Convergence #2 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Maybe I've just become inured to how bad "Convergence" is, but this issue didn't feel as terrible as the rest of them.

I think this issue is marginally more readable because we at least have something like a plot developing.  Alan taps into the planet's power to try to take down Telos.  He fails (since, after all, Telos is the planet), but he catches a glimpse of Telos' thinking in the process.  He learns that Telos fears some sort of underground city, so they wisely head there.  Meanwhile, Thomas realizes that he can head to a nearby Gotham to get some support from its version of Bruce.  King oddly decides not to allow us to be party to their conversation when they meet, so it's left to Pagulayan to (successfully) convey the gravity of the moment.  King's only real contribution to these scenes is the foreshadowing that he weaves throughout them, using Dick's narration to make it clear that something terrible happens as a result of this meeting.  ("But if I knew then what I know now...I'd never have let him open that door.")  Meanwhile, the heroes encounter someone named Deimos, and he claims that he can lead them off the planet.

That said, this issue is far from perfect.  It begins with a re-telling of Grayson leaving his son to board the evacuating ships, this time showing a mysterious woman taking possession of him.  I honestly don't remember that from "Earth 2:  World's End," but, given how I felt about that series at that point, it's possible that I missed it.  Then, we've got the fact that Telos is allowing the Earth 2 heroes to live.  We've already established that he doesn't think that they should be there, since they are without a city.  But, we don't learn why he's just keeping them captured in liquid metal, other than the obvious reason, so that they can escape and eventually defeat him.  King seems to make a nod to a reason, with Telos wanting them to chose which cities fight each other.  But, they refuse to do so, so Telos is making the decisions anyway.  That means we're right back at the original problem, of what use they are alive to Telos.

Then, we've got smaller problems, like characterization.  Last I checked, Val was a pacifist, but he wails on Telos like he means it here.  I'm all fine with Val surrendering his pacifism in the face of the horrors that he's seen, but somebody probably needs to mention that at some point, since a lot of people died as a result of him refusing to lift a finger as Earth 2 was dying.

In other words, it may be better, but the bar was so low that it doesn't mean that it's good.

** (two of five stars)