Convergence: Speed Force #2

The person fucking Wally should be a turtle person but what do you think I am? Some kind of turtle person artist?

Here's a tip to young writers: begin wanting to be a writer younger! I used to think people that knew what they wanted to be when they were four years old were weirdo freaky-doos. But now that I'm 43, I realize that they just, somehow, got a gift of a head-start in life. Lucky bastards. It's not like at four years old some people are more organized than others. They just glommed onto something they really enjoyed for some reason. And it's entirely possible the adult them is just retconning what they thought as a child because it all worked out for them. How should I know since I never felt like I knew what I wanted to do?

Here were my favorite pastimes as a child: reading Choose Your Own Adventure books into a tape recorder while lounging in a paisley beanbag so I could read stories to myself before napping; staring for hours (and not because I was bored); throwing huge tantrums over the slightest inconvenience; Dungeons and Dragons; comic books; The Wizard of Oz books; old men; Scatman Crothers; sitting in my neighbor's Loquat tree and eating all of the fruit out of it while saving the pits to use as props with my Star Wars action figures; astronomy; cartoon tag; freeze tag; robot tag; any kind of tag; digging holes in my backyard; magnets; doing anything in the padded gymnastic room at the elementary school; having no more than three friends at one time; Button, Button, Who's Got the Button?; watching Benny Hill and Johnny Carson with my grandmother; watching Captain Cosmic; drinking milk; arcade games. I could probably go on and on for like two or three more sentences even but you get the idea. I was into certain things as a kid which makes me totally way more unique than a person who just claims they're the regular kind of unique.

The point is that nothing in that list was "want to be a writer like five years ago, dumb dumb." So how was I supposed to pursue writing when I didn't know pursuing careers was an adult thing to do?! Why didn't somebody sit me down and say, "Do things like this!" Oh wait. I think they tried to do that constantly except I had a love of throwing terrible tantrums any time anybody took me out of my comfort zone (my comfort zone being, mostly, the beanbag). So don't listen to stupid, nonsensical writing advice like "Finish things" and "Do stuff" and "Art it out, Motherfuckers." Listen to my advice and want to be a writer earlier than you realized you wanted to be a writer. It'll help a lot!

She's not listening, Wally! How can she concentrate with that ridiculous turtle standing behind you?!

Instead of disarming Wonder Woman and tying her up at super speed, Wally decides to convince Wonder Woman that fighting isn't the best idea. He really should just defeat her first and tell her fighting is wrong second. The Flash is the most powerful character in the DC Universe but he's limited by his lack of imagination. Can you imagine if Batman had super speed?! Wally can't. Lack of imagination, remember? I just typed it like the sentence before! You might have Alzheimer's which isn't a joke because Alzheimer's is nothing to laugh at. Especially if you have it because instead of laughing you'd just be all, "What?"

You mean "alternate times sake."

Here's another writing tip: you're not a writer if all you ever do is write about the stories you think you're eventually going to write. That's called trying to impress people with your lack of actually being a writer. Same goes for telling people your stories instead of actually sitting down and doing the work. At that point, you're just a slacker storyteller. I have nothing against slackers or storytellers because I don't hate myself. But if you want to put "Writer" on your business card, go ahead. Who's stopping you? Call yourself whatever you want! But if you want it to be true, you need to actually write. Otherwise your business card should just read, "Person Who Wants Other People To Think I'm A Writer."

Here's another writing tip: if you find writing hard, just give other people tips on how to write. It'll make you seem like you must be a writer or else why would you be giving out such stellar writing advice like "Use words" and "Try to invent a time machine so you can go back in time and steal Steinbeck's final draft of The Grapes of Wrath."

Wally tells Diana don't be a puppet. Diana says, "Okay! I won't be a puppet! Starting with you trying to make me your puppet but I'm already committed to being a puppet of that Telos guy. Sorry." And Fastback is all, "I have a beak! That's weird, right? That turtles have beaks? The world is crazy!"

The Flash tries to end the fight but finds out that Flashpoint Wonder Woman has the speed of Hermes. That means she's faster than The Flash which means he'd better pull some of that "You're not faster than the speed of thought!" lazy writing to defeat her. Wally doesn't even see her move as she grabs his arm and throws him to the ground while he's traveling at super speed. So remember how I said this comic book should be over in one page? I still stand by that! Except Wonder Woman should be the victorious character.

No wait. It turns out The Flash is slightly faster than Wonder Woman so this fight may as well be a fight between two people who move at regular speeds. While Wally and Diana battle, Fastback takes Flash's kids and heads back to Wally's Gotham to defend the city against an army of Amazons. See? That's clever writing. The turtle is made for defense and now Fastback is going to go defend!

The weirdest part of this story so far is that it contains no puns. What are you doing, Tony Bedard? This comic book has both Flash and a character from the Amazing Zoo Crew. It should be nothing but pun after pun!

Did nobody else think that the term "heroes in a half-shell" was just a terribly disturbing image of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?

What does growing big and strong have to do with the Speed Force? He may as well have the Speed Force power to remove a letter from another hero's name to transform them into something else! Superman would become the disquieting Sperman! Batman would become Batma! Other heroes would become other nonsensical words that would make the power useless!

Fastback fails at stopping the Amazons because the kids have got to be the heroes in this story. It just makes sense. Why are they here? What's the purpose of their being dragged around behind their dad in his Speed Force wake? Kids have to be portrayed as useful somehow! Fiction is the only way for parents to convince themselves that they didn't make a huge mistake bringing children into the world. They look at their disappointing progeny and think that after they've used the time machine to go back and kill Steinbeck, they'll use it to go back to when their children were conceived and slip a condom into the mix. But when the kids are out of sight and the parent is able to read fiction where children do something heroic, they can smile and rest comfortably in the lie that maybe their kids are capable of greatness as well.

Meanwhile in Diana's Gotham, The Flash has found himself tied up in the Golden Lasso of Truth.

Jesus Christ, will somebody just put a spear in him please?

This is one of the biggest failings in popular stories! Who writes these things and believes that the antagonist who has shown no compassion throughout the entire story will somehow be shamed by the words of the protagonist? Is Diana supposed to feel bad about her life now because Wally spoke "the truth"? Of course that's the truth...according to his sense of righteousness. The only way Diana takes his words to heart, slumps her shoulders, and says "You're right! I'm a monster!" is if she's been written incorrectly in all the pages before this. Now she'll break down weeping about how she let her love for Aquaman be twisted into callousness and mean-spirited chicanery! Then Flash's children will hug her and say, "You can be our new mommy!" And then Fastback will bite off her head while she's distracted.

In high school, I wrote a story about a nerdy, wimpy kid getting the chance to play baseball with the older kids that always bullied him. I set the scene just as you'd expect with the kid stepping up to the plate ready to prove himself to the other kids and to the world and to himself! He was going to be a hero of his own story! But it ends without the kid even having a chance because the bully's first pitch bashes him in the face, exactly where it was aimed. Stop believing the assholes in life are anything but assholes, Hollywood. You think shaming them at the end of an hour and a half story will make them realize what huge losers they are? Forget it! Most of those speeches like the one The Flash delivers in the previous panel should be interrupted halfway through by a fist to the face.

While Diana is distracted by Speed Force arrival of The Flash's kids, she's kicked in the head by The Flash. He then ties her up at superspeed and the fight is over about twenty pages after it should have been wrapped up. And The Flash somehow credits his kids as being his strength or something. Yeah, good luck superheroing without your super power but with a couple of brats in tow!

The Amazons retreat because Diana needs them to untie her and lick her wounds, especially the wound right on her sphincter. And maybe a little ways up into the sphincter, depending on how long the medic's tongue is.

The timequake happens and The Flash's daughter goes, "Hey! A thing!" And Fastback goes, "But kind of more than a thing!" And the Flash goes, "Yeah! It was almost like a time thing!" And then Flash's son goes, "But forget about that stuff since it'll be dealt with in the Convergence weekly, we have to deal with these Amazons!" He said that before they ran off to lick wounds!

The crowd cheers and they make sure to vocally appreciate the children as well because they're special and unique and deserve the love of everybody simply because they exist.

Convergence: Speed Force #2 Rating: This comic book never really grabbed my attention but then it never really ungrabbed my attention either. It wasn't awful but it wasn't exactly awe-inspiring either. So it rates 5 Speed Forces out of probably 10 because it was super average.

Divergence: Green Arrow
"Oliver Queen protects the streets of Seattle from forces both macabre and terrifying."

Is Green Arrow becoming a horror story as opposed to a horrible story? Will it finally be interesting?! Can somebody come up with a gimmick that will make a bow and arrow wielding hero interesting?!

I doubt it! Although a Green Arrow horror book? I'm up for it! Maybe, since the House of Secrets was in Seattle, he can use it as a headquarters! And he can be the bailiff in House of Secrets Court! He can be tasked with hauling in witnesses and coffee.

Dang it. Now that I've thought of that concept, I can't be anything but disappointed by the Divergence story.

Okay. I like how it begins.

I have this theory about Western Civilization (mostly white (or whitish, depending on how racist you are), mostly European) that I've written about in these commentaries before. Modernism and postmodernism are reactions to not just the loss of God but the loss of the Frontier. Throughout human history, humans have rarely affected actual change in the systems set in place by the powerful to control the poor and working class. So what did humans do? They escaped. They headed west. They constantly and continuously headed west. My favorite books are about people beat by the system whose only real choice is to escape the system: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Catch-22, The Grapes of Wrath, Pale Fire, House of Leaves (I think!). But once the Frontier was lost, where was there to escape to? New and inventive and, quite often, individual means of escape were needed. LSD. Communes. Apathy. Video games. Fantasy. Consumerism. Anything that could allow a person to feel they were in some kind of control while living within a system from which they could no longer escape. It was time to deconstruct that system, take it apart with words, dissect it until it no longer lives or functions properly.

So Green Arrow needs to escape. He needs to be taken apart. He needs to find a Frontier where he can begin over and forget about the past. Everything is rewritten on the Frontier. Nobody has to remember Krul or Nocenti. Alaska is Oliver's fresh start.

Jesus Christ. I'm actually tearing up. This was me at 25. Just replace the motorcycle with a VW Bus.

Holy shit. I finally feel connected to Green Arrow! I understand this Oliver! I understand the need to be nobody with no obligations to the people you've known and no obligations to the person you've been. You're brand new on the road but you're also finally, and wholly, yourself.

It's interesting (to me, if nobody else) that I mentioned House of Secrets earlier since that comic book (the 90s version with Rain as the main character) is the comic book I think about being linked to my time on the road.

Coupland called this the "mid-twenties breakdown." I also read just about everything written by Douglas Coupland in my twenties. If nothing else, it made me feel understood.

Oliver has come to a town in Alaska called Drown because that isn't too metaphorical and shit. He's going to have a pull of whisky from a keg containing a dead man. It's kind of the over-the-top comic book version of the Sourtoe Cocktail. He's heard it can grant enlightenment. But he's not actually there because of his belief in the drink's magic powers. He's there because American twenty-somethings need more than just a college degree and an apartment. They need a ritual to show them the path into adulthood. They need a fucking road map out of childhood.

Ollie crushes hard on the woman tending bar who is also the owner. He crushes in that way a person crushes when they meet a stranger during a moment in time that they've previously built up so largely in their mind that they can't not see fate and destiny at every moment. But she wanders off on break and is kidnapped by the clown that kills sheep. He's a trucker serial killer that Ollie is going to have to Green Arrow up for.

Saving the bar owner from the killer, Oliver realizes that he has never stopped being Green Arrow. On the road, he could put on a mask and forget about who he was. But in the end, he's drawn back to Seattle and his family and the life he left behind. In road parlance, we call that "losing."

Naw! Seriously though, Oliver seems to be one of those four year olds that always knew what he wanted. But now he's going back without any doubts. The road is good for clearing one's head. Family and the past and familiarity are all static that stops one from truly exploring one's own self. If nothing else, the road is a pretty good alternative to psychotherapy. And so Ollie goes back and, I'm hoping, he's going to be the guy I connected with in Divergence. I like this guy.