Convergence: Justice League #2

That's not a sea cucumber! It's a space station!

I have an issue with the way men are being portrayed in Convergence. In Convergence: Superman, El, the Flashpoint version of Superman, was in love with Lois Lane. So when he finds out that another woman who isn't the woman he was in love with but looks just like her exists, he kidnaps her because he loves her. Lois rejects him because she's in love with the Clark Kent she knows, not every person in the multiverse that looks like Clark Kent. In Convergence: Justice League, Flashpoint Aquaman notices another woman that looks like his dead Mera, so he kidnaps her because obviously men only love a woman for their looks. Who cares about her personality?! Mera rejects him like a normal person would reject somebody that steals you and immediately begins acting like they're your intimate partner of many years, even if they look exactly like the intimate partner you've had for many years.

I suppose women fall in love with the entire person and men only fall in love with the image of a person, right DC Comics?!

Oh wait. When I state it like that, it totally makes sense! You're right! Men are just shallow douchebags who aren't in touch with their feelings because they're so in touch with their cocks and where they're going to stick they're cocks. And when a man sees a place where he was allowed to stick his cock for years and years, he just figures he can go right back to sticking his cock in that place. Now that DC Comics helped me realize this, I'm now going to be unnerved by every movie and television show I watch with a male lead (which, let's face it, is pretty much all of them).

I'm sure my reading of the previously mentioned comics could be kinder but since one was written by Dan Jurgens who is a robot created in the Eighties with no input devices and no way to retrieve new, non-1980s information and the other was written by Frank Tieri who seems to get pulled off the bench by DC Comics to pinch write shitty comics for even shittier writers that have ruined the title they've been working on, I don't think they deserve the benefit of the doubt.

Speaking of television shows with male leads, I have no really cogent thoughts about the finale of Mad Men but I did want to comment on it. So if you haven't seen the finale (or the show at all), just skip to the first scanned picture where the real Convergence: Justice League #2 will begin. No, seriously. Just skip the rest of this. I don't want to be the one to spoil anything about one of the greatest television experiences of the decade.

So after watching the finale on Tuesday, I made a few comments to the Non-Certified Spouse, walked into the bathroom, shut the door, put the lid down on the toilet, sat down, and fucking bawled. Being that I'm apparently written like a male character in DC Comics, I'm not quite sure what affected me to that degree. I believe (but am still not entirely sure) that it was the moment in which the plain guy tells his story about being an item in a refrigerator which touches Don who then gets up to hug him. I wasn't touched simply because of the scene and the way it was played. I was touched because the man was symbolically Matthew Weiner speaking directly to his character, Don Draper. He was saying goodbye to him while also speaking the words that he couldn't put into Don Draper's mouth because Don would never say them. They were Matthew's insecurities and fears which meant they were also instilled into Don. It was a redemptive moment for both Don and Matthew and it may have been the most brilliant version of the writer putting himself into a show that I've seen. That was what broke me. Although it's possible that I was more emotionally attached to that Coke commercial than I previously believed.

Shall we discuss the Coke commercial ending? And by we, I mean me, and by discuss, I mean monologue? I'm a cynical person. I'm not cynical to the point of deconstructing everything simply because I like watching buildings blow up helter-skelter. I believe that, just like blowing up a building, deconstructing a work takes care, experience, and intelligence if you don't want to hurt a lot of people in the process. Anybody can stick dynamite on a building and destroy it. Not everyone can bring it down safely and elegantly. The internet is full of Crazy Harrys running into a fandom and pushing the plunger on their detonator. Anybody can find any flaw they're looking for in any work of art when they're projecting their own issues onto everything they encounter. So I'm cynical but I don't want to be; I just feel it's necessary. Like Fox Mulder, I want to believe. Some people would say, "Just believe" (and one once did at the Portland Brewfest one year when I was wearing my "I want to believe" t-shirt). But that's the point of the shirt. Some people want to believe but they want the truth more than they want to fulfill their own fantastic desires. So when the Coke commercial came on at the end of Mad Men, I had to ask the question: were we seeing an actual, life-changing moment for Don Draper where he's come to a more enlightened, comfortable place, or was this just the same old Don Draper going full tilt until the idea for the commercial grabbed him by the throat and he knew he had the pitch? Was this a cynical ending or a romantic one? Did he go back to McCann a new man, transformed and with a new understanding of what people really need, wanting to bring the communal, enlightened vision he had to the world? Or did he go back to shoot a commercial co-opting the peace, love, and spirituality movement he experienced while in California simply to sell soda pop? Remember, it's all about the work! Everything is about the work!

I know what I believe. Matthew Weiner wrote a television series for seven years simply to say this: "That fucking Coke commercial was bullshit propaganda and you all fell for it, suckers! These are the people that created it! Here are your 'Teach the World to Sing' gurus, bitches! The moment your movement was sanitized to sell Coke, it was over. You fucking lost, hippies! Culture is grist for the advertising world and what matters to you now will soon be used to sell you bullshit crap nobody needs. Enjoy life! Enjoy Coke! Smile!"

What works every time? Distracting military submarines with your boobs and butt so that they blow each other up?

The Justice League is currently battling Flashpoint Atlanteans off the coast of Gotham because their friend Mera was kidnapped by Flashpoint Aquaman. I explained why earlier: it's because he used to put his cock in a Mera-shaped person, so why wouldn't this person shaped like his previous cock-receptacle not want to be the new Aquaman cock-receptacle?

Now that Jesse Quick has taken out the Atlantean warships, the Justice League has to battle an army of sea turtles and underwater men with spears. I don't know what the Vegas odds are but please put all of my money on the speedster, Kryptonian, green light spectrum wielder, and magic woman. Although I have heard that slow and steady wins the race? Hmm.

Is it just me being sexist or does the "witty banter" by this group of friends just sound catty and mean? See how I used "catty" there? That indicates there is a high probability that I'm being sexist! And let's face it: a lot of that old Blue and Gold banter Giffen and DeMatteis used to write? It was fucking mean-spirited shit that rarely came across as fun loving shenanigans! How did Ted and Michael stay friends for so long?!

Of course Supergirl wants to punch Aquaman in the face! That's Supergirl's go-to greeting! And besides, who wouldn't want to punch Aquaman in the face?!

Mera sulks in captivity trying to convince Flashpoint Vulko that Aquaman is a kidnapper and will probably soon be a rapist and that maybe he should do something about preventing that from happening? What is wrong with Mera? She should have her hands around Vulko's throat and squeezing the life out of him while she drowns the Atlantean Guards with their own saliva! Where's the Mera I know from The New 52? She's smarter, more powerful, and has a better ass than all of the Atlanteans put together! Was that sexist? I did throw in the "smarter" thing!

Outside of Aquaman's undersea headquarters, Jade battles with Ocean Master. She's surprised, after knocking off his helmet, to find that it's not Aquaman at all. Jade needs to spend more time boning up on her super villain flash cards. I suppose Ocean Master isn't an opponent anybody except Aquaman ever faces off against so I can't blame Jade for not recognizing him. And she truly doesn't. She just notices he's not Aquaman and says, "You're not Aquaman. You're..." and then she can't come up with his name. So he has to say, "Ocean Master!" Poor guy must feel like a loser right about now. I mean more than usual.

Vixen infiltrates Aquaman's Wifely Prison by using the powers of whatever sea creature allows her to sneak aboard, steal a uniform, and find her way to Mera in an unfamiliar place. A cuttlefish, maybe? But it doesn't matter because while she's wasting time hugging Mera, Aquaman sneaks up behind her and knocks her unconscious.

Or maybe she's just knocked down because after a brief break in the scene to show Supergirl, Zatanna, and Jesse trading barbs and battling lobsters, Vixen channels the power of an electric eel and zaps the fuck out of Aquaman.

Who...? Oh! I get it! He's being a rhetorical smartass!

I bet Vixen just stops channeling sea creatures and kicks him in the balls simply by channeling girl power!

No, that would be too empowering. Instead Aquaman makes her pick up a gun and shoot herself in the face. She's not dead but apparently she's going to be disfigured in some way. Hopefully an animal exists that can cure scar tissue or Vixen's modeling career is headed down a new and exciting path for a veil company.

That wasn't a comment about me saying she can't be a model with a horrible scar stretching across her face and one eyeball hanging out! That was me commenting on the state of the modeling industry and how they would never allow her back! It was a dig at big business and the Patriarchy! I would totally jerk off to a model with a scar on her face and an eyeball hanging out of her head! I'm not sexist!

Mera, still all meek and non-violent, submits to Aquaman's authority when he shows her that his men have caught Jesse Quick and Zatanna and Jade and Supergirl's cape.

Whoops! I guess the cape wasn't enough!

After Supergirl crashes through the window, water doesn't come rushing in. I guess that means the interior of the headquarters is also filled with water. Maybe that's why Vixen couldn't stop channeling sea creatures. Although she had to hold her breath while she was channeling dolphins and whales. Hopefully she can still channel whatever she was channeling while unconscious and bleeding out of her face. Still, none of that explains why Jesse Quick was taken into captivity without her Infinite Oxygen Forever Facemask (probably courtesy of Waynetech).

Supergirl beats the shit out of Aquaman until he activates his Kryptonite Trident. But Mera stops him before he stabs Supergirl with it. She stops him by pressing her boobs against his chest and calling him "my love" and kissing him right on his filthy fish lips. Because that's where Mera's power lies! It was hidden all this time underneath her clothing! Using her Super Hot Body Superpower, she gets close to the idiot man who has no brain and thinks only about things his cock will fit inside of. And then she stabs him!

After stabbing him, Mera and Supergirl and Vixen swim out of Aquaman's headquarters unmolested. I guess Vixen is pretty much okay? Just a slight graze wound across a cheek or something? Her face is never shown again after she was forced by Aquaman to shoot herself in it. Aquaman is just left to bleed out on his throne. I guess once a king is stabbed in the stomach, everybody he commands instantly stops respecting all of his orders and they simply disappear. And I guess Mera is playing by Batman's Rules of Killing here. Mera may have stabbed Flashpoint Aquaman and walked away knowing that he was dying but it's not her fault if he is eaten by sharks, right? And it's his fault for not having a royal surgeon on hand. Or knowing how to sew up his own wounds.

Convergence: Justice League #2 Rating: This issue wasn't good. It was as not good as the first issue. But it was the first issue to actually fulfill the Convergence Contract! The Justice League was told they would battle somebody to the death and that's what they did! Although I doubt even Flashpoint Aquaman is going to die here. Although if the Big Convergence Change (that's what I'll be calling the twist ending that changes up these old universes in a new way which seems to be happening in every one of these Convergence Minis) was that Mari now has a scar on her face, I'm big time disappointed. I said BIG TIME! That's no marriage or baby or resurrected child or redeemed Two-face! It's hardly a blip at all on the Change Radar! And it's also sexist bullshit! Probably! I think it's always safe for me to call something sexist bullshit!

Divergence: Detective Comics
"Following the events of 'Endgame,' get ready to ride with the GCPD in a whole new city -- inhabited by a whole new Batman!"

Oh boy! A whole new Batman! That's just what the fans have not been demanding! I can't wait.

The Sneak Peek begins with Harvey talking to a shadowy figure putting on some crazy armor. One of the things I was hoping Manapul and Buccellato would do was to continue to concentrate on Harvey Bullock in Detective Comics. He's a detective, right?! And a great character if you're into fat guys that smoke and eat a lot and wear hats! Also he's got the kind of personality that can really carry a comic book titled Detective Comics. I'm so pro-Harvey Bullock that I have a really gay boner right now.

Yip is still his partner but there's a new character in town that has yet to be seen in The New 52 (I think!): Renee Montoya! She's back and she's coming between Yip and Harvey like a sexy thing that comes! Now I'm picturing naked, anthropomorphic foxes with huge boners for some reason. Thanks a lot, Deviant Art! You've ruined the sexy part of my brain!

The van the three of them are riding in has a big bat symbol on the front. They're chasing a giant of some kind when it tries to smash them with a fist. The van flips end over end but is caught by an armored Batman. I guess the GCPD now has a Bat Division!

What the fuck. What the fuckity fucking fuck did I just read? Fucking Manapul. Fucking Buccellato. Holy shit. Detective Comics is going to be fucked up and possibly quite awesome.

Um, anyway, after the van flips, Yip is trapped in the back. Renee begins interrogating her with her gun out trying to get her to name names. But Harvey pulls her away and lights the fucking gas pooling around the van, blowing his partner (and only potential romantic interest ever) into smithereens. Maybe. Probably. Shit. Jesus Christ.

And if you don't feel shocked and freaked out enough, there's a panel with a crying pigeon that's also on fire. I think that needs to be my new header.

And then the last page is the start of this fucked up travesty. I mean that in a super good way.

I don't know who big armored Jim Batman actually is.

Convergence: Nightwing Loves Oracle #2

Fathers reunited with imaginary versions of their daughters! Daughters reconciled with homophobic fathers! Ugly ass babies being born! And now a boring fucking wedding?! What the fuck, Convergence?! Where are all the corpses?!

When did Convergence go from Multiversal Thunderdome to Young Romance Comics?! Not that I'm upset, mind you. But before I put my dick in my hand, I want to know if I'll be pleasuring myself to romance or violence! You can't just spring a wedding on me when I'm expecting Hawkpeople to be disemboweling decapitated heads! The most I can hope for is that the wedding takes place on page one and the other twenty-something pages take place in the honeymoon bed and then along the floor and then into the shower and then upside down on the counter in front of the mirror and then hanging off the balcony and then on Koriand'r's face. I just love romance! Especially extended, hard pumping romance!

Last issue, Hawkman was all, "I'm going to bite your face off, Dick!" And Hawkwoman was all, "That's so gro...oh! I heard you wrong. Never mind." And Oracle was all, "Take cover, Hawkfucks! Your gooses are cooked!" And then she laughed at her own joke for five minutes.

The hair is going up! Shit is getting serious!

I made a handy chart when I began writing screenplays for Hollywood years ago that helps me to write women better! It looks like this:

Writing a serious woman? Have her put her hair up!
Writing a sexy woman? Have her take her hair down!
Writing an innocent and naive woman? Give her bangs!
Writing a confident, well-rounded, intelligent woman with a few human flaws and frailties to really give her character depth? Just make her a man!

Nightwing has gone off to battle the Hawks while Oracle stays behind in Gotham pretending to be a coward. But really she's saving the day. And this day is really important because it's the day that all the heroes must fight to the death to save their cities. None of them seem to be obeying the rules though, at least not in the previous Issue Twos that I've read. They're just ignoring the fight and getting on with their lives. That seems reasonable since none of these heroes kill, so how can they participate in a murder contest?

Nightwing's opening gambit is to crash the Batwing on top of their heads.

Hawkwoman's opening move is better: call Nightwing an Earth Monkey! The truth of the statement has got to sting.

Nightwing was actually in a vehicle called the Rocketwing. It's part cocoon and part motorcycle and part trampoline. Just what every acrobat needs! Dick springs out of it like a dick out of a zipper! He goes after Hawkwoman first which makes Oracle really uncomfortable because Hawkwoman has a lot of sexy skin (and other attributes that are even sexier than skin!) showing.

Oracle gets in a helicopter to go slap Hawkwoman into some clothing. Meanwhile she leaves a fully robed figure behind in her clocktower computer lair slash apartment slash rave-space. As she flies to the battle, Nightwing continues to surprise the Hawks with his skill and his good cheer and his optimism and his finely honed glutes. The eczema sticks he fights with aren't very interesting. Even if they were spelled correctly.

Is "peacock" a joke about Dick's name?

The robed figure is Black Canary. She was in a robe because fishnets get cold on planets out of space and time. Also she was hiding from the flying, spying, listening bacon making machines. Oracle called her in so she could scream into the Absorbascons and cause the Hawks to go deaf. Then they'd lose their balance and fly into walls and vomit all over themselves. What a hilarious prank!

Some people would have typed "what an hilarious prank" but those people are pretentious jerkos!

Black Canary screams and the Hawks are all, "Eek! Ouch! No fair!"

Watch it, Hawkwoman! She means business! Notice her hair is up?

Hawkwoman smashes Oracle's helicopter with her mace. Instead of making a small dent, it destroys the fucking aircraft because her mace is electrified. It's also probably made out of Nth Metal. That'll teach Babs to make helicopters out of anything but inertrite. Babs crashes, crawls out of the wreckage, and climbs into her wheelchair. Hawkwoman, being ableist as fuck and gross and icky too, begins to walk away figuring that a crippled woman that just barely survived a helicopter crash has been defeated. But Babs pulls out her excretion sticks and calls Hawkwoman "Buzzard Girl." Yeesh. Have some respect! At least call her Buzzard Woman.

The name calling causes Oracle to get punched in the face really, really hard.

Of course she underestimates Babs! Her hair is down! Who wouldn't think they could easily defeat a sexy woman in a wheelchair?

Nightwing has defeated Hawkman and Black Canary, monitoring Oracle's computer program, hacks the Brainiac bots so they can destroy the bacon-making machines. The Hawks are defeated. Instead of killing the Hawks like the rules clearly state, Oracle invites them to live in Gotham. Does she also invite all of the other citizens of Flashpoint Gotham? Are they simply condemned to die? Maybe I should turn the page to find out instead of assuming the worst.

Nope. No offer of salvation. They're all doomed to die! Except we all know, every DC reader in the world, that all of the cities will be saved! Even the bad ones full of bad people who are totally bad.

At the wedding, Dick mentions an earthquake. That was also mentioned in Convergence: Superman #2! It must be Skartaris collapsing on top of Telos and freeing everybody from Brainiac's control. What happens to all the cities on this planet after that? I guess that's DC Editorial's decision!

Convergence: Nightwing Loves Oracle #2 Rating: I see what's going on now! The writers on Convergence were told to write a story bringing back characters from past DC Timelines. But they weren't just supposed to bring them back as they were! They were supposed to make some kind of big change to them to make their returns more meaningful! So in The Titans, Roy Harper got Lian Harper back from the dead. In Superman, Clark and Lois had little Jonathan Samuel Kent. In The Question, Renee Montoya was to get back with Batwoman or have her father die or redeem Two-face or all of those. And in this one, Babs and Dick were married. So instead of all of these Convergence issues ending with some heroes and cities meeting their dooms, they're just making a huge change to these old characters. The actual Multiversal Thunderdome part of it kind of disappears in each Issue #2 as the main threat is taken care of behind the scenes in the Convergence Weekly book.

Divergence: Midnighter
"Spinning out of Grayson comes a solo series starring the man who can predict your every move ... but no one will be able to predict what he'll do next!"

Why should anybody be able to predict what Midnighter will do next? Those two statements really have nothing to do with each other except that they both have the word "predict" in them. Get rid of the fucking "but!" Hee hee. Fucking butt.

The Sneak Peek begins with a surprise scene that nobody could have predicted!

Midnighter wears Batman underwear?! I mean, Midnighter and Apollo aren't together?! I couldn't figure out which was more shocking so I went with both but put them in "most shocking to me" order.

This is more proof that DC Comics is afraid of female sexuality. They don't care about gay sexuality as long as it's between two men because this comic still has a Teen Rating. But if this were Batwoman? Or Catwoman? Teen Plus, baby! Maybe it's mostly because they're old fashioned and still believe that the majority of comic book readers are heterosexual males. So male readers (unless they're gay!) won't be titillated by this and thus it doesn't need a Teen Plus Rating. But if a heterosexual male were to read Batwoman kissing Renee on the lips and then down the neck and then along the breasts and then on her erect nipples and then on her underboob and then on her...I just lost interest in continuing that sentence for some reason. You get the idea!

Midnighter rushes out of bed to go murder some Warrior-style gang members who have already killed four people.

I was just speaking of pantloads earlier when I lost interest in my sentence!

The gang members have a gun that turns people into demons. But Midnighter notices that the bullets are "body-snatcher bullets" which transmit information allowing aliens to beam down into the bodies of the victims. Midnighter kills one because it beamed into one of the gang members. But one of the shots of the gun went wild and hit a little girl standing nearby. That alien he just threatens while mentioning some of the classic work he's done as a member of Stormwatch (unless he's never been a member! What's the status on Stormwatch since the Crayola Timelords?! I forget!). The alien flees and Midnighter walks off through the fire and blood and general destruction caused when he saved everybody's lives. The end!

I'm sure Apollo will wind up being a frequent guest star, right? Right?!

Convergence: Superman #2

Nailed it!

Convergence has had so many Superman titles that I have no idea which Superman was in this one. I remember it starred skinny emo Flashpoint Superman as the bad guy trying to get into Lois Lane's preggo panties. And Jimmy Olsen fucked everything up for Superman the way that Jimmy Olsen always does because he's less "Superman's Pal" and more "Superman's Charity Case." I guess it doesn't matter which Superman stars in this. It could be the one that gets his powers because Earth's gravity is lighter than Krypton's or it could be the Superman who gets his powers from the yellow sun or it could be the Superman who can't even hold his breath while traveling in space anymore or it could be the Superman that has only ever sweat once in his lifetime and that's when he benchpressed five hundred million Earths. No wait. That was Scott Lobdell's horrible New 52 Superman and he's off practicing his new FWASH power in another part of the multiverse right now.

I'm surprised Flashpoint Batman knows how to use a Batcomputer. Get it? Because he's fucking old!

The Flashpoint Batcomputer is an idiot. It usually knows everything! All Batman has to do is key in the right questions and it's all, "I have solved the crime. Beep beep beep. It was The Riddler. Beep beep beep." Remember when it used to spit out bits of paper instead of speaking? Um, anyway, the Flashpoint Batcomputer has cameras watching Superman battle the other Flashpoint heroes and Batman is all, "He's Kryptonian. And gay." And the Batcomputer is all, "Beep beep beep. It's possible. Beep beep beep. Not that there is anything wrong with that. Beep beep beep." And then Batman is all, "Is he from the universe that that kid Barry whom I gave the letter to was from?" And the Batcomputer is all, "I don't know how to answer that. Would you like to call somebody else gay? Captain Thunder is right there."

I still find it hard to believe that Geoff Johns created the Flashpoint Universe as a universe that spun off from ours at the point where we began trying to stop people from using "gay" as an insult.

"Stop enjoying that headlock so much, Superman, so I can shoot the bad guys!"

Instead of Jimmy saving Superman, Superman has to save Jimmy. Again! It's always "again" with that kid! Can't he just stay out of it and take pictures instead of trying to play superhero? Although he'd be my favorite character if he put on a mask and cape and fought crime as the Tomato Goblin.

After Superman saves Jim, he, once again, tells everybody that they should probably talk it out. He points out that it just might be possible to save both cities if they work together. But Abin Sur is all, "That's so gay."

Cyborg and Captain Thunder decide talking is stupid. It's always better to throw punches until you realize that isn't solving the problem. Talking is always a last resort. I'm glad I didn't learn about the world from comic books!

Clark hears Lois calling for help so he decides to cut the battle short and go rescue her. Otherwise he's going to have to fly super fast around Telos until he goes back in time so that he can save her before she's killed by Supertwerp.

The difference was that gay thing I pointed out earlier!

Supertwerp has taken Lois Lane to Flashpoint Batcave because Batman was a doctor before he became an obsessed madman. I don't know why Supertwerp thinks she needs a doctor now. Does he not know how pregnancy works? Hmm. Maybe I missed her going into labor last issue. Did water fall out of her vagina? That's usually a sign the baby is on its way. I almost said "coming" but that made the horrible side of me think disgusting thoughts.

Right! Friends! Everybody knows they were more than friends. This would be an appropriate time to use the word "gay," Flashpoint Batman.

Superman somehow doesn't hear that Lois was taken to the Flashpoint Batcave. He heads to Lois's apartment where he finds her webcam has recorded her kidnapping. The webcam is a pretty good director too! It centered the shot and everything. Abin Sur drops by to explain to Superman that he's ready to stop fighting. Superman is all, "I thought Jimmy Olsen was covering you with the space gun?" And Abin Sur is all, "I didn't say I stopped fighting thirty seconds ago! Your friend is dead." And Superman is all, "Enh. It was bound to happen." Then Superman says, "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?!" And Abin Sur says, "Gay!" And Superman is all, "What? No! World's Finest Team-up!" And Abin Sur is all, "I know! I already quipped gay!"

Which DC Universe had the Superman with the tiny, deformed legs?

Superman flies off to the Batcave, knocks Flashpoint Superman out, stuffs him in an unmarked grave, and then returns to the cave where Flashpoint Batman is all, "We have to deliver the baby here! Get me the Bat-Speculum!"

Actually, Batman chickens out. He hasn't been a doctor since his son Bruce died. Now he's more into delivering people out of this world. So Superman decides he'll deliver the baby. I hope he doesn't accidentally smash its tender baby head! I would also hope that I won't have to endure a scene where a baby is delivered but I already see on the page opposite that hope is squashed dead (hopefully not like Superman and Lois's baby!).

The baby survives the delivery. It's a boy and, according to Lois, it's beautiful. I don't see it. But then I never see it. They're all just weak little bags of blood until they develop a personality. Not the personality that the mother and father see early on. I mean a personality that a stranger can see after spending just a few minutes with the kid. I don't have four months to learn to appreciate your mewling, disgusting infant! Get back to me when it can sit up on its own and you've taught it a trick or two. I don't remember exactly how old my nephew was before I began to fall in love with him but even before he could speak, he would fake sneeze just to get the attention from all the God Blessers in the room. Little needy bastard! But still petty fucking cute, I guess.

"Life is the most precious! Kill whomever you must to protect it!"

Then there's the last page.

Superman: "I love you, Lois."
Lois Lane: "Forever and always."
Batman: "Gay."

Convergence: Superman #2 Rating: What the fuck just happened here?! Are all of these Convergence stories going to go off the rails in the second issue?! The first issue forces two sides into battle! The second issue ignores the fight so characters can have a touching moment. Roy and Lian reunited. Clark and Lois have a baby. Renee and her father reconcile. And as for the battle? The Extremists and Titans will finish their fight in another comic book. The Two-Faces exchange some words and one bullet that kills nothing before the fight is called on account of it's interfering with the real story. Superman stops fighting to deliver a baby while Jimmy is probably murdered by Flashpoint Cyborg and Captain Marvel. It just reinforces the idea that Telos is going to be stopped in the Convergence weekly and all of these worlds are going to get to survive. Hell, nobody in the first three Issue Twos I've read have really felt threatened at all by their strange place in the universe and the sudden competition. I guess after spending a year under a dome without powers, anything else that winds up happening can hardly be a surprise.

Divergence: Doomed

In this exciting new title from Chris Claremont Clone, Scott Lobdell (and I mean that in the way that clones always wind up inheriting all of the bad traits of their original DNA and none of the good traits!), "a Metropolis U student gains the power to transform into the incredibly powerful Doomsday! How far can he go before he becomes a monster himself." After that bold description, I can't tell if I'm yawning or fake yawning.

The sneak peek begins with Lobdell's usual one page panel with lots of Narration Boxing. He continues the fine tradition of having the character say something in one Narration Box only to correct himself in the next Narration Box. Then he has the character Narration Box something "young" and "cool." And the whole thing is in a voice speaking directly to the reader. Some fans might like that style but the only reason Lobdell uses it is because he's lazy and unoriginal and spent too many years in the X-Men offices learning to be a lousy simulacrum of Claremont.

The second page's Narration Boxes make no sense coming after the first page's Narration Boxes. Lobdell has a habit of changing dialogue and narration without realizing that the changes have now made other parts of the original script nonsensical. It's also possible these pages are just excerpts from the new book and the pages where the Daily Planet globe fell on Doomedsday were left out. I was hoping these "sneak peeks" were tiny short stories to bridge the gap but I'm starting to believe they're just parts of the first issues. Hopefully I'm wrong about that since Red Hood Loves Arsenal read like a complete (yet horrible) little mini-story about Jay and Roy being super cool and awesome.

I should probably describe the comic book instead of Scott Lobdell's writing problems.

Lobdell loves Roman shit!

Doomed can't explain he's the good guy because he just grunts like a monster when in monster form. That's too bad because it means I'm going to have to suffer through scads and scads of his Narration Boxes that sound exactly like Roy Harper or Jason Todd's Narration Boxes.

It turns out he has a girlfriend named Jayne and a an Aunt Belle, so I guess this is Lobdell's version of Spiderman. I bet he turns Perry White into a raving lunatic desperate to see Doomed pay for his crimes! We already see that he's a superhero that people think is a villain. I bet he winds up being a photographer too!

Speaking of which, the kid begins the story thinking it's cool that he has an archenemy. But how can he have an archenemy if they're both the good guys? That's not an archenemy, asshole. That's a misunderstanding!

Doomedsday almost kills Alpha Centurion with his acid breath and then runs from the police as his Aunt Belle calls the cops maniacs for shooting at the monster melting the world with its breath. She's in love! Doomedsday crashes into a warehouse, transforms, finds some clothes (which I guess he's going to have to do a lot in this series), and heads back to the scene of the crime where he meets up with the psycho cops and his roommate.

Oh God. Roman? So the roommates are archenemies! I mean, they're in a misunderstanding!

Just in case you aren't a Grandmaster Comic Book Reader like me and the less-than-subtle naming of the characters Roman and Alpha Centurion didn't make you realize they were one and the same, the final page ends with Roman's shadow and Rieser's shadow looking like Alpha Centurion and Doomedsday.

One last note: Roman wears a scarf and says he's fabulous which is code for "Scott Lobdell wants you all to know he's writing a gay character."

I cannot wait for Doomed! This comic book is going to be awful!

Convergence: The Question #2

Brrrrt!

That caption was a fart noise. It's also the noise my high school dungeonmaster used to make whenever he was leaving. Or making a pizza. Or rolling dice. Or, and I'm just extrapolating here from prior evidence, fucking somebody.

When we last left The Question asking questions like "Who am I?" and "Why is Two-Face so mean to me?", she had just teamed up with Batwoman and The Huntress. I think they want Two-Face to join their group so they can call their team TBQH, or "To Be Quite Honest." Unless they'd rather be known as QHTB, or "Quit Humping The Bagels."

Now that we've caught up to The Question, she's asking more philosophical questions like "If we're all going to die in the end, why do we bother?" She states it as "If life is conflict, why do we bother?" You know why we bother? Because we were born without any regard to our choice in the matter and lived long enough to become aware of our mortality. That causes us to realize we'd rather struggle and mourn and lose love and curl up on the floor in a ball crying our eyes out over a dead pet and stub our toes and get cavities and struggle with breast cancer than to not exist at all. Even persons of faith fear death because no matter how much you declare your faith is strong because it's basically a sin to not have faith, there's constantly a small doubt that your beliefs are based on bullshit. Or, and this might actually be scarier to those of a religious bent, that you didn't impress your god enough and will be spending eternity being punished for that brief faltering of your faith. We struggle with all of the bullshit because it's better than not being here.

At least, that's how most people feel. People do choose to kill themselves. And whether it's a trick of their brain chemistry that duped them into believing non-existence would be better than struggling or if they were simply and truly tired of the quagmire of life, they still, somehow, face the dissolution of their ego into the void of eternity and take the bravest (or most illogical (or, perhaps, sickest)) choice anybody can make. I'm tired of a lot of it. But I can't imagine be so tired that I choose to never be able to imagine anything ever again.

The Question will probably come up with something more optimistic like we put up with the struggle for love and family and friends and j;mily.... Whoops! Sorry! I couldn't help making jerk off motions with my hand and it fucked up my typing. If you're Batman or Sherlock Holmes, you now know which hand I use to masturbate.

No bickering! There's plenty of Question to go around.

Two-face is busy recruiting gang members to follow him into battle to defeat the other Two-face. I wonder if the other Two-face's face will be a mirror image of this Two-face's face? Or maybe the Harvey Dent he has to battle never had acid thrown in his face at all!

The Question continues her internal monologue about shit that relates to her dying father. That previous stuff about why do we struggle? That was about her dying father (and the human condition as a whole but, I mean, that's just because her father's struggle with cancer is just one example of what he all ultimately have to face). Then that thing about keeping a sense of humor? About her dying father. Now she's thinking about a guy named Charlie she knew who died badly of cancer which makes her think about dying with no regrets. I have a feeling she's going to say some shit about dying with regrets that I previously said in my Convergence: Atom #1 commentary.

Renee calls people who die with no regrets "stupid." I called them "lying, soon-to-be-dead assholes." We petty much agree!

The Question tracks her Harvey to the Gotham Courthouse where he's confronting other Harvey. Other Harvey's face is pristine. I bet he still doesn't call himself stupid like "One-Face." Fucking David Finch. That was the worst ending of all the first issues of The New 52!

The Question's Harvey asks Other Harvey if he can still tell right from wrong and tosses him his coin. Other Harvey says he tries to tell right from wrong but unless you're Ayn Rand or a fan of hers, you understand the majority of the world is grey. Or gray. Which is right?!

I suppose Post-Zero Hour Harvey Dent can lose his battle (you know, by shooting himself in the face) and it won't mean the end of Post-Zero Hour Gotham. Since so many people are fighting, it must be a final tally of fights won which indicates which city survives. Of course Renee isn't going to let any such thing happen. Not on her, and her ex-girlfriend's and "roommate's," watch.

Sex with a roommate isn't sex! It's just part of the chore wheel.

Renee walks in on the Harveys engaged in a legal discussion about the right to kill to save their cities. Is it defense? Or is it murder? It's the court case of the century! Whatever century they're in. But ultimately, Harvey is simply trying to convince Other Harvey why Other Harvey should be the one to live. This isn't murder at all; it's suicide.

Except that Renee jumps in front of Harvey Dent as Other Harvey pulls the trigger and takes the bullet herself.

Ouch. My heart. And my penis! Stupid tight boxers.

Renee's suit was made out of Kevlar so she's just fine. And even better now that she and Kate are kissing again. And she'll be even betterer later when they do whatever it is lesbians do with each other. Watch action flicks?

Harvey asks Renee, "What do I do now?" First off, you stop looking at the Question for answers! Ha ha! No, but seriously, Renee answers, "Be the good man." Then she leaves with her ex-roommate and her girlfriend while Harvey stand staring at his coin on the floor. I guess he's paralyzed by the choice about whether he should pick it up or not since it's on the floor and he can't flip it to determine if he should pick it up.

Afterward, Renee goes to visit her father and I don't feel a thing and you have to believe me because there isn't video evidence of my tears.

He's so fucked up on morphine that he probably forgot she was gay.

The issue ends with Renee realizing life is about the conflict and about the questions and about making mistakes and about getting the chance to make them right again. She also winds up with Two-Face's coin, so I guess he's gone on the straight and narrow. Or maybe he's just advanced to a six-sided die.

After Other Harvey shot Renee, he was sucked into a vortex. Is that because he was deemed the winner even though nobody died? Telos is a pretty shitty judge if that's the case. Maybe he was deemed the loser because he shot the wrong person and didn't kill them and no fight really took place! Whatever happened, it didn't matter because the Convergence shit was just an excuse for Greg Rucka to write this story about love and reconciliation and regrets and homophobic fathers.

Convergence: The Question #2 Rating: After reading this issue, I see how the first issue was as much of a set-up as it needed to be to truly tell this story. But the heart of this two issue series was in this issue. The Convergence stuff didn't matter at all. It just formed the set and the location for this story to take place. It even ends without any resolution to the Convergence fight which is just fine by me. That crap will probably be settled unsatisfyingly in the pages of the Convergence weekly. I'm sure everybody will wind up living together in some kind of peace and harmony on this world or, perhaps, all of their universes will suddenly exist within the non-space and non-time of the planet Telos and the Bleed. Anyway, this was a terrific story and I can't imagine any of the other Convergence stories will be better so I'm ranking it as the best of them all! I doubt I'll cry twice during any other books. Theoretically!

Divergence: Starfire

The new Starfire monthly is going to be written by Jimmy Palmiotti and Amanda Conner while being drawn by Emanuela Lupacchino and inked by Ray McCarthy. I think I just came in my pants like eight times. That's a good fucking team right there!

The sneak peek begins with Gen 13 answering an unasked question to an unknown person. It's quite obvious (and not meant to be a super secret mystery) that the person asking the question was Starfire and the question was, "Where should I live, Gen-13?!" Other people Starfire consults? Roy Harper. Tim Drake. Essence. Zatanna. And Cheshire, for some reason. Maybe she's been captured by Cheshire in that last panel and decided to pick her brain before she escapes.

She's obviously going to pick Metropolis! That's where solar-charged hero's live!

Starfire heads to Metropolis but to ask Superman for advice since he's an alien as well. She mentions she has no interest in being a super-hero and I still really have no clue as to why she was "an outlaw" over in that other shitty and forgettable comic book she starred in.

Starfire might fit in in Miami! Or, being she has orange skin, the Jersey shore!

I'm glad she didn't ask Batman.

Starfire's choice of places to live is Key West. And her first friend is Sheriff Gomez! Although Sheriff Gomez doesn't quite know it yet. To be continued in Starfire #1, yo!

Convergence: The Titans #2

Dreamslayer does not normally look like a vagina on fire. He usually looks like a vagina leaking Sunny Delight.

I'm a little bit excited to find out how these Convergence two issue mini-series will end! I suppose they'll all end with either the good guys subduing the bad guys but not killing them, or they'll end with the good guys coming to an agreement to work together, both of which are against the rules of Telos's game. Since the Titans are battling The Extremists, this one will end with The Extremists thrown in meta-human jail.

Last issue ended with Roy Harper shooting his friends in the face. This issue begins with the super surprise revelation that he actually didn't aim at their faces at all. But he still did pull the trigger for some reason. It probably bought him enough time to come up with a plan where he can take out Dreamslayer himself since I don't think Donna and Kory can fight very well with their suits full of shit and piss. You know, because he almost shot them in the face! It's not like he worked the plan out with them beforehand. And Kory is surprised to still have a face.

"Tell me you have a plan that doesn't involve me smelling like roses!"

We all know what happens every time a good guy fires a gun or throws a batarang or shoots an arrow at the bad guy and doesn't hit him with the projectile, right? How many times have we read that scene? Well, Fabian Nicieza believes we need to experience that moment at least two more times. And both of them in the same scene! Those cranes that fell in the background and didn't crash into the Extremists? Dreamslayer sees them and says, "Ha ha ha! Missed me! Missed me! Now you have to tongue kiss my Sunny Delight vagina face!" And Roy is all, "I wasn't trying to hit you, twice delicious looking villain!" He then shoots an arrow into the cranes and Dreamslayer is all, "You missed again! I can't believe it! You're the worst!" And Roy Harper is all, "You must be from a dimension that has original writers if you've never seen this move before now!" He then swings by on the rope attached to the arrow stuck in the crane and grabs close enough to the real Lian Harper.

The distraction takes enough time for the other Titans that have not yet been in this comic book to appear.

I bet the cavalry is Aqualad! And he's borrowed Cyborg's fist with the sonic attachment!

It's actually just Cyborg with his own fist and his best friend and booty call, Beast Boy. Apparently Vic was in a coma for the entire year so his story would have been too boring to mention last issue. And Beast Boy was trapped as a green pigeon all year which must have sucked ass. Except for all the pigeon sex and free bread from old people.

Now that the odds are evened up quite a bit, Roy figures nobody will miss a guy that just shoots arrows. He grabs Lian, makes sure it's actually her by activating the parental denial switch, and takes her to safety in the Speedy Cave. Roy thinks he's safe from a guy who just brought Lian back from the past just before she died so he could use her simply to taunt Roy. Or Dreamslayer just made up a fake version of her (which he didn't because we all know that this has to be the real Lian Harper because the fans demanded it. At least until Peter David gets a crack at writing Roy and Lian and decides to make her into a cotton candy figment of everybody's imagination). And if Dreamslayer can do one of those things, it's simple enough for him to enter the Speedy Cave and kidnap Lian again. Now Roy has to get involved in the fight again because his excuse to sit this one out is gone.

Meanwhile at the main event...

Gar's not wrong.

Think of it this way, Gar. Justice League International defeated The Extremists. And they could hardly defeat anybody! Sure, they had some extra help from the Silver Sorceress and some guy named Blue Jay or something. But still! Justice League International beat these jerks! Now pull your monkey head out of your monkey ass, stop thinking about how much monkeys love buttsecks, and transform into something that can squash these jerks!

Ahem. Justice League International!

The Titans are getting their asses beat by the Extremists which is unsurprising and realistic. But Dreamslayer is still harping on Harper to side with the Extremists. If he does, Roy will be reunited with Lian. Dreamslayer must know that if Roy Harper fights against the Extremists, they will lose, which is surprising and unrealistic. But I guess this series is Roy's moment to shine while also taking Lian Harper out of the mini-fridge.

Roy activates his city wide turret system and shoots Kory in the belly with one of his guns. The readers all gasp in horror at Roy's betrayal! How could he turn on his team, even for his little girl's life? I can't believe he shot the one member of the team that can shrug off a blast lke that! How horrible!

Lian reappears near Dreamslayer's side but he threatens to send her back to limbo if Roy doesn't shoot all of the other Titans in the stomach as well. No chance Roy is going to use the guns against the Extremists now! So long, Cyborg! Nice knowing you, Donna! Good riddance, Beast Boy!

Wha-wha-wha-what?!

I guess Dreamslayer and I both fell for Roy Harper's gambit! I thought for sure the Titans were goners this time!

Roy sets off an EMP which causes Dreamslayer to teleport out of the Speedy Cave for scientific and totally believable reasons. Dreamslayer meets with the other Extremists who are tired of being shot by turrets and they all head off to battle the Titans somewhere free of big guns. Now the Titans just have to decide to follow them. Or can't they just declare victory now?

Donna convinces Roy to sit the rest of the fight out and hang with Lian because it's quite possible she might disappear as soon as Dreamslayer is defeated. And Roy should get to spend a little more time safe with his daughter. Then the other Titans fly off to finish the story in Convergence #6.

So that's how these mini-series are going to end?! By leaving the endings in the Convergenc series? I don't think there's enough room in the last three issues of Convergence to end forty other stories, so it's probably a fluke that this one ended that way. Although this issue isn't completely over yet!

Oh wait. Yes it is. It just has a huge sneak peek for Scott Lobdell's soon to be reviled new series, Red Hood Loves Arsenal!

Convergence: The Titans #2 Rating: Well it doesn't get a good rating because it didn't fucking end the story! I guess it kind of did since this was about Roy, and it was mostly about getting Lian Harper back. Whether or not the Titans defeat the Extremists is just incidental to the whole Convergence thing. Especially since Telos's plan is bound to be blown apart when all the heroes decide to stop fighting each other and engage in a sit-in.

I don't know if this Divergence Sneak Peek is taken from the first issue of the new series or if it's a short "Divergence" story, so I guess I'd better read the fucking thing. Just in case.

Divergence: Red Hood Loves Arsenal

It begins with this because Scott Lobdell thinks he's cute and clever. Hint and spoiler warning: he's not. Not at all!

Let me read this in thirteen year old boy and see if it's any better. Let me clear my head, give myself a boner, and start over.

Ha! "Together for the first time: Agains!" Again is always fucking funny! You can add "again" to the end of anything and it's so fucking hysterical! I fucked your mom. Again! I smoked so much fucking pot! Again! I drank until I fucking puked! Again! Ha ha! Awesome.

Wait wait wait! That was my modern day thirteen year old boy voice! If I were doing a thirteen year old boy from when I was thirteen in 1984, it would be quite different. I would have more references to Robotech or GI Joe, and I'd probably mention a few mythological beasts and super radical Dungeons and Dragons modules. I don't know what kind of thirteen year old boy Lobdell is writing to! Although his advice is to write what you know and he was thirteen in 1976, so the kids he's writing to were probably super excited about the Bicentennial.

Okay! Back to being a thirteen year old boy. It will probably be a mash-up of the three I previously described. Or it'll just be in my usual anti-Lobdell voice.

Kobra has been building cities beneath all the cities all over the globe because that's totally cool and radical and groovy and fucking fuck I can't even! Kobra has loads and loads of armies and they're going to take over the world. But guess why they're not going to take over the world?! Guess! Jason fucking Todd and Gosh Darned Speedy have infiltrated! If anybody can take down an army spread all across the globe, it's these two guys!

Jason Todd's plan is to shoot all the people in the face and save the day! Roy Harper's plan is probably to sit on the back of Kobra's huge killer robot and ride it around for fun.

Instead of riding the robot, Speedy just overheats the complex. That should kill all the servers and shit and completely crash the place and probably make all of the soldiers feel uncomfortable in their body armor so they'll have to take it all off and then they can't go to war and that will stop the plan dead in its tracks. Wah-lah!

Speedy says it melts the robot but that's just stupid because he's a genius being written by a stupid writer. You'll get that kind of reaction from Speedy quite a bit. And finally, Kobra and the members of Kobra's army with internal air conditioning attack!

Ha ha! They're so tremendously good at what they do that they don't fear death even in the face of insurmountable odds! Oh, those chuckle-heads!

Boo! Hiss! This will suck many, many bad things that people hate sucking!

Convergence #5

The triceratops is all, "Fuck this crazy shit! Imma gonna go eat some weeds!"

Don't you hate when people talk for animals? It's so arrogant and almost always not funny at all. I think those kinds of people are the same kinds of people who hear somebody make a subtle self-deprecating joke and then repeat the joke bluntly to the person as if the person making the joke didn't mean to make fun of themselves. It's like, "We're all in the same fucking room as the animal. We have observed what it just did and also thought it was cute and/or funny and/or horribly disgusting. We don't need some asshole ruining the moment by saying in a high-pitched voice, 'I sure love the taste of my butt!'" There are only three people allowed to speak while animals are doing things: David Attenborough, Marlin Perkins, and that Honey Badger dude. And I think two of them are dead. So be prepared to hear a lot of "Sloths don't give a shit" and "Penguins are nasty" with your animal videos!

The first page of Convergence #5 is technically the inside cover which is an advertisement for Loot Crate. Don't read this paragraph if you get offended when people make fun of shit you love and you also love Loot Crate. Why the fuck would I pay for a random assortment of bullshit that a whole bunch of other people are getting as well? Most of it is random tchotchkes I didn't ask for. The only tchotchkes I want in my house are ones I specifically picked out because they were of interest to me. And most of the random tchotchkes in my house right now I can't fucking stand to look at. Except for my paranormal Collect Club figurines. Those fucking rock your face off. With Loot Crate, do I get a crazy thrill running into people wearing the same Goddamned shirt that I'm wearing? Are we supposed to high five and then buttfuck? I mean, the buttfucking would be cool but not the highfiving. But seriously, what a terrific service! I get to pay like thirteen bucks a month for somebody to clutter up my fucking space! Sounds terrific!

Now, I totally understand the appeal of the "opening a present on Christmas morning feeling" unless it's actually an "opening a present on a non-denominational day feeling" or maybe even an "I've never opened a present in my life because I'm a Jehovah's Witness and now I feel bad so thanks a lot jerk feeling." Oh! That's why Loot Crate is so great! It allows Jehovah's Witnesses to discover the thrill of opening presents without it actually being a present because it's a paid service! Loot Crate is a miracle to the Jehovah's Witness community! I'm all turned around on it!

"All over my face! Hi yo!"

Dick Grayson is pretty funny, right? Get a load of his next joke!

If he were more like Batman would he have his wife and child? Ha ha ha! Oh man. Tears! So many tears from laughing!

Deimos has Skyped Brainiac (the actual Brainiac!) who is currently living in a four inch studio uSphere. He wants to taunt him and maybe make a deal to free him if it can make Deimos the lord of everything. But first he has to reveal to Telos his true shape and name and previous life. I think he might have been Strongbow from Elfquest.

Deimos's story is actually kind of boring. I thought he was going to tell him he was Jimmy Olsen or Steve Dayton or Lenny Shapiro. Instead he's just some king or something with a family who gave himself to Brainiac to protect his world. Boring! Although Dick is really into that story because Dick just got done Narration Boxing all that boring shit about how he lost his family too. So now he's all, "We are Telos! Telos is we! Or us! Whatever!"

Later a female character dies because comic books. Look at all of Warlord's angst and sadness! It's a good thing he still has his sexy cat at home.

Even laterer, Deimos pulls out the heart of Machiste. I think he was one of Warlord's buddies. It's a really bad time to be a friend of Travis Morgan, Warlord!

Once Deimos kills Machiste, Val-zod decides it's time to punch things. But he's a little ambiguous about whether it's the right move. Not because violence is always the wrong choice. He stopped believing that many, many issues ago. No, he just isn't sure they should fight because fighting is what Brainiac wants. It's interesting, isn't it? For once his pacifism would be a useful trait and yet he's completely abandoned it so he can act like every other fist-throwing, hot-headed super hero in the DC Universe. Excuse me. Multiverse.

Maybe his plan is just to hug him really, really hard?

I'm so disappointed that Val-zod has been turned into just another brawler. What a waste.

While Val-zod struggles with Deimos, the rest of the heroes just stand and watch, mouths agape. No need to help Superman, right?! Eventually, The Flash goes running off somewhere to do something while Alan Scott tries to befriend old whats-his-name. But too late because whats-his-name decides he's still just Telos and everybody is fucked.

How about just continuing to stand there and ignore your power ring?

Deimos banishes Brainiac so he can't be released even though he brought him to release him to gain power. I guess he rethought his plan and realized it was a pretty idiotic plan. Best to keep the master of this world off of it, right?

After banishing Brainiac, Warlord comes crashing through the wall on a triceratops. It's probably all, "Fuck you! I don't give a shit! I'm nasty!" I'm sure Deimos is trembling in his fanciful boots now. He just defeated a Kryptonian and a Speedster. Now he's going to be defeated by a guy in a loincloth with a sharp piece of metal? And dinosaurs. I guess he has dinosaurs. But vegetarian dinosaurs! Please!

I guess it's not a good time to be Travis Morgan, Warlord, either.

This seems symbolic of something! If only I were smart enough to figure it out. Like maybe comic books like Warlord, which were big hits among the youth at one time, have no place in comic books anymore. They've grown old and outdated and long past their prime. It's as if DC realizes that some of their past comic books actually can be put to rest. How about thinking the same way with your war books?! Enough with the GI Combats and the Mens of War and the Star Spangled War Stories! Make them age into dust too!

I bet Telos is the real Travis Morgan and that's why Skartaris was at the center of the world and that's who Telos really is! If that doesn't turn out to be the case, I should remember to come back and delete this paragraph or else it will be an embarrassment to my comic book reading skills!

The castle collapses and everybody but Yolanda escapes. Yolanda is helped out by Deimos so that she can pretend to be his buddy and then slit his throat at a crucial moment. Dick Grayson finds a batarang in the rubble because the time he found a batarang in World's End has been forgotten. It needed to be reinforced that he will become the next Earth-2 Batman. At least he's better than the last Earth-2 Dick Grayson who insisted on wearing that hybrid Batman and Robin costume.

Oh yeah. Telos has disappeared as well. That might be important later.

Deimos heads into Brainiac's radio station to deliver a message to all of the cities. If they band with him, he will allow them all to exist. Of course they'll owe him a favor or two. They'll probably decline, being heroes and all. But I guess it's worth the effort because when they say no, he can act angry and offended and crush them without feeling guilty about it.

Convergence #5 Rating: Now that I've finished all of the first issues of the Convergence series, I'm beginning to get back into it. I won't have to read the same Telos speech forty times in a row, so that's a plus. And since the stories have all been set up, I get to write about how horribly they conclude all of their stories! That will be fun! As for this Convergence series, I'm enjoying it. It's weird that Telos and the domes and Brainiac are supposedly so powerful that nobody could ever escape. But then Deimos comes along and kicks everything's ass. I hope they explain how Deimos got hold of all the time travelers. I think Brainiac simply separated them from all of their home timelines so none of them could use time travel to fuck up his plans. And he stored them in Skartaris because time there is wonky, according to the dinosaurs and King Beauregard of the Tumblr Comments Section of most commentaries. He's like my Yoda but taller. Probably.

I didn't take the time to do a Scribbly Jibbet drawing this time but it probably would have had two or three penises in it.

Convergence: Booster Gold #1

Booster Gold seems out of place in this week's group of comics.

Wasn't Booster Gold created after Crisis On Infinite Earths? I know, I know. Let me ask Lord Google for you. I can do it on my own, thanks.

Yes, Booster Gold's first appearance was in Booster Gold #1 released in 1986. So it's odd that he gets his Convergence issue on a week that's dealing with mostly Pre-Crisis Earth-2 heroes. This must also be leftovers week since it's the last week of issues. Also, Booster Gold shouldn't be trapped in any of these cities because he has to complete his destiny as time traveler extraordinaire who will completely, once and for all, fix the DC Universe's timeline. I think the only way that's possible is to murder everybody that has ever been a fan of DC Comics and then start over with a new generation of nerds.

This issue's fight card is Skartaris versus Vanishing Point. Vanishing Point is the place where time ends or something. It's the place Brainiac found by torturing Booster Gold so that Brainiac could travel through every point in time and collect lots of new and really rare chase cities of the DC Universe. Skartaris is Warlord's world where all of DC's characters that have time powers are being held. It's also the city that's important in the regular Convergence comic series, so Booster Gold is, once again, more important than anybody thinks. I think Booster is going to always be shown as having the most unfulfilled potential but, being comic books, he's never going to get to fill that potential. Unless he was seen fulfilling it in a One Million issue. That's about how long it'll take before he stops being a goofball.

The issue begins with Booster Gold dreaming about how he first came back to the past while Brainiac's disgusting pink hose is hooked to the back of his neck. He wakes up because Skeets and Rip Hunter have forgotten how to use doors. So they're just like every other super hero in existence. Does nobody have any time to walk down a hallway to check the door and see if it's locked? Must they always blast through a fucking wall or crash through a window?

This is funny because Booster named him and Booster comes up with dumb names. For example: Booster Gold.

The Booster Gold Rip and Skeets are looking for is the one with the ARGUS patch on his chest. He's Rip's actual father. I bet Rip is Booster's father! That's not a paradox. That's a pornography.

Rip Hunter is all, "We have to stop the person behind kidnapping time travelers before they find Vanishing Point!" And Booster Gold is all, "Um. Yeah! We can't let them know that! I hope they haven't already found it on their own through diligent research and careful study!" And Skeets is all, "Beep beep doop! What did you do, BG?!"

Rip and Booster and Skeets begin to search Castle Deimos for the responsible Booster Gold (or irresponsible since, using Rip Hunter as evidence, he brought a kid into this multiverse). While they skulk about, they have discussions to help explain the coming DC Universe to all the kiddies reading.

The New 52 is all that matters, kids! But when the label disappears from the covers, go ahead and keep believing you have your old universe back.

I believe after Convergence ends, DC Comics will leave their multiverse open to the possibilities of stories from every alternate version of their universe across their entire history as a company. But I think they're also setting up this idea that just the one, The New 52, somehow matters. It's a way of trying to satisfy every kind of DC Comics fan that exists. I don't think it's a bad idea. People who love hard continuity can still concentrate on The New 52 continuity which will be the backbone of the company. But people who love all of the other crazy fucking stories that would fuck up continuity will still get to read their stories and they'll still sort of fit in to the overall DC Universe. They won't be "outside" of continuity. They'll just be relegated to a part of the universe that has no effect on continuity. Although they still have the potential to be part of The New 52 universe because New 52 characters will be able to appear in all of these other places in the same way that Barry Allen first visited Earth-2. I have a feeling DC might be headed to a more casual, less rigorously structured Pre-Crisis kind of universe. I'd be happy about that kind of comic book multiverse.

Booster, Rip, and Skeets discover a beautifully constructed action figure collector's case containing a nearly complete set of Time Traveler Action Figures. All that's missing is Rip Hunter because Rip is too cool for school. Also Rip rules while Brainiac drools.

Rip frees Booster Dad and Aunt Goldstar from the prison. Now maybe Booster Dad will explain what his mission was that caused him to begin bouncing around timelines and teleporting from dome to dome. That was a dangerous mission because it put him inside a Scott Lobdell comic book. *shudder*

This is about as much as we'll ever get in the "Booster wasn't a total jagoff" story. Proof that he mattered. Mostly, he'll just remain a bumbling idiot.

Booster Dad disappears again as his "chronal affliction" sends him bouncing from domed city to domed city. He never mentions what his mission was. Maybe it was to find The New 52 universe? Or maybe it was to have sex with Rip Hunter so they can give birth to themselves?

Booster Gold, Rip, Skeets, and their new companion Goldstar leave Skartaris because they're attacked by a bunch of lizard people. They also need to find Booster Dad who flip-flopped into the 31st century Metropolis dome. Rip Hunter has a device that lets him enter (and presumably exit) the domes. The only problem is that, after being trapped together for a year, the people of Metropolis recognize strangers when they see them. Legion attacks them thinking they must be their jailers if they're able to enter the dome. I suppose I might come to that conclusion too if I were only a 9th Level Intellect.

As Booster Gold talks Underoos with Superboy, Goldstar finds her brother. But he blinks out again only to wind up in his home timeline of Pre-Zero Hour Metropolis.

Next Issue: more cocksucking and rim-jobs than you could ever imagine!

Convergence: Booster Gold #1 Rating: This comic is the only one of the forty convergence comic books that takes place entirely before the domes fall. I imagine that Rip and Booster might save the day before the day even needs saving at this rate! Time travelers are so lucky. I suppose this (sort of) explains why Scott Lobdell had to play the Futures End scene with the dome still up even though Booster Gold is a time traveler and all. His trips from dome to dome don't have to take place in a linear fashion, right? I suppose it was just cleaner, editorial-wise, to allow the Charlton characters to get their powers back for the Booster scene. It's also possible that the disturbance caused by Booster's arrival and departure is actually what gave them all their powers, and not Ted's lasering the dome. It still doesn't explain the shitty dialogue though.

Who wants to bet that Booster Gold gets his own series in 2016 to celebrate his 30th anniversary? And I bet Ted Kord, who does exist in the New 52 universe, becomes Blue Beetle about that time, maybe six months prior. And who wants to bet that Giffen, DeMatteis, and Jurgens are the creative team?

By Scribbly Jibbet.