Convergence: Infinity Inc. #1

I remember this issue!

About three in the morning, my downstairs neighbors began arguing with each other. Apparently the guy tried to slip his dick into her ass while they were fucking and she wasn't having any of it. At first I thought it was just my view of the world that made me interpret what I was hearing as an argument about buttsecks but then she said a few things that confirmed it like "It hurts!" and "You don't get it. You put your body inside of my body!" and "I have never had anything up there! I should know! It's my body!" and, most particularly, "Don't stick it in my ass!" His voice was just a deep rumble so I couldn't hear him but it seems like he was trying to convince her to go with it and then thought maybe the way to get her to say yes was to point out how other guys have fucked her in the ass which, according to her vehement reaction, wasn't true. At one point I thought I might have to either throw on some pants and go down to make sure she was okay or call the cops but she never sounded frightened just thoroughly pissed off at him. It was when I could finally hear him say, "You're my girlfriend! I'm not trying to rape you! I could go to jail!" (because that, of course, is the only reason not to rape, amirite?!) that I realized I might actually have to get involved. But she, still sounding firmly in control, loudly and forcefully told him to get out of her apartment three or four times after each of his mumbles. Then the door slammed and that was it. I'm sure they've already called each other this morning and made up. They yell at each other a lot between bouts of sex. Seems like a fun couple!

Seems to me that if you ever have to convince your partner that you're not trying to rape them, you're probably an asshole.

The issue begins with some people watching a performance of The Tempest. Why does it always seem to be that play which writers choose to use in their stories? It's probably the play I'm least familiar with. Although this time I get it! The players are transported to and trapped on a crazy island! Just like the characters in Earth-2 Metropolis have been trapped under a dome! And some guy named Caliban is important for some reason or other!

Oh! And if I didn't get it, the Silver Scarab points it out for me! Thanks, Hector!

The entire team has gathered to watch Jade's performance as Miranda. That's heavy handed as well because, you see, Miranda is a daughter and Jade is also a daughter! I don't know if I can remember the names of all of the Infinity Inc kids. I remember Sylvester Pemberton as the Star Spangled Kid and Starman's kid. And Hector Hall as the Silver Scarab and Hawkman's kid. And Hippolyta Hall (unless she wasn't married to Hector yet) as Fury and Wonder Woman's kid. And Todd Rice as Obsidian and Green Lantern's kid. And Jade Scott (except her first name was something else (and also her last name!)) as Jade and Obsidian's twin. And Big Lunk as Nuklon and The Atom's kid. And I can't remember Northwind's name at all or whose kid he was! I also may have gotten some of that information wrong. I never owned any Infinity Inc books. I just read my cousin's copies.

Todd has brought a "friend" along because remember how gay he turned out to be?! I don't think he came out until after Infinity Inc was cancelled, right? So they're playing the "just a friend" scene backstage to show how the whole team knew he was gay already anyway.

After the play, Jade heads off to find Brainwave Junior who missed her play. He lives in a rough part of town because he's a drunk. I guess he couldn't handle losing his powers. Unless he was a drunk before because he couldn't handle having his powers. Unless he was just a drunk because he liked drinking so much. Since it's a rough neighborhood, she's followed by a couple of thugs that took up thugging because they're nice guys that women never noticed because women don't realize that when somebody is nice and thoughtful, they deserve sex.

I don't understand how being nice is supposed to get you laid anyway! Isn't being sexy what gets you laid?! You know what also helps? Being confident and useful and independent! If you like somebody and you can't get their sexual attention by being nice to them, you should rescue some children from a burning building. They'll be all, "Let me take your pants off for you so I can put my mouth against your thingy!" But when you're nice to them, they just say, "Thank you! How sweet and kind you are!" See how my hypothetical situation involving being nice didn't result in getting laid? How could I have written that unless it isn't true? If you want sex, be sexy and confident. If you want romance, show yourself to be useful and independent. If you want to be an angry nice guy, keep playing Magic the Gathering and living with your parents.

Don't get mad at me for the Magic the Gathering comment! I play Magic the Gathering and I've had sex close to five times! But that's because I don't live with my parents. See how that works?

I call these guys thugs. It's funny but until all the recent hubbub about the word "thug", I only ever thought of the word in the context of comic book henchmen and black and white fifties crime movies. But it's totally used as a racist term now. If you're not talking about comic books, of course.

The word thug is a good example of how I've pointed out that the word "retard" will eventually be put to rest but the next polite term which we use for mentally handicapped people (I don't currently know what that is!) will just replace retard as a slur and we'll just have to think up a new one. It isn't that the word retard has any inherent negative connotations to it. It's just that mentally handicapped people were called mentally retarded because their mental growth was retarded for one reason or another. And since we called mentally handicapped people mentally retarded because that was the decided upon term, people began calling other people who weren't mentally handicapped "retarded" as an insult. So no matter what we call mentally handicapped people, some people will turn that term into an insult and we'll be back to square one. That's what thug has become. It absolutely, in certain circles, has become the new way to say nigger. Which is really fucking weird if you're a comic book fan because we all know thugs are the guys Batman beats up without any trouble on his way to get the leader. Are my thug Heroclix going to be deemed racist now?

Jade beats up the blond thug and tells his friend Choochie to take him home before the Citizen's Patrol picks them up. Jade's a fucking narc, man. She's probably going to take her drunk and unconscious friend Henry to an intervention now.

Oh yeah! It was Hippolyta Trevor! And then I think she hyphenated after the marriage?

The rest of the team are going about their daily lives when Telos breaks in with a special announcement. Infinity Inc gets to fight!

Because of this whole doming thing, does that mean Hippolyta and Hector's son Daniel will never be born and will never become the next Dream of The Endless?!

Apparently the team got a note that they would be heading to Hex's city to battle the Dogs of War. Since Hex comes from a weird post-apocalyptic future, they might be real dogs. The team hops in their spaceship and heads out to battle.

Sorry you guys drew this lot, Infinity. I'm going to have to side with Hex on this one.

Hex and Sylvester trade a couple of lines before Hex's pal Centurion screams, "Centurion shall draw first blood!" He then shoots some blasts out of his hands. Turning the page, the next panel has Hex explaining what happened. He says, "Well, Roman--ya blasted their ship ta pieces, and took out the fancy-pants with one shot." I guess Jerry and Ben (you might be thinking Ice Cream right now but I'm thinking Twin Peaks) ran out of room while scripting and drawing the comic book! I bet there was supposed to be a page with the blast hitting the ship and ship exploding and crashing into the ground. Or it was always meant to be this idiotic.

And that's pretty much how it ends. Infinity has once again found themselves in a shitty situation. At least this time it doesn't involve a bunch of tangled relationships and junior high school drama. It just involves possibly being killed in a plane crash. Next issue, Jonah Hex will probably shoot and kill them all.

Convergence: Infinity Inc #1 Rating: This issue, more than most of the others, has made me realize exactly what is wrong with Convergence. One twenty-two page issue isn't enough space to revisit Infinity Inc. It really isn't enough space to revisit any of these old characters which is one of the main problems with this Convergence deal. With all the space that's wasted with the Multiversal Thunderdome plot, and the characters having to talk about life under the dome, readers don't really get much time to reacquaint themselves with their old friends. I really appreciate the books that have spent most of the first issue trying to tell a story that avoids the dome and the Convergence as much as possible. The first few pages of this book captured a bit of that drama I expect from Infinity. Too bad that stuff didn't fill the book.