Faster than a DC Bullet: Project Crisis!, Part LXXI: Convergence: Zero Hour, Book 2

Comic trade paperback, n.pag.
Published 2015 (contents: 2015)
Borrowed from the library
Read July 2017

Convergence: Zero Hour, Book 2

Writers: Tony Bedard, Larry Hama, Keith Giffen, and Louise Simonson

Artists: Cliff Richards, Philip Tan & Jason Paz/Rob Hunter, Rick Leonardi & Dan Green, Ron Wagner & Bill Reinhold, Timothy Green II & Joseph Silver, June Brigman & Roy Richardson
Color: John Rauch, Elmer Santos, and Paul Mounts
Letterers: Dave Sharpe, Steve Wands, and Corey Breen

This volume collects the Convergence adventures of five more sets of 1990s heroes, hailing from September 1994 or thereabouts. There's the hook-handed Aquaman (he lost the real hand in September 1994's Aquaman #2); Batman is joined by Azrael, who substituted for him during the Knightfall storyline (February 1993 through August 1994); Kyle Rayner is Green Lantern (he took over in March 1994's Green Lantern #50), and Hal Jordan has become Parallax; Supergirl is a protoplasmic blob from a pocket universe (she adopted the role in February 1992), working for Lex Luthor, who's transferred his brain into a younger, sexier, Australianer, hairier clone body (he first appeared in October 1990; the two dated until Supergirl #4 in May 1994, so there's some timeline wonkiness here); and John Henry Irons, who substituted for Superman while he was dead, is the superhero-in-his-own-right Steel (he got his own series in February 1994).

Maybe I lack nostalgia for these 1990s set-ups (I've read very little of any of them, except clone Luthor and protoplasmic Supergirl both feature in the Death of/World Without a/Return of Superman trilogy). Like all of these Convergence stories, it has to contrive to get the heroes all in the same city; apparently that was because everyone turned up in Metropolis to fight Parallax. Does this mean the city was domed during the events of Zero Hour? I don't remember the events of Zero Hour well enough to say; it seems a pretty tepid explanation that Azrael came to Metropolis because couldn't "miss a gathering of heroes like that." Additionally, the stories are inconsistent as to whether Superman was in the dome or not. He doesn't actually appear, but Kyle includes him among those who forgave Hal for his actions as Parallax, while on the other hand, both Steel and Lex mention that he's absent.

Whatever. Probably none of this really matters, what matters is the story... but I didn't really care about the stories here. It's impossible to care about Aquaman, the Azrael story was pretty uninteresting, and I don't know what planet Keith Giffen was on when he wrote the Supergirl tale, but it is bonkers, and sometimes in a good way, sometimes in a bad way, most often in a what is this i don't even way. I did like that Parallax isn't evil per se (remember Hal's actions were all in aid of trying to bring back the destroyed Coast City), so he ruthlessly fights on behalf of the city against its enemies, and Kyle has to try to stop him from going overboard. But even though in theory I do like the character of Steel, his story still didn't do much for me, even if it did reunite the actual creative team the character had back in the 1990s.

Probably part of the problem is that in three of these stories, the opponents are from the Wildstorm universe. This is definitely thematically appropriate, as Wildstorm is the most 1990s thing of them all, and thank God that Grifter doesn't turn up, but seriously, who gives a shit about Wildstorm? And these folks are like the Wildstorm also-rans; I could tolerate the Authority or maybe even Stormwatch, but Gen¹³ and Wetworks? In two of the stories, it's the denizens of Earth-6, which is kind of random, but thankfully Giffen makes a joke at the expense of that randomness. Earth-6's Lady Quark was a member of L.E.G.I.O.N., which Giffen wrote, and he has a joke about that, though it's anachronistic to say the least.

Anyway, whatever. All the 1990s stuff I cared about was frontloaded in the first Convergence: Zero Hour volume, which didn't leave me with much to enjoy here.

Next Week: Superman, the Question, the Justice League of America, Stephanie Brown, and Nightwing and Oracle battle for their lives in Convergence: Flashpoint, Book 1!

Faster than a DC Bullet: Project Crisis!, Part LXIV: Futures End: Five Years Later Omnibus

Comic hardcover, n.pag.
Published 2014 (contents: 2014)
Borrowed from the library
Read November 2016

The New 52: Futures End: Five Years Later Omnibus
by Daniel H. Wilson, Eddy Barrows, Eber Ferreira, Dan Jurgens, Alvaro Martinez, Raul Fernandez, Sean Chen, Mark Irwin, Robert Venditti, Van Jensen, Brett Booth, Norm Rapmund, Jeff Lemire, Andrea Sorrentino, Jed Dougherty, Paul Levitz, Yildiray Cinar, Ray Fawkes, Juan Ferreyra, Dan DiDio, Keith Giffen, Philip Tan, J. M. DeMatteis, Len Wein, Jason Paz, Andrew Guinaldo, Walden Wong, Justin Gray, Jimmy Palmiotti, Scott Hampton, Charles Soule, Jesus Saiz, Tom Derenick, Francis Portela, Phil Winslade, Martin Coccolo, Aaron Lopresti, Igor Lima, Ruy Jose, Rodney Buchemi, Geraldo Borges, Justin Jordan, Diogenes Neves, Marc Deering, J. Calafiore, Cullen Bunn, Tom King, Tim Seeley, Stephen Mooney, Sholly Fisch, Pat Olliffe, Tom Nguyen, Scott Lobdell, Scott Kolins, Christy Marx, Robson Rocha, Oclair Albert, Julio Ferreira, Gail Simone, Javier Garron, Marc Andreyko, Jason Masters, Eduardo Pansica, Amanda Conner, Chad Hardin, Derek Fridolfs, Brian Buccellato, Scott Hepburn, Cliff Richards, Fabrizio Fiorentino, Scott Snyder, ACO, Greg Pak, Jack Herbert, Vicente Cifuentes, Sean Ryan, Andre Coelho, Scott Hanna, Will Pfeifer, Andy Smith, Keith Champagne, Rags Morales, Jose Marzan Jr., Matt Banning, Bart Sears, Frank J. Barbiere, Ben Caldwell, Tony Bedard, Emanuela Lupacchino, Ray McCarthy, Pascal Alixe, Lee Weeks, Moritat, Will Conrad, Steve Lightle, Stephen Thompson & Ron Frenz

Five years before the "present," the New 52 version of the DC Universe came to life in Zero Year; now, five years after, it comes to an end. The Five Years Later Omnibus presents endpoints for the 52-ish comic books of the New 52. The future in which these stories take place is somewhat obscure: the back cover actually gives the history of a world thirty-five years later, and talks about Batman Beyond, who appears in literally zero of the issues collected here. The blurb ends by saying "Learn how all this and more could come to pass," but the book is actually very poor at filling in backstory; it took me around half the book to piece together that the Prime Earth had been overrun by refugees from Earth-2, and that Darkseid's forces had invaded at some point. I'm not sure if more things happened to create the dark timeline we see, though. Plus, some of the stories aren't consistent with one another: Justice League Dark: Futures End #1 claims that Etrigan is trapped in the House of Mystery outside time and space, but Etrigan also appears in Gotham City in Batwoman: Futures End #1, where he is killed.

Unlike the previous New 52 omnibi, this one isn't subdivided, so I'll just be reviewing the stories en masse, first with some comments on the overall set-up and then hitting up some specific stories. Of the three New 52 omnibi I've read, I found this one the most frustrating. Even though none of the stories in the first omnibus came to an end, they were all designed for new readers; most of the stories in the Villains Omnibus were easily grasped one-shots. But despite being set five years into the future, most of the stories here seemed really embedded in the continuity of the ongoings they span out of-- so too bad for me if I haven't been keeping up with Aquaman and the Others. I pick on it here because it was one of the first stories in the book, and it's filled with characters I knew nothing about, depicting alterations to a status quo I'd never seen before. Unfortunately a lot of the early stories in the book are like this: Flash, Green Arrow, Infinity Man and the Forever People, Star Spangled War Stories were also virtually impossible for me to understand.

I do feel like the artistic quality was higher across the board in this one-- take this nice linework and coloring as Billy Batson talks to Lois Lane, for example.
from Superman: Futures End #1 (script by Dan Jurgens, art by Lee Weeks)

The best stories, I found, drew on nothing more than the basic premises of their characters, meaning that I could be oriented without much effort. For example, the Phantom Stranger tale didn't really depend on me knowing anything particular to the New 52 version of the Phantom Stranger-- it worked as a standalone final Phantom Stranger story, as the Stranger (who you may know better as Judas Iscariot) is called up for judgement a second time, but the jury is made up of the worst demons Hell has to offer. I enjoyed its spooky, weird, mythical tone, even though the last Phantom Stranger stories I read were from his Action Comics Weekly feature back in the 1980s.

Faster than a DC Bullet: Project Crisis!, Part XLVI: Final Crisis: Revelations

Comic hardcover, n.pag.
Published 2009 (contents: 2008-09) 
Borrowed from the library
Read June 2015

Final Crisis: Revelations

Writer: Greg Rucka

Penciller: Philip Tan
Inkers: Jonathan Glapion, Jeff de los Santos, Walden Wong
Colorists: Ian Hannin, Nei Ruffino
Letterer: John J. Hill
Illustration: Steve Lieber

The decision, during Infinite Crisis and 52, to take two of DC's best nonsuperhuman characters, Gotham cops Renee Montoya and Crispus Allen, and transform them into superheroes of sorts is one I have sort of a mixed reaction to. I did really like the Question coaching Renee to move beyond her anger and eventually step into her place, and I felt that Allen as the Spectre had some potential as well. Revelations brings back both characters, along with Kate Kane as Batwoman (also introduced in 52), showing what they get up to involving the Crime Bible during the Final Crisis. What the story does is confirm that really, these characters should have stayed as they were in Gotham Central. Rucka and Tan do their best, but this is generic comic-mystical gubbins; Montoya and Allen were much better served as ordinary cops navigating an extraordinary world than they are being extraordinary characters. There are flashes of interest in Revelations, but much of it seems to be Rucka doing damage control (Allen's son was killed in a previous Spectre series not written by Rucka, and Rucka brings him back here), and too much of it focuses on the potentially-interesting-but-usually-not Religion of Crime.

Next Week: What are the old enemies of the Flash doing during Final Crisis? Yes, I wasn't really wondering either, but let's find out in Rogues' Revenge!