Speed Force

Heh, that ad annoyed me too — comics have got to do a better job of ad placement. They really take you out of the story at times.

I have already complained about misspelling Heat Wave’s name elsewhere, but shall do it here too. Because it’s a really bush-league mistake.

I thought the main story was a nice quick little story. Didn’t really serve a purpose other than to catch new readers up to speed (heh), about Barry’s new status quo. We know he loved and misses his mother from Rebirth, this just goes to drive that point home.

I really liked the clock views though, and how everything happened in the span of a minute or 2.

It’s also interesting how the characters don’t really know why they’re at Barry’s old house, but the Speed Force drew them there. I think that’s definitely something Johns is going to work with.

I’m actually on the other side regarding the lead story: it did more to make this version of Barry work for me than all of Rebirth, which had to waste time pulling the levers of an overcomplicated plot. Barry remembering his mother, then seeing her fade away struck me as an especially poignant way to reflect the horror of Thawne’s timeline change, and Barry’s confession that he sought her killer only because “he had to know” who and why and how rang true. The line got across both Barry’s scientific attitude and his guilt about the detachment that attitude sometimes requires.

As to the profiles, the Kadabra profile’s suggestions of future enemies is interesting, but it looks like the Waid story in which we learned about Citizen Abra’s future world is tossed now. It’s also nice to see the lead story and the Mirror Master profile belatedly remembering that Scudder, not Snart, was traditionally the biggest name among the Rogues.

Johns has a curious tendency to build his plots on the legacies of the dead: Scudder here, Owen Mercer’s doomed and damning quest, McCullough’s origin revolving around the discovery of his parents after he’s killed one of them, and the Weather Wizard’s relationship to his dead brother. Blackest Night is the ultimate example, but the motif encompasses things like the death of Pa Kent in Johns’s Superman stories, Hal Jordan’s driving memories of his father’s death in Hal’s childhood, the “Rebirth” subtitles of his minis and, on a personal level for the writer, his creation of Courtney Whitmore. It’s interesting to track the motif in his work, anyway.

I remain unconvinced that we need Barry back, though. The Secret Files didn’t change that, and the preview pages of Flash #1 we’ve seen don’t, to my eyes, read any differently if you replace Barry and Iris with Wally and Linda.

The artwork is good, (much beter than the bad anatomical Liefield-like mistakes in Rebirth!) but here’s the problem; Johns has run out of things to write about the Flash.

Why bring Barry back just to diminish (I’ll call it “fucking with” at the risk of revealing my frustration!) his well-established character! That, to me, explains all the retcon changes. The possiblity that Johns wants to be “serious” about his craft and explore his own Oedipal issues in the Flash, only makes me want to put the Speedster down for a while. WHat’s with the obvious disparity between Mother and Father in young Barry’s eyes? Why doesn’t Johns even mention his father; Dr. Henry Allen except in a minor, passing comment? Ie: “Who Killed her?” – “Her husband from the looks of it. Guy’s going away for life.” And that’s the extent of the mention! That Barry feels anything at all for his wrongly accused father is not even hinted at! He may add this dimension of Barry’s relationship with his father later if he wants, and may claim it was his plan all along, but because he neglected to mention it now it will only seem like retroactive damage control.

I’m very close to saying that I’ve had enough with all of it; the ridiculous delays between eagerly awaited issues only to be bitterly dissapointed, the stupid retcon shuffling and re-shuffling of characters on a whim, the lack of economy in the overall pace/rythm of the last 3-4 arcs! (Maybe even stretching back when Bart was the Flash for a while!) But I have faith that a hero will rise and save us from the drudgery of BAD COMICS! It’s bad enough society sees us fanboys/fangirls in an awkward, askew light! Must we also have to suffer these assaults to our intelligence from our supposed allies?

There are some nice moments, like the sequence of panels early on in which Barry hits a light switch, pours himself a glass of water, and then the light comes on (though if you think about it, that only makes sense if the water is sped up too).

In fact, the whole story takes place in a minute, with the Rogues epilogue starting a minute after. I thought that was neat.

I agree with the issue being bland, The paneling and the art being completely solid, and being tired of ret-cons. I found it particularly interesting that in Bart’s powers and abilities section that they failed to bring up his energy duplicate power that was given to him. They do continue to short-hand a lot of the speedsters. I know there is so much space on the panel, but I think they do deserve a lot more respect. Johns is a good writer, but he lacks a lot of nerding knowledge that made his predecessors great. He needs to know his character’s rich past before tackling them. Johns ignored Wally’s triumphs with coming back from the speed force, not only in Rebirth, but Blackest Night as well. I know this is because Barry is the front man now, but come on, give Wally his do. Along with all the other great cast members of this book.

I am quite weary of the turtle on Jai’s shirt on the splash page with all the speedsters. I am growing irritated on the daughter always inheriting the father’s powers and the son becoming an evil doer. Why can’t the son ever just inherit the powers and ride alongside his father? I know it happens, but it is so seldom. I liked Jai and Iris. I was hoping for more from them, not some cop-out to re-create a villian.

I thought all the time talk throughout the issue was interesting. I do think the foreshadowing was done kinda lame though. Could they at least attempt to show some effort in trying to get readers to want to read this book? It was almost like looking at a checklist of upcoming events. Time traveling was always a mechanic of Barry’s and I am glad that they are bringing it back with him. The mechanic is a time honored Flash staple.

All in all, I was not swept off of my feet. I will keep with the series to see where it goes and hope it does get better. (It was like Johns made Barry the Blue Lantern to give us a clue on what actions we need to take as fans of this character. Hope) I am a Flash fan. I respect each man who has held the mantle, but I am not convinced Barry needs to be back. I am also convinced Johns isn’t either. He put so much more effort in his Wally run. Kolins seems to even be protesting by drawing Barry like he did Wally in costume.

I will wait and see what happens. I just hope, “All will be well.”