Looking to get back on track with issue 3, Convergence picks up where it left off with the Earth 2 heroes searching for a path inside of the planet, now with the help of Deimos, and Grayson and Batman making their way back from stocking up in a nearby Gotham. So is it good?
Convergence #3 (DC Comics)
Summary
This story immediately begins with the Earth 2 heroes as they assist Deimos to his feet only to be immediately swarmed by Telos’ drones. Meanwhile, Telos has collected himself in another area of the planet to observe the ongoing brawls in which one planet refuses to engage in his festivities: Kandor. Telos decides to pay the city a visit in attempts to persuade the citizens into battling. Batman and Grayson rejoin the group only to split up once again; Deimos leads the majority of the heroes to the hidden unground city while Batman and Grayson are surrounded by villains that followed them from Gotham.
DC History
This issue involves a good amount of characters that relatively new readers won’t recognize, starting with Deimos. Deimos is a black magic sorcerer who is the villain of The Warlord, both of which dwell within Skataris. Skataris is the underground city which the heroes are led to that features dinosaurs and was once a place the Teen Titans stumbled upon when they entered through an entrance in the North Pole.
Telos visits Kandor which was the capital of Krypton before being shrunken down and kept by Brainiac. Its heroes are Flamebird and Nightwing, the latter being the inspiration for Dick Grayson’s superhero namesake.
The Good
This issue had a couple good moments for me, the first being the inclusion of Kandor. I enjoyed the attempted revolt against Telos which ultimately ended with the villain destroying the city. However, while the page depicting the city’s destruction was slightly entertaining, comparatively speaking, it did assert a ridiculous amount of power from Telos, too much for my tastes. Another part I enjoyed was the inclusion of the Batman villains at the end of issue, specifically Telos killing the Joker personally. Those are really the only good aspects of the segment, just the characters’ presents. Everything else about it was handled terribly.
The Bad
This could be a while. The issue overall still feels disjointed and the writing is coming off as amateur and reminiscent of the overly narrated comics of the 60s. Grayson still throws in some random narration for only one page which continues to strike me as bizarre. It’s blatant that King is new to writing comics with the awkward and obvious dialogue, cheesy one-liners, and jumbled plot structure.
*Awkward laughter for Flash so he doesn’t get embarrassed for his lame jokes.
While I consider this issue to have more highs than previous issues, it has an alarming amount of lows. As I said last week, this series could be so much more, but King has wasted potentially significant moments within each issue and there are a number of instances this week that continue the trend. I think Batfamily fans are going to be the ones most hurt by this because they’ve set up so many great opportunities for Grayson and Wayne and they’ve taken those opportunities and blown them into a thousand incredibly small and worthless pieces so what we’re left with is 1. a mess and 2. garbage. It’s just so frustrating.
Whether it’s Batman’s short-lived rescue mission where the only reinforcements he brought back from Gotham was a vehicle that functions for approximately two pages, or the fact he’s later swarmed by a horde of some of his greatest villains, the writing and abbreviated nature dispel any excitement on behalf of the reader. You just keep thinking to yourself, “This should be exciting. WHY IS THIS NOT EXCITING!?” And it doesn’t just apply to the Batman sequences, it’s been the series as a whole.
Is It Good?
While Convergence shows signs of life in this issue, those moments are heavily outweighed by the lows and continued wasted moments. A large portion of the story isn’t new-reader friendly and will require some DC historical knowledge. If you’re this far into the series you’re probably committed solely for collecting purposes; if not, you must have a lot more faith in this series than I do.
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