 Hey guys, welcome back to Comic-In. I'm Shannon and this week for your comic book review, I'm going to be talking about Convert... So, hey guys, welcome to Comic-In. If you're new, make sure you hit the subscribe button and the little bell. Comment below. Hit the like button and maybe even share with your friends. Good job. We have cookies. And milk. Might be semen, aren't you? This is the trade paperback which collects everything that has to do with convergence. It's done by King, Lobdell, and Juergens. I just finished reading this earlier today and it wasn't what I was hoping. In order to... this isn't for the casual comic book reader. It's not for a new comic book reader or collector. This is for the hardcore comic book historian. Someone who knows all the ins and outs of DC Comics. In order to truly understand this, you've got to understand who Brainiac is. You've got to understand what happened in Crisis on Infinite Earth. Crisis in time. Zero hour. Flashpoint. All of that. It kind of brings all that together. Starts out with the new 52 Superman, right here. Fighting with Brainiac. He's been captured by Brainiac. This is right after he overcomes the doomsday virus that he was infected in. That's what he remembers at that point in time. There is a little bit of time jumping in this. So you really have to know what's going on with the new 52 as well as Earth 2 in order to fully grasp this. I've tried to keep up to date on both New 52 and Earth 2, but I haven't been collecting the issues or anything. What I know of it is from the few issues I've gotten here and there, as well as comic story in, comics explained, nerd sink, variant, all that. The new 52 Superman is outside of space and time, trapped with Brainiac, searching for real docks. He's searching for him only to discover from Brainiac that this new 52 Superman actually killed real docks. Actually, you know what? This will make it easier. Got my laptop right here. I took some notes. Brainiac reveals to new 52 Superman they are in the crucible of space and time where Brainiac watches the mini versions of Superman die over and over for all time. And we don't really see much of the new 52 Superman in this. We get to see him at the beginning, and then we get little appearances from him throughout, but they're so minor that they're basically insignificant. It's also revealed that Brainiac is the one who infected the new 52 Superman with the doomsday virus. This is part where it kind of gets confusing. Superman goes from speaking with Brainiac, or what he thinks is Brainiac, to speaking with being known as Talos, who he's constantly changing form to become the different Brainiacs that have ever existed. Like you had the original Brainiac, you had that robot Brainiac from Challenge of the Super Friends. It's just really weird. You don't know if the new 52 Superman was actually speaking with the real Brainiac at the very beginning, or if they changed. It's just very enigmatic, I guess. This version of Brainiac is about the size of Galactus. It's revealed that Talos is very similar to Marvel's Silver Surfer. Apparently Brainiac came to his planet in order to save his wife and child. He told Brainiac that he would serve him, which Brainiac takes him to the planet of Talos, I guess, which is revealed to actually be the destroyed Earth too, I think, after Darkseid came and destroyed it. It's just...what were they thinking? Talos serves Brainiac as a keeper of cities that Brainiac brings to it. But Brainiac has not returned in a very long time, so Talos decides that it's up to it to determine which will return to the universe and which will perish, because only the strong must survive. DC really took a lot from Marvel when doing this. I mean, you got Brainiac, who serves pretty much as Galactus. You got Talos, who serves as a Silver Surfer, or any Herald of Galactus. You've got the Sorcerer, who kind of reminds me of Baron Mordo. It's revealed that Inside Convergence, as they call it in this, are the ones who, I guess, didn't make it through Infinite Crisis Zero Hour Flashpoint and Kingdom Come. But then it kind of contradicts itself, because towards the end we start seeing heroes that actually survived those events. So it kind of gave me a headache reading it. I was hoping for some clarification at the end, but that didn't really come. The Earth Tube Batman, Thomas Wayne, sacrifices his life activating a bomb that wipes out almost all of another Earth Batman's rose gallery, aside from the Joker. He does this in order to...he says, you guys will never hurt another Wayne again. He ignites the bomb, everyone dies, minus the Joker, who shows up behind Earth 2 Dick Grayson, who in this...the Earth 2 Dick Grayson was a reporter whose wife, Barbara Gordon, who was, I believe, police commissioner. I'm not sure, was killed when Darkseid invaded, and he sent his son away, hoping to save him. He's not Nightwing, he's not a vigilante, nothing, he's just a columnist who's kind of helping Thomas Wayne right now. But he starts to develop kind of a personality similar to Clark Kent. I'm not talking the mild mannered Clark Kent, I'm talking the actual person of Clark Kent where, you know, he tries, he hopes for the best. His hope is stronger than anyone else's in this story. He believes that he can change Taylor's mind about this tournament, that only the strong survive. But anyway, back to what I was saying, Joker comes up behind Dick Grayson and shoots him, shattering his spine, just like what Joker did to Barbara Gordon in the Killing Joke. And then Taylor comes up behind Joker and snaps Joker's neck, similar to what Batman did in the Dark Knight Returns. Taylor then takes Dick Grayson to the crucible, I guess you would call it, the point in between time and space where he can watch the events unfold. And he bonds this type of metal, this organic metal, whatever, to his body so that it'll make him stronger, it'll fix his spine and allow him to stand a chance in this battle. Because Taylor is actually developing a liking for Dick Grayson. He hopes that Dick Grayson makes it through. Dick has shown him a lot of compassion, has been trying to see the best in him, trying to get him to change his mind and everything. So he gives Dick a fighting chance. And it's revealed that a powerful sorcerer named Deimos has brainiac captive. And Deimos is a sorcerer that very much reminds me of Baron Mordo. But let me go ahead and read you the synopsis of this, I'll let you judge for yourself. Once there were infinite earths, untold timelines, innumerable else worlds, then there came a crisis, a zero hour, a flashpoint. Worlds lived, worlds died, now they all must fight for their future. The evil alien intelligence known as brainiac has stolen 50 doomed cities from throughout time and space and brought them to a place beyond the multiverse. A sentient planet of his own design, a world with the power of a god. As heroes and villains from dozens of worlds battle each other for their very existence, it's up to a ragtag band of warriors from a slain earth to put an end to this threat that bends the multiverse to its will. Reality itself hangs in the balance, this is it, the entire DC universe from the dawn of time through the new 52 stars and convergence. An unprecedented event that brings together your favorite characters from every era and series, whether familiar or forgotten, none of them will ever be the same. Hands down the stars of this story are the Earth 52 heroes, you got the Thomas Wayne Batman who gives his life for it. You have Dick Grayson who becomes kind of a Nightwing type character. He takes on the symbol of the bat after Thomas Wayne dies. He finds one of his batarangs and kind of shapes a bat on his chest, I guess I don't know. You've also got the Earth 2 Superman, Earth 2 Green Lantern Alan Scott, and you've got the Earth 2 Flash J. Garrick. Eventually both Kalos and Brainiac, they redeem themselves, they defeat Deimos and return everyone to their universes. Then it's discovered that the planet of Kalos that they were fighting on was actually Earth 2, and they find the survivors from Earth 2 that escaped. And Green Lantern goes up and tells them to follow him, and that's where it ends. Very, very weird story, very confusing, they could have done it so much better. You got Riders, Jeff King, Scott Lobdell, and Dan Juergens. They really should have put Jeff Johns to work on this. I think he could have made it a lot better. I mean, look at what he's done with the Flash and Green Lantern. I mean, CW right now, their Flash is based on Jeff Johns' take on the Flash with Flash Rebirth. This is just chaos, it's messy, it's sloppy. I would not recommend this to new comic book readers or even casual comic book readers. Like I said before, in order to understand this, you've got to be a hardcore comic book enthusiast, comic book historian, who knows all the ins and outs of the DC Universe, and even then you might still get a little confused. So overall, I mean, the art was really good in it. I really liked that the Earth 2 heroes got the spotlight on this. It was a fitting death for Batman in this. You got the Thomas Wayne Batman meeting Bruce Wayne Batman during the Convergence, and they make peace with each other. Honestly, the only highlights are that scene where the two Batman meets and make peace, and then the Earth 2 superheroes, the Earth 2 wonders, I guess they're called. I'm not too familiar with Earth 2, I've kind of browsed their stories. And then you got Superman, Lois and Clark, and their son, which eventually returning in Rebirth and leading up to Rebirth, I believe, with the death of the new 52 Superman. Those were the only highlights of the story. But the rest, they, I wish, I wish they would just wipe this away and completely redo it, put Jeff Johns in charge, maybe have Jeff Johns work with Dan Juergens on this, and I think it could be so much better. They just made it too confusing to be a very good story. I'll give it, I'll give it a four and a half out of ten. And the only reason it's getting a four and a half is I liked the conversing between Bruce Wayne and Thomas Wayne Batman, as well as the Earth 2 Justice League, whatever, wonders, whatever you want to call them. Dick Grayson, who takes up the mantle of the Bat, not really Batman, but almost a Nightwing type figure, and Lois Clark and their son returning. And Talos, he does have the potential of being a really good character if developed right. I don't think we've seen the last of him. I don't think we've seen the last of this Brainiac. I haven't stayed up to date too much on the rebirth of DC Rebirth either. I've gotten a few issues here and there. I'm starting to get back on track. We may have seen Brainiac by now. I don't know if I'm wrong. Leave a comment below. But there's just so much potential that this had. They didn't really see it through, right? They could have made this a little bit longer and really explored things out in depth. I think there may be parts of this that I'm missing, probably because they were single issues like Superman Convergence or the Steel Convergence, whatever. So I'll have to check up on them and maybe Batman Convergence. I could be wrong. I don't know. But I'll check it out. Once I do, I'll do a follow up to this. But as of right now, these are my thoughts. I didn't really care for it. Tell me what you guys think. If you liked it, if you didn't like it, if you thought my review sucked, which I'm sure there are many of you who don't like my reviews. I did a review on Logan last week, on the movie Logan last week, that I got a lot of hate for because I didn't like it at all. That was my opinion. And apparently the internet trolls didn't like my opinion. So thanks for tuning in, guys. Thanks for coming to my comic book review. And I'll see you guys next time. Take care.