. This get major ass hole points for purposely getting into places he’s told not to be and causing hero deaths. Next time, let him die.) When the dome drops, the artist is with Sir Justin (who is now very old). When the Shining Knight becomes young again, Telos shows up and says that since Sir Justin is the oldest of all the collected champions, he’s got a different challenge (a race, it seems) for him and his steed (and the stupid tag along newspaper guy) instead.

Justice League #40 – The one non-convergence title on the list this week (well, it sorta links in…) and I had to pick up the Magic Mike tribute cover. Gotta love it. The issue is really about Metron of the New Gods. He tells the take of Highfather and Darkseid and how he got them to switch sons. He then goes on about how reality is unraveling because of all the crises and time resets. He gives a quick sum-up of Crisis on Infinite Earths, Zero Hour, Flashpoint, and the other storylines. Then things take a turn as we lead up to Divergence and meet Darkseid’s daughter. No many story arcs crossing here. We’re not even done with Convergence and we’re working on Divergence now? WTF?

Multiversity #2 – Picking up after the first issue but taking into account the other stuff, we lead into the finale of this stuff. All the heroes pull together to fight the big bad as we glimpse a bunch of the alternate Earths. The good guys win and we learn that Captain Carrot is such a cartoon that, as long as he’s powered by his carrots, he can have his head cut off and survive. (Again, WTF???) The heroes seem to agree to become some inter-Earth super teamand use Harbinger’s House of Heroes as a base. I’m really not sure what this part was really all for. The stand-alones were often interesting stories but the reason for this one eludes me.

I think I’ll take Convergence: Booster Gold, Convergence: Crime Syndicate, and Justice League as my top 3 this week. And now, I’m off to bed. I’ll catch up on my movie review soon.

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