Convergence: World's Finest #1 (2015) Review

Scribbly Jibbet...The Constant Victim

Written By: Paul Levitz
Art By: Jim Fern, Joe Rubinstein, Paul Mounts
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: April 29, 2015

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

I'd like to tell you now that we're past all that awful nonsense of the New 52's Worlds' Finest title that originally showed us the overly sexualized and bumbling team of Power Girl and Huntress and then showed us the uninteresting times that an agent of Apokolips showed up in the lives of Superman and Batman of Earth 2, that now we could get back to basics and see our World's Finest duo in some serious dome action........... That isn't the case though.  Don't fret though gentle reader because while we don't get the Man of Steel and The Dark Knight kicking ass and taking names, we get The Seven Soldiers of Victory in their year-long attempt to keep Scribbly Jibbet from becoming a corpse.  So let's pull our smiling faces together while we jump into this Earth 2 story and see how our heroes are dealing with their time under the dome.

Explain It!:

Our story begins with us getting an introduction to Scribbly Jibbet.  We see that when he first saw Superman as a kid, he realized his life's work as a cartoonist/reporter ...... I guess you could get that from witnessing Superman.  Me, I'd figure that everyone has seen him already and anything that I do would just be old news.......... I guess it's kind of like this site......... But we won't go there because I don't need to get into another crying fit.  Anyway, so Scribbly grows up and does what he wants to do and draws and reports on the superheroes of Metropolis for a small paper, but what it really looks like is that he's a giant annoyance to the Seven Soldiers of Victory.........because he's constantly in harms way.  This is made abundantly clear when Green Arrow and Speedy save him from a pterodactyl, only to fall to their deaths from an earthquake immediately after......... Poor archers.  Before the Crisis can tear the world apart, the dome goes up and changes everyone's lives.......... Except for Green Arrow and Speedy because they are lacking in the life department. 

With the dome in place and the heroes' powers gone, the entire city seems to give up for the most part.  Yeah, Stripesy and Vigilante still get around fixing things and stopping crime but Shining Knight became really screwed with the dome because he's a man outside of his time and without powers, he became instantly old......... kind of like that Nazi in The Last Crusade....... Only we don't have someone telling Sir Justin that he chose poorly........ Oh god, I hope all of you get that reference.  Do you want some more bad news?  Well, Stripesy goes and dies from pneumonia and after everyone mourns his death, they realize that they forgot all about Green Arrow and Speedy, so they quick mourn them and then get on with their lives that have become pretty meaningless......... Except for that damn Scribbly Jibbet, who just continues to doodle because he thinks that it will cheer everyone up.......... Heroes are dead Jibbet!  Stop being so positive!

In the end, Sir Justin's sword begins shining again signaling to him and Jibbet that the times they are a-changing and after brandishing the weapon, Shining Knight becomes young again, we get the Telos speech and just like in Blue Beetle, a giant Telos appears in the city but totally unlike any other Convergence title that I've seen, he takes Shining Knight and his steed into his hand and fluffs him a little.  Yeah, you're old but maybe that wisdom of age will allow you to save your city and whatnot.  He then places Shining Knight right in harms way with Jibbet as his new squire and our issue ends with them getting the shit blasted out of them............ Telos is a dick.

That's it for this issue of Convergence: World's Finest and it's really odd to me that the World's Finest end up being Shining Knight and Scribbly Jibbet........ It's no reason to dislike this comic, but it really just strikes me as odd.  Surprisingly, especially with how annoying Jibbet became throughout the issue, I had a good time with this.  The whole story really takes it's time to hammer into our skulls how bad shit has become for Metropolis since the dome appeared and after having a month of comics setting up a fight for their second issue, I've found that seeing the effect the dome has had on the inhabitants of the city is the most enjoyable part of this event......... and usually we don't get to explore that element as much as I would like.  Not here though, conveyed with excellent, bright and colorful art, we're shown how bad shit can be and I dug it.  Jibbet's always going to be a pain in the ass but if you can get beyond that, I think you'll enjoy this issue as well.

Bits and Pieces:

I never would have thought that this title could have been as decent as it was.  Besides for being pulled down a bit with an overly annoying character like Scribbly Jibbet, I really had fun reading this issue and for all my complaints about Jibbet, he still conveyed a sweet superhero fanboy naivety that was a surprisingly hopeful element to all the doom and gloom of an Earth 2 Metropolis stuck under a dome.  Definitely a book that came out of left field for me and won me over.

7.5/10