From Morrison's mind: Convergence Brainiac

On paper idea of Convergence Brainiac is rather simple, if regular Brainiac collects cities from doomed worlds then maybe there is super Brainiac who collects cities from doomed realities? But according to Jeff King, the writer of Convergence, this idea came from Morrison during a conversation with DiDio and King. So what happened next?

Entire thing started in Futures End weekly series. Brainiac was treated like the big bad until Brother Eye came out as the main bad guy. Nothing really wrong with that, problem was that we got multiple versions of Brainiac.

One version is present in Frankenstein's story. Brainiac there isn't very unique or interesting. Key point I guess was that this is the real Brainiac while everyone else is just a shell, or something. It is a common trope with robotic or artificial beings - reveal that everyone you fought before wasn't the real deal. I liked Frankenstein's story and Brainiac played his role fine, but it wasn't something spectacular.

Another version was present in Constantine's story where Brainiac was a bit more... eldritch I suppose? Like a cosmic horror that exists outside reality and some high level AIs are able to pierce the veil to glimpse this being. And it obviously goes badly and they are "consumed" by him and go crazy. There was also some hints about Clark's arrival to Earth being sinister or something. This is rather frustrating to write about because I dig the basic idea of Brainiac being eldritch being that drives computers crazy, but... execution was bad. And outside of Constantine's story these ideas didn't exist or at least weren't used.

Then there was Brainiac talking to Mister Terrific. I suppose it could have been either of those two versions, but it didn't really work for me. Reminded of Morrison's opening Action arc where Brainiac talked with Luthor, but in Futures End it wasn't as good and felt like a cheap imitation. Anyway, eventually heroes fight Brainiac that we saw in Frankenstein's story and manage to trap him.

Then Convergence event happened. I think that Convergence #0 is fine, it explains what happened to Superman after Doomed crossover, it shows us Convergence Brainiac and together with Frankenstein's story from Futures End we get a solid idea of what he is about. But that is really where the positives end.

Chronologically, after #0 Convergence Brainiac goes to Futures End weekly and gets trapped there. At the end of Convergence he is released and helps the heroes to win. It tried to explain Brainiac's origin and implied that it was pre-Flashpoint Brainiac who survived the Flashpoint and became this super Brainiac thing. Okay, I suppose. But then Jeff King also wrote Telos mini after Convergence concluded.  It said that New 52 Brainiac transformed into this thing after Doomed crossover, but now was back to "normal". Confusing? Yes, but it would be fine if the stories were good. Unfortunately both, Convergence and Telos, were total shit and it looked like we'd never hear about Convergence Brainiac again asides of some splash page where various crisis events are shown.

But then came Williamson and brought him back for recently concluded House of Brainiac mini-event. You see, there is a council of Brainiacs from the omniverse. And Convergence Brainiac has a seat in this council. New 52 and pre-Flashpoint Brainiacs are also in this council so it raises some questions, but really, who cares at this point? I doubt that something will actually be done with Convergence Brainiac by Williamson asides of acknowledgement that it was a thing that happened. 

In the end nothing interesting or good was done with this idea. If you really want to you might skim Frankenstein's story in Futures End weekly and read Convergence #0, but other than that? Avoid this stuff. Oh and House of Brainiac is okay if you like Williamson's work.