Fuck you, Zero Hour!
I've been heavily into reading comic books for thirty years. I began reading comics on a regular monthly basis right around Issue #3 or so of Crisis on Infinite Earths. Before that I had only read comic books that wound up in my hands due to my grandfather who would go to trailer parks in the area and pick up all of the papers to take to the recycling place. He also used to pick up any other recyclable materials like cans or metal. He was an environmentalist way before it was cool. Or a meth addict. Sometimes he would wind up with a shipping box or two of comic books and give them to me. I remember reading a lot of Daredevil, Hulk, and Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD! I also began reading Elfquest in fifth or sixth grade.
I mention my history because I thought Crisis on Infinite Earths was some spectacular, once-in-a-lifetime event. If I'd known anything about the previous fifty years of DC's history, I might have noted the change from Golden Age to Silver Age but that was just a change due to the popularity of certain types of comics leading to a waning of popularity of super heroes and then, years later, their resurgence. It wasn't a conscious effort by the company to redefine their heroes' universe. So Crisis seemed pretty fucking important.
I was immediately aware of the problems which Crisis created because my cousin Jason was a big Infinity Inc. fan and boy did those characters get fucked balls deep by the event. The thing I wasn't aware of was how much DC Comics cared about fixing the fuck out of everything! For some reason, they seemed to think they could gain complete mastery over the beast they had unleashed. Zero Hour was not so much a fix as DC Comics throwing their hands up in the air and screaming, "OH MY GOD IT'S EATING MY FACE!" But before they screamed that, they really seemed to think that they could tighten every single valve whenever steam shot out of the system so that the whole thing would chug along nicely. Zero Hour proved that every fix just put added pressure on a universe ready to blow at any moment. I thought they were going to walk away from Zero Hour and just go over to Pilate's bowl of water, shove him out of the way, and scrub the fucking fuck out of their bloody, bloody hands.
But apparently they weren't done tweaking because ten years or so later, Final Crisis! See that "final" in the title there? They were convinced that, this time, they'd do it! They'd scrub the universe clean of errors and bullshit! Well, ha ha, guess what? It was still too broken for their liking. DC Comics should have learned to just ignore anybody who ever pointed out anything that didn't fit (especially their own nagging demons). But they couldn't. They just fucking couldn't. It had to be right! And so we got The New 52 which was supposed to completely and utterly fix everything by erasing all seventy years of continuity and just starting over with a bunch of Issue #1s and characters with limited histories.
How did they even fuck that one up, amirite? Forget the anger of the fans that were sad they lost characters they loved. This should have worked, right? How easy is it to just begin over? Super easy! The problem is DC Comics had no faith in what they were doing. So they kept a lot of history for most of the characters but now it all happened in a five year span. Some characters *COUGH*GREENLANTERN*COUGH* didn't even start over! They threw out the things they didn't like but kept everything else. And that was their problem. They either needed to go whole hog and just start over completely with possible new origins and directions for many of the characters or they were just going to become mired in the same old shit. Guess which they chose?
See, DC? The problem is that you can't keep Green Lantern unchanged without leaving a bunch of threads that lead back to virtually (possibly literally) all of the big events in DC's history. That means in the first five years of The New 52, you have the Death of Superman and Parallax and the destruction of Coast City and...uh oh...Zero Hour which means the revamping of the big characters which leads back to Crisis which...well, you get it all. But now it all happened in five years. FIXED! TA DA!
The preceding wasn't meant to be a history of DC Comics. It's just my reaction to it as it happened. Zero Hour taught me only one thing: DC Comics was fucking obsessed with making itself flawless. It was a sad revelation and I felt bad for pointing at laughing at them constantly.
This issue begins with Kyle Rayner visiting Hal Jordan who has been imprisoned for feeling sorry for himself.
He's also Sinestro's best friend and his worst enemy! He's a full and an empty diaper! He's caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee! He's a dick and a pussy!
Hal Jordan killed the Guardians of the Universe which also makes him a murderer and a hero! He is such an enigma! And a riddle! But he's not a knock knock joke. Kyle Rayner is the knock knock joke.
KNOCK KNOCK!
WHO'S THERE?
GAIL SIMONE'S CAREER!
That's the end of the joke. I didn't say it was a very good Knock Knock joke! But it does end with a refrigerator door being opened. The knocking must have been from a loose limb lying in an off-balance crisper drawer.
Hal Jordan gives us a synopsis of why his life is a complete train wreck and why he deserves to sit in a jail cell even though nobody on Earth has any idea who The Guardians of the Universe were. I think the murders happened out of Earth jurisdiction, Hal. You should just go kill yourself by drinking too many milkshakes. That's how I'd commit suicide.
"Plus I just really, really, really wanted to kill those arrogant fucking blue bastards!"
Hal also murdered the rest of the Green Lantern Corps which seems like a thing he probably shouldn't have done. Kyle leaves and the Metropolis Police Officer remains behind to point out to Hal that murdering in space isn't in Earth's jurisdiction and, besides, Hal was a space cop, right? Cops can kill whoever they want and they don't have to do jail time! So why is Hal throwing out the best perk of being a cop?! But Hal is all, "I murdered my friends. Wah wah wah."
Just before Planet Brainiac makes his announcement and returns Parallax to Hal Jordan's psyche, Kyle thinks about his girlfriend Alex whom he found in the fridge a year ago. At this point, DC Comics can pretty much pick and choose the events they want to keep in the cut off of the arrival of the dome and they choose to keep Alex's murder? I think what they realize is that Kyle Rayner has never developed enough character without that event! It's also possible that the other stories taking place in Pre-Zero Hour don't really make sense unless they've happened after that event but who remembers those kinds of details after all these years anyway? Besides King Beauregard, Keeper of the Histories, of course. Need to know how many different styles of sneakers Jason Todd wore over the years? He's your man!
I just wish I could remember any specifics from all those years I read comic books!
Planet Brainiac drops the handkerchief and everybody is off to the races! Especially Parallax! He's all, "That cop was very convincing. No jury would indict me! Indict. What a weird word. Why is it pronounced that way? The world must die!"
"One of these cities must have access to a universal GPS. Although the initials of such a device would probably be different! Probably UPS!"
Parallax doesn't even consider checking in at STAR Labs. I think he's just looking for an excuse to destroy another city.
Kyle chases after Parallax to talk some sense into Hal. It's time for one of those "I know you're in there!" and "Friendship will win out!" speeches!
You can't even see his eyes, asshole.
And then Kyle is blasted in the back by
Lady Quark's Princess Fern's army of lightning tanks. That's convenient! Now Parallax can murder them all without any guilt! Although once all the guilt builds up, won't it cause Hal Jordan to go all Spectre-y?
Apparently Lady Quark is off battling Supergirl right now. Princess Fern is her daughter Liana. Not that any of that matters since Parallax is about to turn Electropolis into a smoking crater. But that will have to wait until next issue which will give Kyle Rayner time to get his wits about him and stop Parallax because nobody must die!
Convergence: Green Lantern Loves Parallax #1 Rating: I don't really give a shit about Kyle Rayner or Parallax so this issue was the equivalent of wiping my ass after a perfect shit. It was, in the strictest sense, unnecessary but I felt compelled to read it anyway. Before this whole Convergence thing is over, I'm going to have to dig out all of my DC Comics Universe Changing Mini-series and give them a read. So far I have to read Flashpoint and Zero Hour. My guess is the third week's books (which I haven't really looked at yet) are Pre-Crisis since one of them is the original Batman and the Outsiders team. So I'll have to dig out Crisis as well. The fourth week's main city will probably take place Pre-Final Crisis but I don't own that. I think it ends in Superboy Prime punching everything in existence or something.
