Convergence #2
Writer: Jeff King
Artists: Carlo Pagulayan, Michael Jason Paz, John Starr, and Peter Steigerwald
Cover Artists: Tony Daniel and Tomeu Morey
Publisher: DC
While the second issue, of this two month long limited series, picks up the pace with the storytelling, it still manages to fall flat. The story follows the band of heroes from Earth-2, who have found themselves trapped on the planet without a city. The group battles against Telos, only to have him disappear abruptly, leaving them to find a way to escape the planet. The story isn’t terrible and it reads rather well for a second issue. However, if you haven’t been reading the Earth 2 books, chances you’re like me and you’re slightly oblivious to anything they’re talking about. Furthermore, the amount of time spent focusing on the Earth-2 heroes only ends up highlighting the fact that we haven’t really seen the Earth-0 heroes, aka the heroes that we’ve been reading about since 2011. That being said, there are nice bits of interaction between some of the characters, Thomas Wayne and Dick Grayson especially are easily the best part of this issue.
Though the issue itself is an improvement over the last issue, it is still rather disappointing. There are multiple mentions of epic battles going on, but most are delegated to the tie-in books. What little action that exists in this book, is decent enough, but ends rather quickly and unexpectedly. Also, for as large of an even as this was advertised to be, there are multiple inconsistencies in the storytelling and the art. The most glaring of which, was the fact that Batman’s suit alternated between the black bat symbol on grey, to the black bat symbol enclosed in the yellow circle. On their own, the minor problems aren’t an issue, but altogether they emphasize the lack of consistency. The biggest problem so far is that there isn’t much in the way of explanation. What happened to Brainiac? What is the end game? Why did Telos leave even though he could have wiped the floor with the Earth-2 heroes? It’s still early on in the series, however with the knowledge that after this the Earth-0 continuity will continue on, it is hard to get invested in a story with so little information. 3/5 -AP
Convergence: Aquaman #1
Writer: Tony Bedard
Artist: Cliff Richards
Cover: Becky Cloonan
Publisher: DC
Remember when Aquaman was all anti-social and had a hook for a hand? Well that’s the version this issue is focusing on and it was nice to finally get a Convergence tie-in that didn’t seem like it was forced into the event and made sense. He’s been trapped in Metropolis for over a year and the time away from the ocean has taken a toll on him both physically and mentally. Living in the Metropolis Aquarium has only helped to delay the effects but public opinion of him isn’t helping his situation either.
Tony Bedard gives us an entertaining “fish out of water” story though there are still some bumps along the way. The problem comes when Telos drops the dome and Deathblow arrives to fight Aquaman. If you don’t know who Deathblow is then you’re out of luck because the only background info you’ll get is on Aquaman at the end of the issue. Even a blurb on who Deathblow is would help any new reader that might be taking a chance on the Convergence event. Aside from that, Bedard crafts a pretty entertaining story and the art from Richards is pretty good as well. This is a tie-in you should grab if you’re an Aquaman fan or are just looking for a good companion issue to the main Convergence title. However, much like the other books in this event it’s not really new reader friendly. 3/5 – IS
Be sure to check out previous editions of Crisis of Infinite Reviews by clicking here!
Arnab Pradhan
arnab@comicattack.net
Infinite Speech
infinitespeech@comicattack.net
