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.

Convergence: Speed Force #1

I'd better not criticize this cover because I don't want Brett Booth telling me the proper way to critique something.

I never let shit go. I'm like a whiny pit bull. Maturity is when you can simply let aggravating things go because you realize the excitement of life doesn't come from drama. I don't know where it comes from but I'm pretty sure that if I were mature, I'd know it didn't come from drama. Being that I'm not mature, I tend to whinge on and on about things people did that slightly annoyed me one time and had no real impact on my life. So fuck you, Brett Booth, for being such a whiny bastard when it came to comic book fans criticizing your friend's Teen Titans cover! And now that I've said something negative, I guess I have to say something positive to make this a "real" critique. Um, your semen has a nice, tangy aftertaste that pairs well with Mountain Dew.

Looking at this cover (whoops, here I go! Creating drama!), I've figured out the limit of The Flash's speed! The faster he goes, the more he has to lean over as he runs. So the limit of his speed is when he's going so fast that he's basically sliding on his belly. And then that probably slows him down. So the fastest he can run is when his chin is nearly scraping the sidewalk.

I wish this issue were about Post-Crisis Barry Allen! Then the cover would look like this:

But it's not. This is about Wally West. The old white one not the new black one. The funny one! Not the disgruntled youth one! The one everybody loved and not the one nobody asked for.

Wally West has dragged his two kids, Jai and Iris, to Gotham to check out a "Chronal Disturbance." When he gets there, he has the feeling that this "chronal disturbance" was created by Barry Allen. Well duh! Doesn't Barry have a history of creating all of the chronal disturbances? It's the reason DC Comics killed him off in Crisis on Infinite Earths. The powers that be at DC Comics, having little imagination and constantly being upset about how they could never make perfect, logical sense of their universe, figured that if they were going to "fix" their universe by turning it into one, single universe then Barry Allen was going to have to go. And once he was dead, no writer would ever be able to create another alternate world, right? I mean, sure, they didn't kill off Wally West and he had the same powers as Barry Allen and what writer can resist an alternate reality story, right? But who would want to stab the hand that feeds them in the back by undoing the events of Crisis, right? Probably all the writers writing really although I don't know who wrote the first post-crisis story that relied on an alternate timeline or an alternate Earth. If The New 52 is any judge, it was probably quite soon after and done not by a clever writer with an interesting meta-textual story but by a crap writer with shit editors that had no idea what they were doing.

Get it? It's a sign that would never actually exist but it's funny because The Flash is going to ignore both! Also, the word "welcome" is not going to fit on that sign.

One year later, Wally is busy trying to hack through the dome with a pick axe. Some civilians wandering around the edge of the dome because they're probably looting old cars caught in the wall when the dome came down recognize him and note how crazy he's become. Speaking of the cars halfway stuck in the dome...that's kind of a nightmare story to just casually be presented in the background of a panel! Imagine being a person in the half of the car that remained while your friends or family in the other half just suddenly disappear forever.

Wally feels guilty for bringing his kids to Gotham because now they've been separated from their mother for a year. He's depressed and his kids are sad and what the fuck is wrong with this story? I thought Wally West stories were supposed to be upbeat and fun! This Wally West is depressing the shit out of me. I'm starting to wonder if I have any razors in the bathroom. Judging by the length of my scary beard, I'm going to guess I don't.

And then Planet Brainiac gives his speech about Multiversal Fight Club. I got tired of saying Thunderdome.

Great. A Flash not playing by the rules? You know what that means! New universal crisis! And right in the middle of a universal crisis! What are the odds?

Flash makes it to El Inferno just in time to see it all whither to dust and blow away in the wind. And not just the buildings! He watches people disintegrate right before his eyes! Oh, DC Comics! You just love to kill your old stories, don't you? "We already made money on them! They don't exist anymore! You fans! Stop thinking they exist! We tell you how to read our stories, okay?! Just be grateful we're going to bring back Pre-Flashpoint Gotham because you all whined so much! Fuckers. How dare you force our hands! Well, we'll show you! Unlike all of our Past Crises, this time we're now going to permanently permanently kill characters you love! For real this time! We mean it! Whoever fails is gone forever! Suck it!"

Wally thinks about his kids and they're suddenly sucked back into his Speed Force wake. Now the three of them take a quick tour around Telos trying to find their Gotham so Wally can beat the succulent piss out of Flashpoint Wonder Woman. They pass through Bizarro Metropolis (where the Bizarros probably don't quite understand the rules. They're standing around saying, "Me am not going to fight!" And Telos is all, "You have to fight!" And Bizarro is all, "Me not understand! Me not fight now!" And Telos is all, "I will destroy your city!" And Bizarro is all, "Me let you destroy city!" And Telos is all, "Yeah. Um. Okay. Um. What the fuck is going on?"), and then they zip by The Freedom Fighters' world as they battle Future End cyborgs, and then they pass through either Rann or Krypton and then Thanagar and then Follywood. As they zoom through Captain Carrot's world, Fastback notices them and follows after. So I guess Wally won't have to worry about getting his ass handed to him by Diana. I guess he's going to get fucked up by a talking turtle.

The Flash finally reaches a Gotham City and turns to fight Fastback. But being a jovial cartoon animal that loves a happy ending (not that kind of happy ending, you perverts), he just wants to team up with The Flash. Which is probably a pretty good idea since they seem to have stopped in Flashpoint Gotham where Wonder Woman is waiting to destroy them.

Oh Wonder Woman. He's a Speedster! You've already lost!

If comics had any internal consistency (which they don't and I'm glad they don't! Stop being boring trying to make them! But we can speculate on a world with internal consistency like I'm going to do after I close this parenthetical reference), The Flash would never lose a fight. The Flash's fights would never be exciting. The Flash's fights would be over as soon as he realized he was about to get into one. Unless his opponent can move as fast as he can, the fight is already over. He'd never be beaten by lazy writing like "nothing is faster than the speed of thought!" or "The Flash can't outrace Doctor Light's light power!" because thoughts actually take time to think and using a light power doesn't happen at the speed of light. And for The Flash to even be able to react to his own super speed, he must think as fast as he moves. So his thoughts are faster than the speed of thought! And before Doctor Light can even activate his power or before a psychic can take over The Flash's mind, The Flash will have hit them in the head with a brick and murdered them. Or maybe something less drastic.

So next issue should be one page of battle as Fastback (who is a fast turtle! Get it?!) and The Flash and Jai and Iris strip Wonder Woman naked and tie her up and hang her from a lamp post and bash her brains out with a brick before she can even finish pulling her sword out of the scabbard.

Convergence: Speed Force #1 Rating: Even though Wally West wasn't funny (although he did pick up a turtle sidekick which is super funny, right?!), this may have been my favorite Convergence book so far. Probably because The Flash ran around seeing other realities. And because his first thought was "Fuck this competition." Plus he's teaming up with one of the Zoo Crew which means the pun level should really go through the roof next issue! If it doesn't, I'm going to send a note to Tony Bedard that just reads, "You failed."