A Convergence #1 Review – Mortal Kombat!!!

TITLE: Convergence #1

AUTHORS: Jeff King, Scott Lobdell
PENCILLER: Carlos Pagulayan. Cover by Tony Daniel.
PUBLISHER: DC Comics
PRICE: $4.99
RELEASED: April 8, 2015

By Rob Siebert
Editor, Fanboy Wonder

***WARNING: Spoilers ahead for Convergence #1,***

So Convergence is basically Mortal Kombat with more characters. Like, a lot more characters. 

 As we learned in Convergence #0, Telos, who is apparently an apprentice of Brainiac, is pitting the heroes from his master’s various domed cities from across the DC multiverse against each other. The losers will see their realities perish, while the winners continue on. In the end, one city and it’s heroes will remain. A line in the issue literally describes it as: “A perverse tournament.” And as the chaos is starting to unfold, the issue actually ends with the words, “It has begun.”

Yup. Sounds like Mortal Kombat to me. Only the scope is larger, and there are more capes.

We open with the Injustice: Gods Among Us universe apparently suffering from the effects of Telos’ actions, in a scene that has a curious ending. Um, is this game supposed to have a sequel? Just wondering…

We then go to the Earth-2 cast, as they land on the same planet we saw New 52 Superman on last issue. Their world has apparently been destroyed, and they’re bickering. DC has apparently been building to Convergence with these characters for quite some time with the Earth-2: World’s End weekly series. I can only assume this scene is somewhat meaningful to readers who’ve been following that book. As someone who hasn’t, this scene falls a little flat. Still, the characters are themselves are intriguing. At the very least, readers with no Earth-2 knowledge get introduced to alternate versions of Superman, Batman, etc.

We get some decent action, followed by a big monologue from Telos, where he announces his plan to the various domes. Carlos Pagulayan does a nice job with the art here, and I like the hexagonal imagery that’s used to represent the domes. But what he’s saying comes off a little hokey. At one point he even drops names of specific stories…

“Some of you came to me at a time of infinite crisis. Others were brought here in the final moments of their zero hour. Whether it was a flashpoint for a time that never was – or of kingdoms that will never come…”

It’s truly amazing just how big a crisis this is for these infinite earths. We might see the death of Superman, or even a tombstone that says Batman: R.I.P. Also, Blackest Night. *barf*

One thing I will commend Convergence for is the way it’s playing up Superman as the centerpiece to the DCU. The final page shows us a bunch of Supermen (Kingdom Come Superman, Red Son Superman, etc.) flying toward the reader. However, curiously absent from the issue at large is New 52 Superman. While I wasn’t a fan of how Convergence connected with Superman: Doomed, putting Superman at the center of issue #0 was a smart idea, because everybody knows who he is. Not following up with DC’s canonical Superman in this issue is an odd creative choice. Couldn’t we have cut a little bit from either the Earth-2 sequence or the monologue sequence so we could at least see a quick shot of him? Is the New 52verse even affected by what Telos is doing at this point? I’m confused…

The impression I have based on this issue is that Convergence proper is meant to be little more than the book that ties the various spin-offs together, and little more. This is mostly exposition, with very little substance. Carlos Pagulayan’s art is nice to look at. But in terms of characters we’re supposed to follow and root for, we’ve now jumped from New 52 Superman, to the Injustice characters, to the Earth-2 characters. It’s fine to have a story that spans multiple realities. But who’s guiding us through those realities? Tell me that, and you’ll have more of my attention.