Faster than a DC Bullet: Project Crisis!, Part LXXII: Convergence: Flashpoint, Book 1

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

Convergence: Flashpoint, Book 1

Writers: Dan Jurgens, Greg Rucka, Frank Tieri, Alisa Kwitney, and Gail Simone

Art: Lee Weeks, Dan Jurgens & Norm Rapmund, Cully Hamner, Vicente Cifuentes, Rick Leonardi & Mark Pennington, and Jan Duursema & Dan Parsons
Colorists: Brad Anderson, Dave McCaig, Monica Kubina, Steve Buccellato, and Wes Dzioba
Lettering: Sal Cipriano, Tom Napolitano, Corey Breen, Nick J. Napolitano, Dezi Sienty, and Carlos M. Mangual

The Flashpoint volumes of Convergence strike me as distinct from the earlier ones. Almost all of the characters in the Crisis, Infinite Earths, and Zero Hour volumes continued to exist after the points where they were plucked from for these tales: the Earth-One Legion had many more adventures, so did the Justice Society, so did Aquaman and Kyle Rayner. Those stories mostly revisited old status quos that the characters had moved on from. But Convergence: Flashpoint picks its characters from around the time of Flashpoint: this is, from around the time they ceased to exist. After Flashpoint, the Superman we'd been following in DC Comics since 1985 was gone, so was Renee Montoya, so was Stephanie Brown, so was Nightwing and Oracle. DC brought them back in different forms, but these characters just stopped, without endings.

So Convergence: Flashpoint is different, in that many of its stories seek to give closure to characters whose stories never received it. How did Clark Kent's marriage to Lois Lane turn out? Did Barbara Gordon and Dick Grayson get over there will-they-won't-they thing? How did Stephanie Brown's tenure as Batgirl go? What ever came of Renee's weird relationship with Harvey Dent, the man who had outed her?

All of these questions (with the added complication that the characters spent a year in a domed Gotham) are answered in Convergence: Flashpoint. Unlike with some volumes of Convergence, these are character versions I'm familiar with: I know the post-Crisis, married Superman; I know Nightwing and Oracle from reading all of Birds of Prey; I know Renee Montoya from Gotham Central and 52. So these stories carried a lot more weight than the ones in, say, Infinite Earths or Zero Hour. Plus, in many cases, the writers in this volume worked on these characters themselves. Dan Jurgens wrote and drew the post-Crisis Superman a lot in the 1990s, Greg Rucka didn't create Renee but he may as well have, and Gail Simone defined Oracle in what's still the best Birds of Prey run.

All of this is to say that as exercises in nostalgia and loose ends, these stories mostly worked for me. The Superman tale, where Lois ends up giving birth to a super-baby, is a heartwarming one of how Superman stands for light against darkness. I liked that Rucka used the Convergence framework to have "our" Harvey Dent confront a version of himself who never became Two-Face in a city-to-city fight unlike any other in the series so far. I actually haven't read a lot of Stephanie Brown Batgirl stories, but this seemed a fitting and cute way of tying up her adventures, with her finally finding an identity of her own. And though I never was a Babs/Dick shipper, letting them both get married and be badasses one last time is a nice final story. There's some great art, too; both Lee Weeks and the Dan Jurgens/Norm Rapmund team draw a stunningly heroic Superman; and I was delighted to see Jan Duursema (who I know from decades of Star Wars comics for Dark Horse) doing her thing in the DC universe.

The book's not perfect. I've complained before that the rules for city battles are different in each story, and the ones in the Stephanie Brown story are in particular difficult to reconcile with other volumes-- Stephanie finds out she's Gotham's champion from watching tv (did Telos send them a news bulletin?) among other weirdnesses, and in the Nightwing/Oracle story, Telos has enforcer robots that appear in none other of the thirty-five Convergence battles I've read thus far. Also, I've never read the pre-Flashpoint Justice League, but Frank Tieri's take on it doesn't make me want to. They're obnoxious "strong female character" types, and they don't exactly acquit themselves well here.

The title has a double meaning. These are the versions of the characters from the time of Flashpoint, but in all of the stories, they're fighting Gotham from the "Flashpoint" universe. This actually worked surprisingly well, especially in the first story, where Jurgens extracts some pathos from having the Flashpoint Kal-El ("Subject One") meet the Earth-Zero Lois Lane, and having the Flashpoint Thomas Wayne (who realizes these characters come from the same world as the Flash he met) get to talk to Superman about the kind of man his son became. Wayne's sadness that his universe didn't vanish in a flash is a nice touch.

Next Week: Nothing! This feature goes on temporary hiatus as I transition between states and jobs. Once I get reliable access to an interlibrary loan service again, though, things will pick back up with Convergence: Flashpoint, Book 2 on some future Wednesday. I had hoped to get through all of Convergence before the hiatus, but it was not to be.

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 LXX: Convergence: Zero Hour, Book 1

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

Convergence: Zero Hour, Book 1

Writers: Justin Gray, Christy Marx, Ron Marz, Frank Tieri, and Fabian Nicieza

Art: Ron Randall, Rags Morales & Claude St-Aubin, Mike Manley & Joe Rubinstein/Bret Blevins, Tom Mandrake, and Karl Moline & Jose Marzan Jr.
Color: Gabe Eltaeb, Nei Ruffino and Sian Mandrake
Letters: Pat Brosseau, Travis Lanham, Tom Napolitano, and Dave Sharpe

The very concept of Convergence is pretty goofy and not in a good way. Why bring these characters back but distort them by having them live in isolated cities for a year? Surely there must have been a more elegant option available. It doesn't help that no one seems to have told the writers of the tie-ins whether there were any rules for how the city battles worked: some characters are sent into each other's cities by Telos, others fly over on their own volition, some combats begin as soon as the domes go down, others have time to prepare, and this volume introduces (in just one story) the idea that the combats take place on a neutral ground.

Not pictured: some very cheesecake-y Jim Balent stylings.
from Convergence: Catwoman #2 (script by Justin Gray, art by Ron Randall)

Still, the best Convergence stories manage to do something worthwhile with the concept, usually by having some kind of emotional substrate to the battle being told. I don't think Zero Hour, Book 1 contains the best Convergence stories thus far, but it is one of the most consistent books, perhaps because the 1990s had characters with more emotional complexity than the 1970s/80s ones featured in earlier volumes. All five stories collected here cover characters from Metropolis around the time of the Zero Hour, though I'm not sure if from before or after the event itself, fighting the characters of Kingdom Come (published just two years after Zero Hour, so nice and era-appropriate).

Faster than a DC Bullet: Project Crisis!, Part LXIX: Convergence: Infinite Earths, Book 2

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

Convergence: Infinite Earths, Book 2

Writing by Jeff Parker, Scott Lobdell, Dan Jurgens, Brian Buccellato, and Simon Oliver

Art by Evan "Doc" Shaner, Yishan Li, Alvaro Martinez & Raul Fernandez, Phil Winslade, and John McCrea
Colors by Jordie Bellaire, Dave McCaig, Chris Sotomayor, Lovern Kindzierski, and John Kalisz
Letters by Saida Temofonte, Corey Breen, and Rob Leigh

This is the last of the Convergence books where the heroes comes from the era of Crisis on Infinite Earths. The previous books covered Earth-1 and Earth-2; this one gives us a wide range of multiple Earths, with the heroes (and villains) of Earth-3, Earth-4, Earth-S, and Earth-X(2). Plus it contains a story about the Booster Golds of both the pre- and post-Flashpoint Earth-0.

Who doesn't like superheroes who like being superheroes?
from Convergence: Shazam! #2 (script by Jeff Parker, art by Evan "Doc" Shaner)

Like all of these Convergence volumes, some are better than others. The very best, though-- and perhaps the best of all the Convergence tales I've read so far-- is the cover story, about the Marvel Family of Earth-S. It's somewhat interesting that early 2015 saw DC publish two different Captain Marvel stories in multiversal events, and in cases of both The Multiversity and Convergence, the Captain Marvel story was hailed as one of the very best ones. Like Grant Morrison's Captain Marvel story, Jeff Parker and Evan "Doc" Shaner's is a total delight, with tons of goofy concepts given a good light. Unlike some of DC's attempts to work with Captain Marvel, these tales embrace it for what it is, and are all the better for it. Shaner's art is amazing, Jordie Bellaire's coloring is beautiful, and the plot twists are excellent (I loved the reveal of who was behind it all). Plus, who could fail to like the Marvel Family versus a flotilla of steampunk air-ships? If DC had any sense, they'd have put Parker and Shaner on an Earth-5/Thunderworld ongoing series featuring the Captain Marvel characters. I know they are working on Future Quest together now, and I'm sure it's good, but it can't be as good as that would be.

Someday I'll read the Booster Gold series that leads up to this and actually know what is being referred to by the pre-Flashpoint Booster.
from Convergence: Booster Gold #1 (script by Dan Jurgens, art by Alvaro Martinez & Raul Fernandez)

The best of the rest is the Booster Gold story, which shows some of what the pre-Flashpoint Booster Gold has been up to since the events of The World of Flashpoint and Futures End, and has him meeting the New 52 Booster Gold, who hasn't come as far character-wise as his counterpart. I enjoyed this story a lot even if I didn't understand it; more Booster Gold is always a good thing, especially when you build in some tender Ted Kord moments. Does the story of Booster Gold go on anywhere from here, though?

Ted knows how to prioritize.
from Convergence: Blue Beetle #2 (script by Scott Lobdell, art by Yishan Li)

The other stories are meh, not really doing enough to make you care about them, even if you're predisposed to like the characters, as I am with the Earth-4 Blue Beetle (not to be confused with the Zero Hour-era Earth-1 Blue Beetle who appears in the Booster Gold story, and in the next volume too).

Next Week: The Justice League International, Catwoman, Superboy, Green Arrow and Green Arrow, and the Suicide Squad battle for their lives in Convergence: Zero Hour, Book 1!

Faster than a DC Bullet: Project Crisis!, Part LXVIII: Convergence: Infinite Earths, Book 1

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

Convergence: Infinite Earths, Book 1

Writers: Justin Gray, Len Wein, Dan Abnett, Jerry Ordway, and Paul Levitz

Art: Claude St-Aubin & Sean Parsons, Denys Cowan & Bill Sienkiewicz, Tom Derenick & Trevor Scott, Ben Caldwell, June Brigman & Ron Richardson, Jim Fern/Roy Wagner & Joe Rubinstein/Wayne Faucher/José Marzán Jr., and Shannon Wheeler
Color: Lovern Kindzierski, Chris Sotomayor & Felix Serrano, Monica Kubina, Veronica Gandini, and Paul Mounts
Lettering: Steve Wands, Travis Lanham, Dave Sharpe, Rob Leigh, and Tom Napolitno

I'm assuming that what divides the "Crisis" volumes of Convergence from the "Infinite Earths" volumes is that though the characters in all the "Crisis" volumes are plucked from Earth-1, they come from the other pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths Earths in the "Infinite Earths" volumes. All five stories in this volume are about characters from Earth-2, as the Earth-2 Metropolis was one of the cities scooped up by Telos for his series of battles outside time and space. Power Girl, Robin, and the Huntress represent Earth-2 Metropolis against Moscow from Red Son, the Justice Society of America and the Seven Soldiers of Victory fight the Weaponers of Qward (the first alien planet we've seen on Telos... and not just an alien planet, as Qward was in the antimatter universe pre-Crisis), and Infinity Inc. fights, um, Jonah Hex but he's from the future and has a flying saucer for some reason.

Hippolyta Hall: always badass.
from Convergence: Infinity Inc. #1 (script by Jerry Ordway, art by Ben Caldwell)

The mechanics and rules of Telos's tournament are still vague and inconsistent, and the set-up of Convergence itself is contrived. Like in the previous volume, Len Wein tries to explain why the characters in his story are in a particular city, but he doesn't do so well: Robin and the Huntress are summoned to a JSA meeting in Metropolis to deal with the red skies of the Crisis, but as they point out, JSA HQ is actually located in New York City! No one in the story explains why the JSA HQ is suddenly in Metropolis, and I'm not sure things are better for flagging it up. The whole book probably could have just used Earth-2 New York, actually, and it would have been less awkward. (Wikipedia informs me Infinity Inc. was based in Los Angeles, so it makes as much sense for them to be in any of these cities. Their story doesn't explain why they're not in LA.)

Actually, let's talk about Wein's story, because his having characters comment on things is out in full force here: the Huntress spends the whole story advocating violence against the Red Son Superman while Robin takes a more diplomatic tack, and then at the end, she's like, "Geeze, I don't know I was so violent. I'm not like that." So why did Wein write it that way to begin with? It actually didn't seem particularly over-the-top to me, so I feel like the story would have got away with it if Wein hadn't lampshaded it. At least there's some nice, moody Denys Cowan and Bill Sienkiewicz art, which is always a treat, and well-suited to the Red Son Moscow scenes especially.

Aw, Communist Dictator Superman is so misunderstood.
from Convergence: Detective Comics #1 (script by Len Wein, art by Denys Cowan & Bill Sienkiewicz)

This was a so-so volume on the whole, with the Power Girl and Infinity Inc. stories being pretty meh, and the Seven Soldiers of Victory one being flagrantly uninteresting. I did really like the Justice Society of America story, though; it was actually kind of touching to see these oldsters go into battle one last time, knowing it could be the last, and then walk off into the sunset at the end. I haven't read very much JSA stuff, but I always enjoy it when I do-- that sense of legacy is one of the best parts of DC, and in this legacy-free "New 52" era, Convergence allows for a little touch of it once again.

Why doesn't DC bring back the proper JSA, anyway?
from Convergence: Justice Society of America #2 (script by Dan Abnett, art by Tom Derenick & Trevor Scott)

Next Week: Captain Marvel, the Blue Beetle, the Crime Syndicate, Booster Gold, and the Freedom Fighters battle for their lives in Convergence: Infinite Earths, Book 2!

Faster than a DC Bullet: Project Crisis!, Part LXVII: Convergence: Crisis, Book 2

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

Convergence: Crisis, Book 2

Writers: Larry Hama, Len Wein, Fabian Nicieza, Marv Wolfman, and Dan Abnett

Art: Joshua Middleton, Aaron Lopresti & Matt Banning, Kelley Jones, ChrisCross, Nicola Scott & Marc Deering, and Federico Dallocchio
Color: Joshua Middleton, Tanya & Richard Horie, Michelle Madsen, Jeromy Cox, and Veronica Gandini
Lettering: Sal Cipriano, Tom Napolitano, Rob Leigh, and Carlos M. Mangual

This volume of Convergence mostly concerns more pre-Crisis Earth-1 heroes, none of them being characters I particularly care about. Well, with the exception of the greatest DC character of them all, Elongated Man.

The continuity doesn't always add up, and I suspect that the format for Convergence sometimes works against the ideas here. For example, the Wonder Woman of this era was (as far as I know) pretty undistinctive; my guess is that they wanted the 1968-73 powerless version of the character, but since all these characters come from the time of the Crisis on Infinite Earths, that version of the character was long gone and can only be approximated. It does seem a bit contrived that there's a point where all the characters from the first two volumes of this series would be chilling in Gotham. Most of the writers don't even bother to explain it, but when Len Wein does explain it in the Swamp Thing story, it's even more out of place, because he explains that Swamp Thing came to Gotham to ask Batman about the mysterious red skies, meaning these characters weren't just plucked out of time near the original Crisis, but during it-- yet no one other than Swamp Thing brings this up. There are also a lot of differences on how the interurban conflicts start; in some stories people are told who to fight, in some they are teleported to the fight, and in some they just fly to another city and start breaking stuff. For a series that's by design only going to appeal to continuity nerds, there's a weird lack of continuity.

Hang on, does this mean all the cities are going to get put back? Otherwise how could these characters go on to participate in Crisis on Infinite Earths?
from Convergence: Swamp Thing #1 (script by Len Wein, art by Kelley Jones)

Also isn't it kind of weird that in nine stories about something bad happening to Gotham, Batman never does anything of significance? The most he gets up to is having a lunch date with the Flash.

No one draws pretty people (of either gender) quite like Nicola Scott.
from Convergence: New Teen Titans #1 (script by Marv Wolfman, art by Nicola Scott & Marc Deering)

Nothing here is as good as the Legion or Green Lantern stories from book 1. Kelley Jones on Swamp Thing is of course a match made in heaven, and the return of Len Wein to the character he originated is nice too, but the story itself (Swamp Thing vs. vampires) is merely okay. If I had any nostalgia for the New Teen Titans, I'm sure it'd be nice to see Marv Wolfman write for them one last time, but I don't, and so it's not, though Nicola Scott's heroic stylings are a good artistic fit for Wolfman's classic scripting. I feel like she hasn't been up to much post-Birds of Prey, so it's good to see her here. I did like how Dan Abnett wrong-footed me in the Flash story with a seeming anachronistic reference by Barry Allen to the Speed Force.

Maybe the reason this story didn't do it for me is the creepy facial expressions.
from Convergence: Justice League of America #1 (script by Fabian Nicieza, art by ChrisCross)

I wanted to be more excited by the Justice League Detroit tale. Ralph and Sue Dibny have been favorite characters of mine ever since Justice League Europe, but this is only an okay showing for them-- probably because Fabian Nicieza is an okay writer on his best days. There's nothing wrong with it, and it tries to have heart concerning a Justice League team for whom very few people are nostalgic, but this story ultimately didn't do much for me, leaning a little bit too hard on the perception that this version of the League was made up of losers. Just tell a good tale about them, don't tell a story about how you're telling a good tale about them, it comes across as defensive and undermines your point.

Next Week: Power Girl, the Huntress, the Justice Society of America, Infinity Inc., and the Seven Soldiers of Victory battle for their lives in Convergence: Infinite Earths, Book 1!

Faster than a DC Bullet: Project Crisis!, Part LXVI: Convergence: Crisis, Book 1

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

Convergence: Crisis, Book 1

Writers: Stuart Moore, David Gallaher, Marc Andreyko, Marv Wolfman, and Jeff Parker

Art: Gus Storms/Peter Gross & Mark Farmer, Steve Ellis & Ande Parks, Carlos D'Anda, Roberto Viacava & Andy Owens, and Tim Truman & Enrique Alcatena
Colors: John Rauch, Gabe Eltaeb, and Jon Kalisz
Letters: Pat Brosseau, Dave Sharpe, Steve Wands, and Rob Leigh

The basic premise of Convergence is that some as-yet-unknown foe has plucked cities out of time from all across the multiverse. Not out of the multiverse just explicated by Grant Morrison in The Multiversity, but from the continuities of bygone days. The series thus becomes a way to visit characters and premises that don't fit even within Morrison's meticulously mapped multiverse of 52 Earths. I actually picked up some of these stories in single issues as they came out: ones I had particular affection for, like the Legion of Super-Heroes, the Connor Hawke Green Arrow, the Justice League International, Oracle, the Renee Montoya Question, and the Ted Kord Blue Beetle.

Yes it did mean something. Just let it go, Marv!
from Convergence: Adventures of Superman #1 (script by Marv Wolfman, art by Roberto Viacava & Andy Owens)

This volume, for example, features characters from shortly before Crisis on Infinite Earths trapped in two different cities: the Giffen/Levitz-era Legion of Super-Heroes are in 30th-century Metropolis, while three different Green Lanterns, Batman and the Outsiders, Superman and Supergirl, and Hawkman and Hawkgirl are all trapped in Gotham. The stories are somewhat formulaic: the first issue establishes what the status quo has been beneath the dome (usually it has made folks mopey), then the dome comes down and the heroes have to fight it out with the denizens of another city, only one of which can survive. As a result, some of these tales prove forgettable-- I don't give a shit about the Outsiders or the Hawks, and the Superman/Supergirl story is only interesting as yet another attempt by Marv Wolfman to atone for the sins of Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Was this building on a preexisting ship, or was this original to Convergence?
from Convergence: Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #1 (script by Stuart Moore, art by Gus Storms & Mark Farmer)

But the best writers really make something of this. Like I said, I'd bought the Legion tale here, so it was a reread, but I was still surprised by how much I liked it. It starts a little on the mopey side, but as the Legion is forced into a battle with the Atomic Knights, from DC's postapocalyptic setting of the Great Disaster, there's a nice little affirmation of both groups' commitments to peace, and how difficult that can be in trying circumstances, yet it is no less important. Brainiac 5 gets some good jokes, and I like how the story discusses the transition of Superboy to Superman. The only thing to not like is that the artwork, especially that in the first issue by Gus Storms and Mark Farmer, is jarringly unlike the actual art of the era this story is replicating, too light and airy.

The ideal Guy Gardner story: ridiculous and fun. As opposed to most 1990s Guy Gardner stories, ridiculous and dumb.
from Convergence: Green Lantern Corps #2 (script by David Gallaher, art by Steve Ellis & Ande Parks)

The other story I really liked was the Green Lantern one, which focuses on Guy Gardner, but also co-stars Hal Jordan and John Stewart. When Gotham was plucked out of time, Guy was in a coma; he woke up, but powerless like all the other residents of the dome-- and discovered that while he was asleep, Hal had tried to marry his fiancée! Guy is often a joke character, but Dave Gallaher and Steve Ellis take him completely seriously here, which makes him all the more awesome. He's a hothead, but that's because he's raging at the rough hand life has dealt him: here we see his nurturing side (he's working in athletics at an elementary school) and his attempts to heal (he's visiting Leslie Thompkins for regular therapy sessions). Sometimes he's too impulsive for his own good, but he means well, and all three Lanterns overcome their differences here to save the city from a dangerous adversary. It's a fun, well-executed comic that pays unexpected dividends of enjoyment and depth.

Next Week: Wonder Woman, Swamp Thing, the Flash, the New Teen Titans, and Justice League Detroit battle for their lives in Convergence: Crisis, Book 2!