Everything that rises must CONVERGE: Aldo and others read DC's CONVERGENCE clusterf*ck so you don't have to

Al also on trend this month:

http://i.imgur.com/SQg5F30.jpg

ok that's some amazing continuity to refer back to that

Kind of wish Al still posted here.

Next week's Convergences: Aquaman, Batman Shadow of the Bat, Catwoman, Green Arrow, Green Lantern Parallax, Justice League Intl, Suicide Squad, Superboy, Supergirl Matrix, Superman Man of Steel

What's that Convergence Nightwang & Oracle #1 ? Wickedy Wild Wild Blue Beetle and Guy Gardner have been killed by. Hakwmans, wiping out one of the SecretBattleCons off-screen before the series has even started? But isn't that getting rid of one of the few potentially entertaining cities without bothering to even write it just so you can indulge yourself in puss-poor fanwank? No? Oh well, fanwank it is!

So, back in an increasingly crowded pre-Flashpoint Gotham Nightwang stops a bored Mister Freeze robbing a museum in deliberately flash way, admitting he does it in such a way to look the best for the cameras or so he looks HAWT. It's also weird to see his relationship with Starfire before the Johnsiverse rewrote Tamarans into goldfish with her still in love with him and them very much a couple. Which is then super weird to see Dick ask Babs Gordon (who is, of course, still in the wheelchair) to marry him. That's a Dick move, Dick.Then the Hawkmans turn up to spoil things and there will be a fight while Babs does some Oracling, because she invented computer surveillance (although I'm not sure she did, because hadn't we had Brother Eye by then?).

Anyway, this is so desperate to tick a gazillion fanwank buttons it misses some fairly basic plot practicalities. Firstly, this Gotham (unlike the EXACT SAME GOTHAM with Justice Lovelies or Harley Quinn or Batty Man) doesn't have Uncanny Braniac in the sky explaining the plot for the hard of thinking - and we know that explicitly because we are with Dick & Babs at the exact time the dome comes down, which we know from he others Uncanny Braniac is in the sky. Secondly, where is Baquaman's War Octopus? The restaurant where Nightwang shows Babs his ring is on the river Goth, which I'd hazard a guess is the only water Baquaman would find to ride his War Octopus in on, so they must have gone past them. And thirdly, and maybe most importantly, the Hawkmans turn up with lots of Wall-Es flying around the sky, literally hundreds of them, which aren't in any of the other issues set in this very SecretBattleVerge.

You know, with THE ENTIRETY OF DC CONTINUITY to use as your sandpit to constrain yourself to sort of one instance having written an overarching plot WHICH SPECIFICALLY ALLOWS YOU TO USE THE WHOLE CONTINUITY is just fucking stupid. Almost as stupid as only having to pay attention to 1500 pages or so of comics and completely fucking up all your continuity in the first 150. Utterly inept editing, and somehow they held on to their jobs.

Hooray! Convergence Speed Force #1 is set in Gotham! Because there aren't any of them about, are there? Thankfully, this is from a Gotham at the time of Flashpoint, except it can't be because Barry was back by then but Wally (who is, according to the text, the only Flash at the time) says he isn't. Honestly guys, when I said 'you' don't have to read things the 'you' I was talking about was other ILXors, not DC employees. So with the entire chronology to pick from, you can't even get the continuity right of the one YOU (that's YOU YOU DC staffers, not 'you' YOU ILXors) choose? WTF? I'm pretty sure a turtle that had spent the last 50 years living in an underwater cave could make a better fist of this.

So, Wally and the kids (wait a minute, didn't the kids get aged into adulthood by some weird shit from space or something? So how are they still 10 or whatever?) are trapped in Gotham and Wally's mind is unravelling, not least because none of the other heroes in this Gotham gaf about trying to get out and seem content to wallow in their own filth. But then we know that Batty Man likes that secretly. Anyway, Uncanny Braniac shows up in the sky like you'd expect and shows us the Hakwmans killing Wickedy Wild Wild Beetle (which is odd because it can't have happened yet) then drops the walls and Flash runs to save them but is too late. He then runs home where he is chased by one of the Zoo Crew before Armour Extreme Wonder Woman turns up with all her mates to kick his ass.

While he was running about in the desert, Wally failed to spot Batgirl Pissypants taking a dump behind a bush. That wasn't very observant of him, it could have been important. I mean it must be a plot point, right? Because otherwise it would just appear to be a grown man's fantasy about teenagers and urine and that couldn't possibly be true, could it?

Wait, aren't the pre- and post-Flashpoint earths the same earth? So how are they co-existing? Or did the pre-Flashpoint earth get retconned into being a parallel 52 earth or something?

Not to be naive and demand this makes sense or anything.

i think the whole gimmick of this Brainiac jazz is that he's resplitting all the continuities into different earths. right? i dunno.
that said, aldo - aren't they intentionally sticking to one alt. continuity per week or something?

Ok that makes sense. Or "sense".

No, the gimmick is that he's taken a city at a specific point of continuity out of time and that's ok because it was about to be taken out of continuity by whatever storyline it was part of collapsing universes together. It was always supposed to be something to do with the multiverse but it isn't at all really, other than making a general point that all of the universes in the multiverse are confirmed as being in the same multiverse.

They seem to be sticking to one broad set of 4 or 5 alt continuities a week, which makes the story even weaker because in their desperation to shoehorn in hero x, y and z they turn up even when they weren't there in the original comics.

To whit, Convergence Superman #1 , set in Gotham. It turns out Superman, Lois and Jimmy were covering a news story in Gotham while Flashpoint happened - I'm assuming this is the same Gotham that Speed Force is set in because there is still crime in this one and there isn't in the Batmang family Gotham books. Anyway, Superman gets his powers back as Uncanny Braniac pulls back his dome covering. Which raises more questions than it answers to be honest, given that we know Supes' powers come from being under a yellow sun, does that mean Uncanny Planet is also under a yellow sun? Historically, also, we've seen lack of exposure to the sun leave Supes <choke> as weak as a kitten. So why wasn't he here? And was the dome a giant UV filter, in which case why didn't everyone under it develop Vitamin D deficiency during the One Year Later? Not that Supes has noticed because he's only gone and got aloud up the duff while he could now, inn'e?

Dan Jurgens then gets hideously confused as the panel advising us a scene happens in the "Flashpoint Universe" has Captain Thunder and an unknown Batman (although we don't find out who it is, it's stated Bruce is dead). To seem to know they're from a collapsed continuity, which I thought only the Psycho Pirate was able to comprehend? Did nobody have to ACTUALLY READ ANY COMICS to understand what they were supposed to be writing?

Let's just have an 80 Page Giant Action Figure Playset Special instead, somebody might actually be able to write that.

Convergence Atom #1 is Ms Marvel in disguise. Red and blue costume, one giant hand. What else could it be? In this Gotham (which I'm guessing is the same one as Speed Force and Superman are in) Atom is a laughing stock who wanders round claiming to solve crimes and help people influenced by the voices in his head talking to him. Deathstroke turns up out of nowhere to stab him and/or blow him up when he gets transported away as the city's champion by Uncanny Braniac (which means it can't be the same Gothm as Batgirl Pissypants was picked as the champion of, although no Uncanny Magic Metal was involved this time, just a FWASH) where he fights a giant crocodile from The Extremists by punching a supersonic hole through both sides of his mouth. Then it turns out the voices in his head were the now-not-dead Ryan Choi.

Two books to read and this has been the closest issue this week to being a real pleasure to read. Not quite as good as All New Atom was, but a solid effort. Why weren't they all this good? Or any of them even close?

Convergence Question #1 is a real curio. Montoya, whose has had the Mark of Cain but is now missing it, has teamed up with Two Face to break up petty crime and steal medicine for themselves. She lives with the Huntress who tells her she can't trust Harvey and when she next sees him there's a long conversation about why his coin always comes up good recently. Then Uncanny Braniac appears in the sky, which convinces Harvey there must be Two Two Faces and, finally able to throw a scarred face, he knocks out Montoya. The Huntress says "I told you so" and Batwoman turns up on the last page in time for the conclusion next time. This appears to be using the Convergence umbrella just to allow them to tell a story out of continuity and I say SO FUCKIN' WHAT. The whole point of the multiverse is supposed to allow you to tell these if that's where the story lies, and I'd rather read this than Sinestro any day.

Convergence Titans #1 is just a complete mess. In the same Gotham as B&R, except the Titans are the only ones fighting the Extremists who we saw turn up and start to fight B&R on the last page of that book. So, nothing in common with the other books it shares physical space with (in the literary sense) and in fact ignores them, poorly and just... no. I can't think of anything else to say about it. I've just finished reading it, and I've forgotten everything about it already. With so few books to publish this week and 75 years to pick from is there REALLY any excuse for a filler book like this?

Still, at least no HOT PISS ACTION in these pages.

That feels like damning with faint praise, like congratulating someone for not being a murderer.

I think it's mostly just a campaign to Mark Waid cry.

This is the first thing I've read that makes me want to read Convergence.

i just flipped through a stack of these #1s: Suicide Squad, JLI, Superboy, Catwoman, Aquaman. They are one and all, utterly unredeemable. Bad art, bad story, unified in their bad connecting "ONLY ONE SHALL SURVIVE" threadline. it's amazing how these guys have some of the best known fictional characters of the 20th century at their disposal and they are doing fuck-all with them.

the bumper at the end of the first issue of aquaman promises "NEXT: SURF AND TURF... TO THE DEATH"
and that's what passes for humor

these clearly aren't for children; the violence and overt sexuality (done poorly) nix that.
they're clearly not for adults; the art and soporific plot guarantee that.
i'm fairly certain there's not a massive teen audience for this shit.
who the fuck is this for? collectors, completists and the damaged?

well, yeah

who the fuck is this for? collectors, completists and the damaged?

Certainly feeling the latter two thirds of that description.

these clearly aren't for children; the violence and overt sexuality (done poorly) nix that.
they're clearly not for adults; the art and soporific plot guarantee that.
i'm fairly certain there's not a massive teen audience for this shit.
who the fuck is this for? collectors, completists and the damaged?

Weirdly, Bleeding Cool ran a story on how Convergence was the most kid-friendly stuff DC had published in years and was obviously their big play to get their core books back to all-ages.

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2015/04/15/dcs-convergence-the-return-of-all-ages-comics/

the bumper at the end of the first issue of aquaman promises "NEXT: SURF AND TURF... TO THE DEATH"
and that's what passes for humor

I mean, I am lolling but possibly not for the right reasons

bloody beatings, torture, murder and ears being torn off all certainly fall within my definition of fun for all the family! xp

that bleeding cool link is insane
"with softcore sex, light torture, murder, dick jokes and a panel of a hyena ripping a man's ear off, comics truly are for kids again!"
xxp!

At least Converge #2 explains why some cities are invading another in the first batch of connected b.s. aldo wrote about. Probably not the best idea to explain it a week later but hey, it's something.

To be fair to them, I can see the point they're trying to make. Compared to the last 5+ years of comics, probably from the start of the Superhero Sadface era and certainly since Tiny Footprints/Rape Mindwipe these are like Saturday morning cartoons.

No rapes, no eviscerations like we should by awestruck by dc's brave new direction

god am i glad i've skipped the last five years of dc
the marvel unlimited app has made it clear that they are doing interesting things, by and large, with their characters with some decent creators. this nonsense with convergence is just pap.

To be fair to them, I can see the point they're trying to make.

the point they're trying to make is totally idiotic though

Is it too simplistic to blame DC's years-long stint in the toilet on Bob Harras? The timeline certainly lines up.

so THAT'S how Lobdell got his gig

i'd be tempted to put a fair amount of blame on the creeping influence of geoff johns

that's always been my take. "it worked once"

I agree the pioont they're trying to make is idiotic, but in the land of the blind the woman in the refrigerator is dead.

I'd point at Geoff Johns too, his Tiny Handprints are all over the worst excesses of the Sadface Era.

(wtf is a pioont and can we eat it)

Let us not forget Meltzer

The era of Meltzer and the ascendancy of Johns feels like a veritable golden age these days.

The sadface era aligned with some pretty great other DC comics -- Catwoman, 52, Gotham Central, Secret Six, Y The Last Man, Brave&Bold -- plus a pretty amazing run from Grant Morrison, from Seaguy and The Filth through Final Crisis.

And Darwyn's Spirit book...

But then also Identity Crisis, Blackest Night, Countdown Arena... etc.

I cut orders of the second half of these series by an average of 50%. Every one I've flipped through has looked like complete shit, it's been tough to even give my staff pointers on how to sell it.

This is doing even worse than the Future's End special event from last fall (with the weird covers), which, itself did about half as well as the previous year's special event with funny covers.
DC cannot get anything right - last fall it was five new Batman titles because Bat-shit was the only thing they could reliably sell, two or three of those have already been 86ed.

I love that DC keeps trying to make a better Countdown: Arena. Adorable. Rao bless 'em.

http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2015/04/grumpy-old-fan-when-not-to-cross-over/
I loved Mazing Man; it was the Louie of comix at teh time

I just submitted forksclovetofu's post to Best Comics Writing 2015.

Wasn't it someone at DC who openly admitted comics were mostly for collectors in their 40s now?

Writeups will be very late this week, broadband has failed and won't be back till at least Monday.

Just in case you thought I'd given up, or gouged my eyes out.

Mazing man was great
Xxp

i still got the full series somewhere...

I'm going to do the core book at the end because it's the last of the series and I don't want to spoil them, although it's pretty much impossible to 'spoil' anything DC are putting out. YOU CAN'T RUIN A TURD, RIGHT? DO YOU SEE WHAT I DID THERE? And of course even though these individual issues are set around Convergence #4, of course.

So let's kick off with Convergence Action Comics #2 (w: Justin Gray p: Claude St-Aubin i: Sean Parsons) because who doesn't love Power Girl? Red Son Wonder Woman tries to kill her with missiles from the invisible plane but fails, which really pisses Stalin off. He is quickly distracted though, because Lex Luthor has made secret assassin robots that look like friendly GIs to kill him. They are presumably not called Call-Me-Brad, Call-Me-Chuck and Arsequake as the comic would improve immeasurably if they had been. Golden Age Superman then turns up and talks to everyone until they're too bored to fight. He flies off into the pages of Convergence #6, which might be for the best mainly because I don't have to read it (again). There were a lot of Supermen in it right enough.

Convergence Blue Beetle #2 (w: Scott Lobdell a: Yishan Li) doesn't help my mood, as I had forgotten how bad the first one was. The Charlton heroes remind us all they don't have any real powers (yes, even Captain Atom) then face of against the Legion of Super Heroes. WAIT A MINUTE. They were in their own book fighting someone else. So are there two sets of the Legion, both from the same 30thC Metropolis? Had one of them travelled back in time just beforehand so one was taken by the old Metropolis and one by the new? At least the two Braniacs can hang out together and call themselves the Legion of Substitute Braniacs? Telos can join them, because we now know he's a substitute Braniac come Convergence #5 except this must be set before then becaus Ted Kord, being so clever, makes a hologram of Hub City collapsing which makes Uncanny Braniac float in the sky and look down wistfully at how Ted has outwitted him. I give up.

Convergence Booster Gold #2 (w: Dan Jurgens p: Álvaro Martinez i: Raul Fernandez) features a different Blue Beetle and a third different LoSH and is really about how old Booster helps his son Rip Hunter by letting young Booster make time jumps until they end up in the wreckage of Deimos' secret machine, last seen when it was still working back in Convergence #6. Then Waverider appears, says he's going to fix it all, and leaves for Convergence #8 (let's just see whether he actually plays a part, shall we?) with everyone just standing round like spare pricks waiting for something to happen that means anything. I'm not even sure this could have looked all right in Dan's head, to be honest.

I really couldn't care less about Convergence Crime Syndicate #2 (w: Brian Buccellato a: Phil Winslade). Two sets of Justice League analogues, one of whom was recently in Forever Evil, fight each other in a direct powers to power match up, until one of them has won. They're either both the good guys or both the bad guys, except Ultraman, and even then I don't know what side he's supposed to be on. And because they're both analogies. When one of the Wonder Women crawls out of the wrecked city saying she's won you have no idea which one it is. LIKE IT MATTERS. Dire.

Convergence Detective Comics #2 (w: Len Wein a: Denys Cowan and Bill Sienkewicz) is at least entertaining. Ignoring what's happening in any of the other books, The Huntress and Robin are going to get killed by Red Son Superman when they're rescued by Red Son Batman. He takes them to a hut on a small farm where they all bond because they haven't seen a Batman in ages and he gives them a box to open in front of Superman. Eventually Supes catches up with them and it turns out the box has SURPRISE some kryptonite in it which nearly kills Superman but eventually they decide to just all work together instead. This infuriates Uncanny Braniac who appears in the sky and tells them THERE WILL BE CONSEQUENCES! The consequences seem to only be resetting people into their own cities with no fighting, so Dick indulges in some Batman cosplay to finish off the page count. I'd criticise all this in the other books, but being pretty well written and with art that doesn't want to make me gouge my eyes out I'll blame everything that's wrong with it on the other books. GO ME.

Sorry for lateness, been away, awesome metal show hot chick etc. IT WASN'T BECAUSE I WAS PUTTING THIS OFF, RIGHT? WHO SAID IT WAS?

Convergence Infinity Inc #2 (w: Jerry Ordway layouts pages 1-9: Ben Caldwell p: June Brigman i: Roy Richardson) is not an auspicious start. It reads like bad Silver Age filler, full of sentence constructions "I WILL DO SOMETHING, CHARACTER NAME" "THAT WAS GOOD, OTHER CHARACTER NAME". It's wearying. It plods along and WHOOPS THERE IS A FUSION REACTOR THAT MIGHT BE IMPORTANT LATER. WOW, WAS THAT A GIANT SPACESHIP? It contradicts nearly everything happening in other BattleVerge books until they all ask Uncanny Braniac to let them off fighting because they have the sniffles. Then the city blows up anyway because fusion reactor. They then meet up with the JSA because they've won the fight in a book I haven't read yet who say because they're old they can't be the JSA any more so maybe they should have (I shit you not) A CORPORATE MERGER. Then they all stare off heroically into the middle distance AS YOU DO.

So, having had Convergence JSA #2 (w: Dan Abnett p: Tom Derenick i: Trevor Scott) spoiled for me, is it worth reading? Well it certainly delivers on the promise of the first issue with the old-timers clearly enjoying one last time around as they defeat a Qwardian weapon. The promise was a bit one note though and it all kind of peters out until Uncanny Braniac declares the fight over and destroys Qward. Then, weirdly, the JSA lose their powers again and go back to being old men, like they were when the dome was up. Now I accept that plays well for the storyline in this mini, but this wildly inconsistent with the rest of ConWars. WAIT, WHY AM I EXPECTING ANY BETTER? Let's just enjoy this for what it is. A competent comic.

Convergence Plastic Man & The Freedom Fighters #2 (w: Simon Oliver a: John McRea) has a large number of ConSecret tropes; a city floats into the sky, suicide bomb kills everyone. In short, Plas teams up with the Nazis to beat Future's End then the Nazis try to double cross him because they want their own cyborg Superman. Plas throws away some fake suicide bombs that turn out to be real bombs which blow up the floating NYC killing millions. Plas is the only survivor and genuinely dgaf about the victims. No cryingeagle.jpg, no Doom Tears, nothing. Bye bye millions of people. Bye bye.

Convergence Shazam #2 (w: Jeff Parker a: Evan Shaner) is all kind of great in a GOSH GEE WILLAKERS Fawcett way, with steampunk Batman analogues woven in like they've just stepped out of The Goon (and the direct Killer Croc/Goon steal is undeniable). There's not a lot to explain about it, it's just dumb fun. In the shitstorm that this entire event has been, I'll take that. COMICS, THEY'RE NOT JUST FOR IDIOTS ANY MORE!

Convergence World's Finest #2 (Paul Levitz and 7 (SEVEN) art assets) is as impenetrable as #1. The Tenth Doctor continues to be the bloke out of Marvels, Telos is directly intervening in people's lives and the fight that happens in this is also with Qward. So was it this or JSA that was the fight that decided the fate of Qward? You'd think this one, given that Uncanny Braniac is definitely watching this one, but at the conclusion Qward still exists and everyone goes back to being cavemen, maybe. David Tennant draws a cartoon which shows he had fun. The Qwardians don't care, because all they want to do is eat celeriac (which they call greens) and drink grape soda. I wish I was from Qward, it would be a better life than reading this.

NOT A DREAM! NOT A HOAX! THE END OF THIS UTTER DISASTER LIES WITHIN MY HANDS!

Countdown #8 (Jeff King and Scott Lobdell write while 9 (NINE) different artists are used in only 23 pages) finally sees completion of this sorry mess.

As we remember, Parallax killed Deimos and he tries to explain the plot but fails to on page 1. Telos is now a giant God again, forgetting the plot of the last two issues, and he explains that it is ZERO HOUR and the COUNTDOWN has started. The scenes in the previous issues of the planet moving into the Johnsiverse haven't actually happened yet and it is still outside of time and space but luckily Waverider has a plan. PUT BRANIAC IN CHARGE!

Yes, Braniac wasn't actually killed by Deimos 50 pages ago, but even though there seems to be a plan that involves him the heroes don't believe that could be the case and decide to attack him anyway. Braniac is far too powerful though and everyone stands around while Sadface Braniac tells his story of how a FLASHPOINT made a FINAL CRISIS of the MULTIVERSITY 52 times and how he always wanted to be a Monitor when he grew up, and it makes him cry to think of other Braniacs being baddies. Cancer made him punch people, just like Jeremy Clarkson.

Johnsiverse Superman and Supergirl stand (or whatever the word might be for floating in space) by idly watching the planet enter the Johnsiverse, contradicting the dialogue of a couple of pages ago and Braniac decides to take Telos' powers away for him to keep them for himself; and we see the cities floating in the sky again with their domes (mainly) intact.

Braniac tries to send everyone that he stole back to when he stole them from but CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS stops him so he has a backup plan - just send back Superman, Supergirl and Barry Allen and hope they can do something different this time, or maybe just die. Parallax is gutted because nobody applauded when he killed Deimos (or indeed when he fired Kyle Rayner at a city in an ICBM) so he decides to go back with them as does Lois and Superbabby.

AND, IN A SHOCKING TWIST SO STUPID I CAN'T BELIEVE I'M TYPING IT, CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS IS RETCONNED OUT OF DC HISTORY.

Everyone gets returned back to where they started, and Braniac leaves the planet which miraculously gets moved to the universe of Earth 2 and gets instantly terraformed to being a suitable planet for the Earth 2 heroes to live on so they decide to. Telos appears in the sky like Mufasa and tells Alan Scott where the ships that left Earth 2 are so he can go and find them and everybody can act like Earth 2 World's End was only Earth 2 Interregnum. That's right, this whole exercise existed to undo a weekly series that ended THE WEEK BEFORE CONVERGENCE STARTED.

And to rub salt into the wound, Telos says he remembers who he is THEN DOESNT TELL ANYBODY.

I think this whole thing has pushed me over the edge and maybe I'm done with DC. Maybe.

Thanks for putting up with my rambling. It's been emotional. Until next time, MAKE MINE READABLE!

wait

hahahahahahaha

So, if COIE is erased, does that mean Superman can do super-ventriloquism again?

Yes, Tuomas, that was the first thought that went through my head too. OBVIOUSLY.

Serious answer, which Superman? The Earth 1 Suoerman probably always had it.

so... nothing happened, essentially?

Yup.

it felt like that's where they were headed even when you were reading individual random issues.
marvel has problems but dc is so completely clueless right now.

From what I've been able to gather, the entire point of the exercise was to free DC from the shackles of continuity so that their creators can tell shitty stories that don't have to make any more sense in the context of a larger narrative than they do in a vacuum.

When, really, it seems like they've done an excellent job of inadvertently freeing themselves from the shackles of continuity over the past several years.

I've also just realised I just threw in Waverider without explaining who he is. From someone else's summary:

Multiple versions of Booster Gold enter the fray. Booster Golds… oh boy. Okay, in order to understand the significance of this moment, you will need to have read the following series: 52, Booster Gold, Justice League International (vol 2), Futures End: Booster Gold, and Convergence: Booster Gold. So if you haven’t, ya know, read 10 years worth of comic books about Booster Gold, here’s what ya need to know: the Pre-New 52 Booster Gold is the protector of the time stream (this Booster Gold shall hereby known as 52 Booster). Think Dr Who except American. When Flashpoint occurred, a new Booster Gold was created with the New 52 timeline (this Booster Gold shall hereby known as N52 Booster).

Okay, so both of these versions of Booster meet upon Telos. Brainiac abducted both of them (along with 52 Booster’s sister and son – Rip Hunter) trying to find the location vanishing point (a floating fortress that exists at the end of time, where time is catalogued). N52 Booster spilled the beans about it to Brainiac, and that’s how Brainiac has been able to abduct different timelines. Meanwhile, 52 Booster has been bouncing around different timelines, and therefore, has contracted a bad case of temporal radiation poisoning: in short – he’s ageing really quickly. So N52 Booster, Rip Hunter, 52 Booster’s sister, and Ted Korg – the Blue Beetle – take 52 Booster to the vanishing point where he is healed of his condition and transforms into Waverider – a entity who is connected to all moments of time (Phew… that was tiring to explain).

Back to Convergence #8 – N52 Booster and Waverider show up right as Telos stops Parallax. Waverider then says that the only person who can stop the destruction of the Multiverse is Brainiac. So Waverider uses his powers to access the Futures End timeline where Brainiac was trapped and frees him.

Got it? Good.

That source ( http://whatculture.com/comics/6-mega-universe-changing-spoilers-from-dcs-convergence-8.php ) does point out that it thinks that the Johnsiverse sort of still does exist but merges with the pre-CoIE multiverse and it'll all get harmonised out once someone writes a story that needs it. This was covered by the line in the comics "the worlds evolved".

I actually go with Old Lunch's first take there - the major point of this seems to be to remove the same universe constraints that irritated me so much about the Johnsiverse and to handwave continuity errors into 'another universe'. It's a superhero version of "don't ask, don't tell", if you assume it's the same then well and good, if you find a problem there's a pre-packed solution.

i kinda remember waverider... he's basically the 90's metron, right?

Serious answer, which Superman? The Earth 1 Suoerman probably always had it.

I'm not well-versed on DC Earths, but isn't Earth-1 the "main Earth" that pre-crisis stories mostly followed? And Earth-2 was the one were WWII era superheroes had aged in real time? But with COIE all the Earths merged, and several characters were retconned, including Superman, who lost many of his pre-crisis powers, including the super-venriloquism. So after COIE, there was no Earth 1/2/etc, just one single universe and one single Earth. So I don't get how "the Earth 1 Superman always had it", if there was no multiple Earths, and there was just one Superman without ventriloquism? Anyway, what I meant to ask is, if COIE was retconned, does that mean that the "main Earth" Superman is now the pre-crisis Superman, and that he has all of his pre-crisis powers? Or does the pre-crisis Superman now live on some other Earth?

Yes. (not a sarcastic answer)

When you say Johnsiverse are you referring to the post-Flashpoint New 52-era? Or the one before that following Infinite Crisis?

Post-Flashpoint.

ah k

this thread is giving me a migraine

wtf dc

Dan Didio punched the universe

donkeypunched the universe, more like