Review: CONVERGENCE: INFINITY INC. #2

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CONVERGENCE: INFINITY INC. #2
Written by Jerry Ordway
Art by June Brigman, Roy Richardson, and Veronica Gandini
Published by DC Comics
Release Date: May 27, 2015

Don’t call them kids! The next generation of Earth Two heroes, Infinity Inc., have to face off against Jonah Hex and his band of misfits from an apocalyptic future. At stake? Survival of both their cities. And one will lose.

As co-creator for the bulk of the characters appearing in this mini-series, Jerry Ordway knows Infinity Inc. better than almost any one. And in that regard, fans are blessed with a return to these versions of the characters from long before Obsidian came out of the closet, Fury went a little nutso, and Star-Spangled Kid became… murdered. Seeing how each one’s personality drives their fighting style is cool, as is a sort of classic teenage attitude that’s somewhat more wholesome than the comparison today.

But overall, the conflicts between Hex’s forces and the children of the Justice Society feel a little lightweight. As a fairly straightforward set of beat-em-up fight scenes, this issue might fit well into the run in 1984, but by today’s standards, the motivations and choreography that we’re used to seeing in fight scenes just isn’t there.

What’s likely hurting that effort is the change over from artist Ben Caldwell to June Brigman, who can’t quite match Caldwell’s effortlessness of line. Caldwell had been an unusual choice, but one that gave #1 a unique look, despite being far flung from Ordways own original influence on these characters. But Brigman falls somewhere in the middle, not delivering the level of detail someone like the writer can produce or the full flight of fancy from issue #1

Like quite a few other Convergence issues this past week, the end of this issue relies heavily on “undoing a decades old wrong”, but to the point that the first two thirds of the comic just felt like filler on the way to the main event. And that’s not nearly as satisfying as a conflict that can stand on its own merit.

As nice as it was to see these particular heroes in action again in their younger forms, that just didn’t feel like enough to make for a strong read. Convergence: Infinity Inc. #2 is a great footnote to the history of Earth Two, but as an adventure all its own worth getting excited for, it falls noticeably short.

The Verdict: 6.010

 

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