DC Comics Announces Convergence Event

TV writer Jeff King will helm the event’s main miniseries, with a number of planned tie-ins by as-yet-unidentified talent. King will work with former Superman writers Dan Jurgens and Scott Lobdell throughout the course of the event.

Convergence is kicking off with a zero issue co-written by King and Jurgens — perhaps a wink and a nod to Jurgens’ own sprawling time- and multiverse-spanning Crisis story, Zero Hour: A Crisis in Time, which saw every book in DC’s line get a #0 in 1994.

King, the executive producer and head writer of the USA Network’s White Collar, has previously worked on Stargate SG-1 and Continuum. Convergence will be his comics-writing debut.

Convergence spins out of the April 1 finales of the Earth 2: World’s End and The New 52: Futures End weekly series. USA Today, who got the official scoop, reports that Brainiac has trapped cities from various timelines and planets that have ended, brought them in domes to a planet outside of time and space, and “is now opening them for a great experiment to see what happens when all these folks meet.”

“What we’re really addressing is they all exist and have existed and exist within the framework of the New 52,” DC’s co-publisher Jim Lee said. “Convergence is in many ways the most meta epic event we’ve done.”

“We’re picking up at points of their lives where we left them and finding out what’s gone on with them since then,” added his co-publisher, Dan DiDio.

Among those teased in the image above are the classic WildStorm Universe (see the old-school Gen 13 image, there?), the Tangent Universe, an Earth featuring Charlton Comics characters, the world of Flashpoint, the pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths Earth-2, the Crime Syndicate’s earth and a world where the “grim and gritty” ’90s status quo remained in place.

USA Today reports (confirming months of rumors and teases) that the company will put its “The New 52” line of superhero comics on hiatus for two months for the event, a nine-week miniseries kicking off with a zero issue April 1.

The story line will spill into 40 two-part miniseries in April and May featuring a variety of writers and artists, USA Today reports, “examining the worlds of the DC Universe over the decades, as well as the heroes and villains contained within.”

During this time, DC Comics will move its main offices from New York City to Burbank, California, and it’s been widely rumored that an event would be developed in advance to publish during that time, easing the transition.

Convergence also will introduce a new villain, Telos, who the story says is born of Brainiac and the planet where the event takes place, taking on traits of that world, “but becomes a character unto himself,” DiDio explained.

“It captures the full essence and scope of DC’s incredible history and storytelling,” said DiDio. “There is a story and a character for every generation of DC Comics fan.”