![]() |
[ FLYING THREW A SALE ] |
To QUOTE William
Goldman: “True love is the best
thing in the world, except for cough drops”.
THE STORY:
Holy cr*p! You're not
trying to jump into one of these spin-off issues of Convergence without reading
the core story, are you? Man, that's
treacherous. In a nutshell, Brainiac
(the God Machine, not some puny old-school Brainiac) found this sentient planet,
Telos, and somehow ported him (it?) into a dimension outside of time and
space.
On this planet he's been gathering cities that he's harvested
from the assorted and sundry timelines, 'just
before they cease to exist'. Not
just different worlds from the multiverse, but the different eras. or
incarnations, of each, over DC's 77 year history (as well as the worlds of the comics
they've acquired the rights to from other companies).
So, he's got these pop-o-matic bubble domes up over, for
example, Pre-Crisis Gotham, Pre-Zero-Hour Metropolis, some version of Kandor,
Flashpoint Gotham, and El Inferno from that Elseworlds “Justice Riders”
tale. And so on, and so forth. Oh, and the survivors of New 52 Earth 2 are
running amuck on the surface because, apparently, Brainiac never returned from
harvesting any of their cities.
Presumably because Future's End Superman beat him up before he could
make off with New York City ?
But then, low and behold, he managed to harvest a city from the “30 years
later” version of Future's End. It's
still a bit fuzzy. Let's just roll with
it, because the inconsistencies don't end there. The exact mechanics of it vary from tie-in to
tie-in, but essentially, after a year under the dome, which suppresses
superpowers, and sometimes, but not always, unrealistic strength, and
sometimes, but not always, unrealistic technological advantages, Telos drops
the domes and invokes the “battle for your city” instructions that Brainiac
apparently left him with.
So all these cities need to do, is battle one another, sometimes
via champions selected and extracted by Telos, sometimes via projecting
opponents from other cities in to the sky that champions somehow felt were
“intended” for them, and sometimes apparently leaving the citizenry to do as
they see fit to launch an all out assault on another city. Also, Telos claims that the winning city will be returned to the timestream,
and everyone else will be, well, returned to oblivion with the rest of their
reality.
Got all that? No? Oh well. Doesn't matter. The best of these tie-ins are the ones that
are enjoyable without all the background.
And I think Simone nailed it with her instalment.
The real juice of these tie-ins is to give you one last
glimpse of characters -- or versions of characters -- that have ceased to be,
due to the cancellations, reboots, and retcons of yesteryear. In this case, we get ourselves a starring
role from the titular Dick Grayson and Barbara Gordon in their pre-Flashpoint
incarnations. While some characters in
Convergence were conveniently on vacation in a different city than their
typical 'hood, Dick and Babs are right where we left them, chillin' at home in Gotham .
Dick's background didn't get too overhauled with the New 52,
but Babs got her Oracle persona completely removed, thanks to some experimental
surgery that got her out of the wheelchair and back to fighting crime in
skin-tight kevlar in about two years from getting shot by the Joker.
So, yeah, that's the big draw for this issue. If you love your Dick heart Babs romance, and want to see Oracle runningGotham and
kicking ass without anyone knowing, here you go.
So, yeah, that's the big draw for this issue. If you love your Dick heart Babs romance, and want to see Oracle running
The Wonder Twins, also known as Jan and Dan, do a mighty fine
job of bringing Dick and Babs to life.
There's an odd look here and there, but when the emotion matters, they
BRING IT. As you might imagine of a
story that picks up the tale of everyone's favorite young vigilante lovers
(who've been trapped under a dome with limited resources for a year), there's a
lot of emotion going on.
And, of course, because it's Gail Simone, there's also
magnificent moments like taking what appears at first glance to be a dirty
joke and turns out to be a very sweet gesture.
Plus, on the flip side of things, we get an additional hard look at the
emotional issues that our weary heroes are dealing with, as well as the
villains who have no real reason to pull capers any more.
Did I mention Flashpoint Thanagarians? There's Flashpoint Thanagarians. They're not nice at all, but they're wickedly
beautifully drawn. If you're keeping
track at home, this is where you cross off El Inferno from “cities in
contention”.
THE BAD:
To be honest, I don't have a whole lot to criticize here. There's the inconsistencies between the
different tie-in titles, but that's more an issue with the Convergence event as
a whole than anything wrong with this issue.
Dick likes smashing windows, and for some reason it's more reasonable for him to smash in a museum's side window than their skylight, because apparently, life under the dome still has a brisk flat pane glass business going on?
Dick likes smashing windows, and for some reason it's more reasonable for him to smash in a museum's side window than their skylight, because apparently, life under the dome still has a brisk flat pane glass business going on?
Other tie-ins have shown resourceful villains shift their
priorities to control things like
medicine and the limited food supply instead of running drugs or
weapons, but this tale is focusing on the ennui of both hero, villain, and
civilian, which feels a bit slower paced at first. Yet in the grand scheme of things, that's
something I'd happily exchange, for the beautiful character portraits we've
gotten. (The Earthling lovers, separated
from everything save one another. The Thanagarian lovers, gladly waging war
on-demand but caring for none but themselves. The former Tamaranian lover,
meeting clandestinely and speaking so cryptically it takes on a whole different
meaning the second time around. And the man who long ago lost his lover but has
so lost his way he doesn't even know why he's a villain any more.)
THE MUSIC:
Man. I went through a
whole slew of love songs trying to come up with the right match for this
issue. Because at its heart, this issue
is a love story, right? A love story
with sentient worlds pitting alien warriors against wild west cowboys before
crashing a dinner date at a fancy waterfront restaurant with a post-apocalyptic
menu. But a love story nonetheless.
I'm pretty sure Warren Zevon had penned “The Ballad of Dick
and Babs” at some point, but unfortunately never recorded it. Bummer, as that'd be perfect. Ultimately, I settled on Lynn Anderson's “Rose Garden” mostly because the
melancholy of it all matches the efforts of love under the dome so well.
And while we didn't see what life under the Flashpoint dome
was like, I imagine that Katar and Sharia were having similar woes (did the
ability for a Thanagarian to fly count as a “power” that they lost?), so they
deserve a theme too. In the interest of
keeping everything all convergarific (Yes. That is a real word. A real made up
word), they get the Suicide Machines cover of “Rose Garden”. You're welcome.
Do you remember the 2011 Stanley Cup riots? Sure you do.
The Vancouver Canucks and the Boston Bruins were tied at three games a
piece in the best-of-seven series. On the 15th of June, the Bruins won the seventh game, in Vancouver ,
4-0. Aaaaaaand, the populace of Vancouver
decided that would be a good reason to start a riot.
When all was said and done, over 140 injuries were reported, plus millions of dollars in theft and property damage. And in the middle of all this, photographer, Richard Lam, snapped a photo of Scott Jones and Alex Thomas making out in the street between walls of riot police. Some say it was staged, but the official story is that Alex fell down injured and Scott decided she needed some loving reassurance as he tended to her.
When all was said and done, over 140 injuries were reported, plus millions of dollars in theft and property damage. And in the middle of all this, photographer, Richard Lam, snapped a photo of Scott Jones and Alex Thomas making out in the street between walls of riot police. Some say it was staged, but the official story is that Alex fell down injured and Scott decided she needed some loving reassurance as he tended to her.
Granted. That doesn't exactly happen in this comic in any way,
shape, or form. In fact, all the romance
is put on hold when the Thanagarians show up.
But the theme of this issue revolves around finding and maintaining hope
and love in terrible conditions. Good
thing Dick Grayson is the eternal optimist.
THE CONCLUSION:
It's Dick 'n' Babs forever, with Koriand'r showing remarkable
aerial dexterity for a girl who usually relies on her alien “powers” to
fly. What's not to love? It's practically Archie, Betty, and Veronica. If Betty were paralysed from the waist down
and Veronica were orange. Archie, paralysed
Betty, and orange Veronica, versus the greatest warriors of Thanagar. (Can someone make that happen? Please?)
Maybe you never cared for Oracle? Maybe you think pre-Flashpoint Dick is a
boring old man with no clue what's good for him? Maybe you only like Mr Freeze when he's played
by Arnold Schwarzenegger? (What the hell
is wrong with you?) Maybe you're more of a Kendra Saunders type
of person?
Well, if all that is true, dear reader, you should probably check this issue out anyway. It's a refreshing change of pace from all the smash-and-stab Convergence stories. There's still plenty of smashing and stabbing -- and burning, mind you. These are Thanagarians after all -- but the real guts of the issue is about the relationships and the toll the dome is taking on all the characters.
Well, if all that is true, dear reader, you should probably check this issue out anyway. It's a refreshing change of pace from all the smash-and-stab Convergence stories. There's still plenty of smashing and stabbing -- and burning, mind you. These are Thanagarians after all -- but the real guts of the issue is about the relationships and the toll the dome is taking on all the characters.
Each Convergence tale has a slightly different point of view
of how they represent the host city (each of the four weeks has a “star” city
versus three or four novelty cities) and how they show the characters handle
the ultimatum to challenge one another.
My personal favourites -- and the ones that I think make the best
standalone tale for readers who just pick up a title or two rather than the
whole crossover -- are the ones that have a twist at the end that is unique to
the characters they are in charge of.
Some just threw the opponent in there on the last page, but
others put some thought in to it and used the unique device of having
established characters as “enemies” of lead characters who don't know them to
put something unique as a bargaining chip.
Titans did this beautifully with the one thing that would stop Roy
Harper. Superman pulled an interesting twist
with the ostensible enemy realizing their own weakness. But Nightwing / Oracle has sort of a triple
twist that is very unique to the characters involved that has left me eagerly
awaiting part 2.
*** Just reading and writing and rambling in the back of the Joker's old Ho-Home-On-Wheels... Keath.
CONVERGENCE - NIGHTWING AND ORACLE #1
Reviewed by David Andrews
on
May 04, 2015
Rating:
![CONVERGENCE - NIGHTWING AND ORACLE #1](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8q7ymTgzbt4Wpdhe9sOVthhqJah6e3MimGdnaN5gnqsVqvF1XlK2QFa6dLoOacQVbMG2um0lQ3KSf9KeMKp83m_NJCoQwhX2cw9DO1WtbiAItItVpQqf0_0x8GQAvA8xTmRpNPVUVpe8/s72-c/NightwingOracle-COLOR_580_54625c26618c96.40166572%5B1%5D.jpg)