Convergence

DC's Convergence: A Character Primer (in 40 Comics)

So DC's massive Convergence event - in which basically the entire DCU is going on hold for two months while a load of past versions of characters get smooshed together for a big universe-crossover that is in no way similar to the one Marvel are doing almost immediately afterwards - kicks off in earnest next week (after an introductory zero issue this Wednesday). And to celebrate, the publisher has been running a Road to Convergence sale on Comixology, designed to give confused readers an entry point into their history of multiverses and reboots.

Unfortunately, said sale basically just consists of the assorted miniseries - Crisis on Infinite Earths, Zero Hour, Flashpoint and so on - in which said reboots have occurred, along with a couple of New 52-era minis that set up some of the plot of Convergence itself. So none of them are really much help if you want to get a handle on the old incarnations of characters that will suddenly start appearing for two-issue minis in April and May. And that's where we come in. Instead of giving you a guide to which of the previous crossovers are worth buying, we've gone through every single one of the upcoming miniseries and picked a single, individual comic you can buy digitally that we feel in some way introduces, encapsulates, or otherwise explains the character. And yes, we even got one for Hawkman.

DC's Convergence #0 is actually just a reprint of Armageddon 2001

I was delighted to receive, from a source who must remain anonymous, an advance copy of the first issue of DC's much hyped crossover event Convergence on Tuesday. My delight turned to astonishment, however, when I cracked open the issue, only to discover that the entire contents of the issue are actually nothing more than a reprint of the 1991 crossover comic Armageddon 2001 #1.

It seems that rather than giving us a brand new storyline based around the pre-Flashpoint versions of their characters, DC have seen fit instead simply to reprint an existing one. As it happens, I'm a big fan of Armageddon 2001 - but even I would baulk at the idea of paying all over again for something I already bought once nearly twenty-five years ago.

On the other hand, the fact that Convergence is nine issues long, while Armageddon 2001's bookending series was only two, suggests that maybe once the first issue is out of the way, things will diverge significantly. Maybe they'll change the ending, and have a character who someone somewhere actually cares about become Monarch?

Either way, Convergence #0 - by Archie Goodwin, Dan Jurgens and Dick Giordano - is in stores today.