Something just occurred to me: Between Flash: Rebirth and Blackest Night: The Flash, DC has scheduled 9 Flash comics in a row by the same writer. This hasn’t happened since 2005, when Geoff Johns finished his previous run on The Flash. We’re looking at the most creatively-consistent period the Flash has had in four years, even though we haven’t seen a single issue of the regular series!
The Flash has historically had very stable writing teams. The Golden Age was mostly Gardner Fox; the Silver age mostly John Broome. Robert Kanigher contributed to both. The Bronze Age was almost entirely Cary Bates. William Messner-Loebs did several years in the late 1980s, Mark Waid had the 1990s sewn up, and Geoff Johns took the first half of the 2000s.
But since 2005, the longest run had been just 8 issues by Danny Bilson and Paul DeMeo.
It’s nice to finally have some stability back for the Flash. Even if we didn’t already know Geoff Johns would be sticking around for the new series, it already feels like a minor miracle.
The direction (or rather, lack there-of) of The Flash has been a complete disaster since Geoff Johns’ departure. It’s fitting that he was brought in again to get things back on track.
I still insist that the criminally underrated Tom Peyer was doing some good stuff though, and it’s a shame his run couldn’t have lasted longer, given how late Rebirth ended up being. And I still don’t understand why DC brought in yet another writer for the last four issues of Flash volume 2.
Yeah, the middle of “Fast Money” had the best Flash issues between the end of Johns’ run and the beginning of Rebirth, though it kind of fell apart at the end. I still think he wrapped things up early so they could clear everything away.
There were some really good one-shots outside of the Flash series, though. The two Brave and the Bold issues (Wally & the Doom Patrol, and Jay & Batman vs. the Samuroids) and the Flash/Wonder Woman team-up issue of Justice League of America were fantastic.
Waid. That is all.
Waid what?
Waid 1990s? Waid 2007? Waid good? Waid bad?
Waid 1990s = the best Flash issues ever. I think that’s what he was trying to say.
Tough call, but I still prefer Messner-Loebs’s run the best, slightly over Waid. He was the only person to ever give Linda a personality, not to mention the rest of the supporting cast for Flash. And the bulk of the Wally-coming-into-his-own years-long arc was under him.