So... Convergence. For the uninitiated, Convergence is DC's big summer event where they make all the different timelines they've written over the decades come together in one place and fight to be the one true timeline. Issues #0 and #1 are currently in stores and both of them were more confusing than anything else.
Unless the writing team of Jeff King and Dan Jurgens really pull this together, I'm willing to say these kinds of events just don't work. Countdown Arena pitted the same characters from different timelines against each other and it was a disaster. Its fun to think about what your heroes would do if they fought each other, but there's never a way to do it that isn't contrived. Maybe this event should be called Contrivance (ba-dum ching).
So far the setup is way more complicated that it should be... but I guess you have to do some mental acrobatics in order to get two Supermen to fight each other. And the Earth 2 characters that lead you through the setup in issue #1 just aren't interesting. I want to care about these characters and so far... I don't. Kill them, I don't care.
Marvel is doing a similar "timelines fight each other" story (Secret Wars) this summer, and I expect the same sort of weighed down plot to get Captain America to fight Captain America.
Its times like these when I'm reminded of my old buddy Pat who worked at different comic shops most of his life. A few years older than me, he'd already been around the block a few times. In my comics infancy, my excitement would be met with, "ugh, not another one of these." Now, years later when I've been around those same blocks, I understand his resigned nature toward the Big Two's big events. And it bums me out.
I want to be excited about the characters I've loved for a long time. Knowing that that isn't going to happen takes some of the fun out of reading comics. Its a good thing we're in an age of the medium where there are more varying titles than ever. Something is sure to catch your interest. You may just have to start looking a little harder.
-Gint
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