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

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...

So, in the week since the above posts the solicits have come out for the first post-Convergence (or, more importantly, the NEW post-Convergence titles) and I am filled with even more contempt than before. Fuck you DiDio, fuck you Geoff Johns, fuck you all. But in the interests of you lot I will continue...

Convergence #2 has our Earth 2 heroes trapped in Uncanny Braniac's frozen metallic spunk. My first thought is, as last week implied it should be, whether Batgirl has been for a pee yet. We get about 10 pages of flashback to Earth 2: World's End, since nobody was reading it, to explain why the people here are important then Uncanny Braniac tells them he wants them to fight the Johnsiverse Future's End who he picked up by accident and doesn't know what to do with. Obamaman is able to crack the spunk which lets Alan Scott meditate again and attack Uncanny Braniac with the full power of The Beige. This makes him run away (although Batgirl Pissypants assumes this means he's dead, which probably explains why she never actually finally defeated anyone) so Nightwang takes Batman to a Batcave - because, like water divining, all you need is instinct and a stick - where Babs Gordon and Alfred introduce Batman to Batman then they take a car back to the surface where they meet Deimos in an OBVIOUS BAD GUY FAKE-OUT. Needless to say, Batgirl Pissypants doesn't get it.

Once more with feeling, fuck you Geoff Johns.

It will come as no surprise to any of you that Convergence Aquaman #1 is utter bollocks. After finding out last week that EVERYONE was in Gotham pre-Flashpoint it now turns out that EVERYONE was in pre-Zero Hour Metropolis including the ENTIRE Justice League. But we don't care about them because Aquaman is the only one that's any good at all, as we find out near the beginning because he's the only one doing any crime fighting. Unfortunately, being Aquaman he fucks his own life us big style by dumping Chemo in the bay and poisoning his house, and as a result his best new buddy Dane Dorrance lets him live under his shower. He turned up with both hands but as the dome went FWASH he only had one and the magic hook from the grim 'n' gritty era. Anyway, we get the Floating Uncanny Braniac Head that appears in every book explaining the plot then somebody he knows turns up and starts killing people in a grim 'n' gritty way. Mmmmm. TASTE THE GRIM.

Still, it's Saturday morning cartoons compared to Convergence Batman: Shadow of the Bat #1 featuring characters I could give a shit about being grimmer 'n' grittier just like they were bitd. And of course the more observant of you will have spotted that means Batman was in Metropolis too! And maybe also that him and Azrael did nothing about crime for an entire year until the exact moment when YOU GUESSED IT Uncanny Braniac appears in the sky no reads his script. Then there's an argument about whether he causes a time shift or not, because detecting that is a new super power. Nostalgia and literally nothing else. And nostalgia for a dreadful comic at that.

Hoo-fuckin'-ray, Purple Suit Catwoman was in Metropolis as well! And so Convergence Catwoman #1 tells the completely uninspiring story of how she became the only crime fighter in Metropolis and blah blah blah fuck all happens blah blah Uncanny Braniac in the sky blah blah then Kingdom Come Batman turns up to beat the crap out of her next month and I lose the will to live.

So, the Goatee Green Arrow was ALSO in Metropolis as detailed in Convergence Green Arrow #1 , which is pretty odd because a different Green Arrow was there as part of the Justice League as shown in Aquaman. Which would be confusing were it not that this GA is a lazy twat who has done nothing for a year except stop angry mobs because Metropolis is doing the aul' racism now Father. The issue retells the meeting of Ollie and Connor Hawke - because HEY! that ashram was in Metropolis too - then Braniac Riders In The Sky and they bump into a one eyed Black Canary or something and a book of GA kids' daddy issues beckons next month. I CAN'T WAIT.

Convergence Green Lantern: Parallax #1 is basically a Wikipedia entry about How The Grinch Stole Christmas, or more likely, How The Hal Killed His Little Blue Buddies. Oh yeah, him and Kyle Rayner are in Metropolis too. So then they both get their green back when Ghost Braniacs In The Sky remove the dome, then some woman from a Dean Motter Image book turns up and kicks Kyle's arse without breaking sweat which allows Hal to act like a knob. No change there then. Dreadful stuff.

Convergence Justice League International #1 features the thrilling adventures of the only crime fighters in, unlikely as it sounds, Metropolis. They have a fight with Metallo then Blue Beetle turns down a definite shag to tinker with Archimedes the Owl Ship and talk to Rorschach. Or maybe it's fix The Bug and talk to the Martian Manhunter, but you get the drift. Ghost Braniac does his turn then the skies turn all funny coloured - which is cool, because it only happens in this book and not in any of the other hundred set in Metropolis at the same time - when Kingdom Come WW and Shazam turn up to kill everyone. Looks like I have no memory of even more dogshit comics than I thought.

So, Louisiana in in Metropolis now, is it? And Gotham is too? They must be, because not only does Babs Gordon/Oracle turn up at home in Convergence Suicide Squad #1 but Belle Reve is there too and thankfully it's full not only of the regular SS but also Cyborg Superman, Bane, Black Manta and Deathstroke. Despite this, nothing happens except explain what's going to happen next month. BASICALLY Kingdom Come Alan Scott is the Bestest Green Lantern Ever (which must have made Geoff Johns feel physically sick, such heresy) and is so powerful he has created a whole new planet which the Kingdom Comers are using now the domes are down and the plan is to blow shit up. There might be something happen next time round. I wouldn't hold your breath though.

I really couldn't give a shit about Converence Superboy #1 and I'll be amazed if anybody else did. It feels like it rips off Miracleman at various points, but once Kon gets his powers back various Kingdom Comers smack him about, including Red Robin. Imagine the embarrassment of being beaten by The Dick. Glowy Eyes Superman turns up at the end and they are going to fight next month. I think we're supposed not care about any of the rest of it and get excited by the notion of a Man/Boy fight. I can't, to be honest.

At least Convergence Supergirl: Matrix #1 understands that it's a bullshit book nobody is going to read and has been dealt a shitty set of cards. It says it up front right at the beginning and dispatches the Floating Head of Uncanny Braniac really early on to it can get on with FIGHTING. The blob of something which is in the shape of Supergirl (really?) has a Who's More Ludicrous with Lord Volt and Lady Quark (which is weird because Earth 6 - which may now be Earth 48 - isn't supposed to be in this). We're all supposed to cheer at the end when Ambush Bug turns up, aren't we. One of the more blatant grabs for publicity of recent years.

Convergence Steel #1 is a weird one. It contradicts pretty much every other book, not least because everyone else in every dome is complaining about resources running out but Steel is happily wasting stuff on experiments and he needs to because lots of other people in Metropolis have managed to make powered suits and they are forming gangs and fighting with each other. That's ok though, because Steel has managed to turn a real cat into a robot pussy that he's going to team up with, probably. Gen 13 From Liefeldverse appear and they have the start of a fight but not enough to care about. I'm just waiting for another glimpse of Steel Pussy.

Not going to lie, this is one of my worst experiences in reading comics. Every single thing sucks and only exists to make nostalgic fanboys of a very specific age cream themselves. And none of it does anything for me. The two issue structure doesn't work either - these first issues don't get anything done and set up a scenario which has to be replied next time in as few pages as possible. I don't think I'm looking forward to any of them based on two weeks of #1s. A weaker man would give up on DC forever as a result of this.

This is the point in the hotdog-eating competition where the cheers directed toward an impressive undertaking that none of us actually want to personally undertake start to fade as we all become increasingly concerned for your health and well-being.

These books really do suck.

This is the point in the hotdog-eating competition where the cheers directed toward an impressive undertaking that none of us actually want to personally undertake start to fade as we all become increasingly concerned for your health and well-being.

^^^^^^^^

The striking thing to me is how ugly they are.

Convergence #3 continues to tell the secret truth about this book, that it's SPOILER ALERT only an Earth 2 book to deal with the events of Earth 2 World's End and hand wave them away so the Earth 2 book could continue after the DC move and the non-reboot reboot. Just don't call it a reboot!

So, continuing what is supposed to be the main storyline of the book Deimos shows the Earth 2 heroes his secret medieval kingdom underground where it transpires all the time manipulator so that have ever existed are kept in a spinny vortex thing. Back on the surface, Uncanny Braniac captures Obama Superman in a metal net before he gets set free two pages later - in other words, with no opportunity for any dramatic tension to have been raised by the capture rendering it pointless. Anyway, Ghost Braniac In The Sky tried to capture him because (as I speculated last week) the fact there's a yellow sun means his powers all still exist; which means, somewhat ridiculously, that in all the captured cities the Superfriends were still powered up so JUST COULDN'T BE ARSED FIGHTING CRIME in the year under the dome. Thanks Superman Family! Thamily!

So, Uncanny Braniac explains all this to the Kandorians (who were presumably in one of the Metropolises?) and are now unbottled, but because they are so pure of heart they don't want to be part of SecretConBattle so he kills them all. Three pages after introducing them to the script. I'm not only confused to why that happened, I'm also nearly halfway in and still have no idea WHY any of this is happening (in the comic I mean). NO IDEA what the end game is.

In the other part of the 'plot' all the Batman villains from the other cities have teamed up into a giant anti-Bats team-up squad club and confront Earth 2 Batman, who's obviously the most important one because he's in the main book and not one of the two issues plot/fight car crashes. He resolves this in a very simple way. Batman becomes a suicide bomber and blows them all up. (Although in a weird way his body is still intact after the blast despite being at the centre of it. Hmm.) The Joker is the only bad guy team up club guy that survives and takes Dick Grayson (the surviving Bat hero dude) then does a Killing Joke to him. NOSTALGIA! DO YOU SEE? Then, in a way which is clearly nothing like Doom Tears 9/11 Special Uncanny Braniac turns up and kills him because some things are just so bad that even the bad guys are disgusted by how bad they are, conveniently ignoring what evil they have wrought in the past.

This really is a total mess, and considering it was supposed to have been planned is even more baffling why it's so incoherent. The nicest thing I can say about it is that it's better than the miniseries books, and it's probably better than Earth 2 World's End was. Faint praise.

Convergence Adventures of Superman #1 has Supes and Supergirl in Gotham City immediately before the Crisis. And why not? Metropolis was probably full of everyone else. Anyway, this gives them the opportunity to work with Lucius Fox to build a Phantom Zone projector because OBVIOUSLY the Phantom Zone was contained inside Uncanny Braniac's Magic dome. So they go in and fly about for a bit (proving the Superdickery point I made while I was talking about the parent title) then the Crisis sort of happens and Supergirl finds out she should be dead, but clearly isn't which gives her the power to be the strongest Kryptonian ever and she rescues Supes and beats up all the Phantom Zone villains. Supes responds to this by telling her how jealous of her he is because he thinks she's the best Kryptonian ever too. Then back in the real world, Braniac/sky/you know the deal and some animals on horseback turn up in Gotham and Lucius Fox looks scared. That's always confused me - why do horses get the shitty end of the stick? Other animals learn to speak, shoot, drive, whatever; horses get to be horses. EQUAL RIGHTS FOR OUR EQUINE BRETHREN!

Convergence Batman & The Outsiders #1 is, at least, very nearly an entertaining read. In Gotham, and not "my homeland of Markovia" (which might get mentioned once or twice), the Outsiders are all either powered (Geo Force) or de-powered (the rest of them) and coming to terms with their life. Someone asks Black Lightning the question I was wondering myself during the first week, if he's some kind of weird cosplay fetishist because there's no real need for him to keep dressing up now he's just a regular guy. The one person this is all working out for is Metamorpho because he's managing to have a normal life with Sapphire Stagg. Braniac/sky happens with a couple of pages to go and he changes back his multicoloured self just as OMAC turns up to fight. Much better paced than other books, this at least attempts to tell a story and isn't just a pointless nostalgia fest. I'm sure that won't be allowed to continue in #2.

Convergence Green Lantern Corps #1 tries to play the same trick, concentrating on Guy Gardner's new life as a teacher but also taking in John Stewart's Gotham job as a gardener (I'm sure that's supposed to scream OH THE IRONING but I can't be bothered) and Hal's job as the world's biggest arsehole. Eventually the cover comes off and Hal recharges his ring then takes the lantern away so nobody else can. Guy is, probably understandably, upset about this and rides off on a motorbike with a baseball bat to find a fight. John Stewart is, as ever, forgotten about since he's irrelevant to the plot. Like I give a shit.

Gotham is also chock-full of Thanagarians, as Convergence Hawkman #1 shows. Kate and Shayera uncover a Thanagarian sleeper villain cell in the city that has build an - I shit you not - "absorbacon". That's about it. This sort of has nothing to do with Convergence and there is no indication that #2 will either. Are there really that many Hawkman fanboys out there to constitute a market for this?

Maybe as much a market there is for the Detroit Convergence Justice League America #1 who, wait for it, we're in Gotham too. At least this book dispenses with the ConDome shit and gets straight to them all with their powers back - you have to at least think that's partly because it's the only way to make Ralph Dibny interesting. An alternate Secret Six turn up at the end claiming they are there to win the fight but immediately run off. Then Vibe pulls a heroic pose. OOOOOH NOSTALGIA.

Convergence Superboy & The Legion of Super-Heroes #1 wants to be Scott Pilgrim. A lot. I wish it was too, but instead it's more like Saved By The Bell. Because there are 3000000 of them they all get a couple of panels to explain what they've done. Brainiac 5 is a Braniac therefore able to speak to Uncanny Braniac's Sandpit which is just about to tell him the plot when Superboy and Lightning Lass nearly kiss which is the trigger for Ghost Braniac in the sky and the dome disappearing, just in time for some Knights of Olde to turn up on giant dogs. Yes, really. (It's an Atomic Knights thing.)

Convergence Swamp Thing #1 is pretty unique amongst these books in that it ACTUALLY HAS A TANGIBLE PLOT. It has a handful of pages explaining Swampy to people that have never read it before, then tells what happened in order to credibly have Alec & Abby in Gotham at dome time. It then deals with them almost exclusively, and the difficulties of keeping Swampy alive for a year with no useful vegetation and next to no rain. At the end some vampires turn up from a Batman Elseworlds book to give us a familiar 'Alec punching at waves of enemies' picture and I don't even care that I've seen such an image many times before. This was that rare thing these days, a GOOD DC comic book. Maybe it seems better than it is because of the paucity of talent around it, but without a multiverse Earth where DC are a worthwhile publisher we'll never know.

Convergence Flash #1 has a powerless Flash coming to terms with not being connected to the speed force. Barry meets Bruce Wayne for a coffee and then the ConDome comes down; he can tap the speed force again so he runs about a bit then somebody who may or may not be Superman from an Elseworlds I haven't read turns up for a fight. I think the biggest problem is that NOTHING happens in the book, it's a bog-standard "Flash loses his powers" story like I'm pretty sure has happened every decade, and in the Silver Age probably used to happen every 6 months. C+ maybe, which makes it one of the better parts of this endeavour.

Marv Wolfman teaches us in Convergence The New Teen Titans #1 that the Titans used to be fun before the Johnsiverse, even if Nightwang and Starfire are bickering like and old married couple for most of it. Braniac's Dome is pulled back about halfway through and the Doom Patrol from the Tangent Universe come in to fight but it soon becomes clear they've only done that because they thought it was what Dan DiDio wanted them to do so they soon go back to their bedrooms to play Minecraft. Eventually their leader hits Nightwang up on Snapchat but it cliffhangers before they start sending noods. Maybe things really were better those days.

Convergence Wonder Woman #1 shows that Diana's dress sense is inexplicably linked to her powers, because de-powered she ends up wearing turtleneck jumpers like in the 60s powerless secret agent era. Etta is involved with a cult in a plot IN NO WAY influenced by the one in The Leftovers who tie up Diana with her own lasso JUST LIKE IN THE GOOD OLD DAYS. This means Diana isn't about when vampires turn up and eat the cult, but also means when Braniac pulls back his covering Diana is tied up when all her clothes fall off. JUST LIKE IN THE GOOD OLD DAYS. We learn that Joker Vampires are better/worse than other vampires (although Uncanny Braniac doesn't seem as bothered by there being a joker here as he is in the central book) and we are treated to the sight of Diana squishing her boob sideways so that it sits properly in her costume. JUST LIKE IN THE GOOD OLD DAYS.

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