eBay user sneeze58 is selling a piece of Scott Kolins art which would have been the cover of Flash #13, which was canceled for Flashpoint. The seller explains:

I bought this piece at the 2011 Heroes Con directly from the artist, Scott Kolins. This issue was to have the origin of Reverse Flash by Geoff Johns and Kolins, but was canceled due to the schedule of DC’s Flashpoint. I believe this is the cover rough, I’m not sure if a final cover was done however.The art is on 11×17 bristol, and a larger image is shown below.

It’s still not clear whether the Professor Zoom-focused issue was scrapped completely or repurposed as the Flashpoint: Reverse-Flash one-shot.

Scott Kolins Canceled Flash #13 Cover Art on eBay is a post from Speed Force.

There were aspects I liked, of course: as in the previous issues, Trixter is a lot of fun — I cracked up at his hilariously bad car — and the art is of the same good quality. The flashback scenes of Wally and Piper are touching, and the history of friendship between them could probably fill an entire issue. Cold’s blunt and awkward flirting with Iris continues to be interesting and consistently handled. So for these reasons, it’s all the more unfortunate that the story follows the old trope of killing off (nearly) everyone in an alternate universe tale. The deaths themselves don’t bother me, and most if not all of the characters will be back after the reboot, but I was expecting everybody to die and most of them promptly did. The only survivors who surprised me were Iris and arguably Cold himself, although his end is left open to interpretation, and perhaps Iris or Piper might kill him off-panel for murdering Wally. It’s a nice touch to leave his fate ambiguous, allowing the reader to wonder or imagine an end for him.

The colouring continues to have the same darkness problem as the previous issues, and that’s too bad. From a technical standpoint, it’s clearly the series’ greatest flaw.

Regarding the series as a whole…

I like that Scott Kolins was able to write and draw his own story, as it gave him an unusual level of control over the details, and the reader knows this is exactly what he wanted to tell. He does incredibly detailed art and clearly puts a lot of thought into it — for example, look at the hideout and all the gear he designed for Piper. In the first issue, Piper’s garage wasn’t put together carelessly; it’s got all the equipment and engineering needed for the upkeep of his vehicles, it’s full of musical instruments as one would expect from him, and of course he’s got the consistent design scheme. There’s even a cameo of the skull-faced harp seen in his hideout in Rogues Revenge! While Kolins’ art occasionally veers into territory that’s too cartoony for my tastes, his planning and sense of detail can’t be beaten. It’s good to see it here, and writing his own story presumably allows him the freedom to do this to an even greater degree.

One way the series surprised me is the portrayal of Cold; based on the details we heard about him being Central City’s hero and (let’s face it) the way Geoff Johns is clearly a huge fan of him and likes to make him awesome and the best at everything, I was fully expecting Flashpoint Cold to be a perfect Gary Stu character. But he wasn’t: he was a corrupt lying jerk, clearly a worse person than in the regular DC universe, and unpleasantly awkward. He was still able to kill all the Rogues single-handedly, but also got kicked around and wasn’t the wish-fulfillment fanfic I cynically expected, and that’s great. It was one of the aspects which totally won me over in the first issue.

If there’s one question left unanswered, it’s why many of Central City’s inhabitants are so similar to their mainstream DC counterparts. Did Professor Zoom leave them mostly untouched for a reason, and if so, why? One might think they’d be fairly different without the Flash/Barry to influence them. I hope this is touched on in Flashpoint #5, although there are already a hell of a lot of things to be wrapped up in just that one issue.

Overall I enjoyed Citizen Cold. It had its flaws, and the second two issues weren’t as good as the first. However the series was solid as a whole, particularly if you’re a fan of the characters. In general I’m fairly lukewarm about Flashpoint, but Citizen Cold is among the better tie-ins that I’ve read, and hopefully other people have enjoyed it too.

Flashpoint: Citizen Cold #3
Story by Scott Kolins
Art by Scott Kolins

Review: Citizen Cold #3 is a post from Speed Force.

He may have once been seen as Central City’s hero, but as the truth about Citizen Cold’s criminal past begins to trickle out, it’ll only be a matter of time before his true identity is revealed. With an entire gallery of Rogues set on killing him, Citizen Cold will have to work to not only protect himself but also to stop Iris West from losing her trust in him. But when she discovers a dark connection between them that he had kept hidden from her, does Citizen Cold stand any sort of chance defeating all of the odds stacking up against him?

Written and drawn by Scott Kolins, FLASHPOINT: CITIZEN COLD #3 arrives in stores on Wednesday.

Preview up for Flashpoint: Citizen Cold #3 is a post from Speed Force.

The tension is ratcheted up considerably in this issue, arguably making it more exciting. But this same tension has a downside, resulting in several deaths, some possible deaths, and varied serious injuries. Wally West is confirmed dead, Lisa Snart killed, Citizen Cold severely wounded, and the rest of the Rogues may be dead or injured. It’s a grim tally, and having many deaths is something I was hoping would be avoided in this series, as alternate universes are notorious for employing high body counts. We know these deaths won’t stick, as at least some of the dead Flashpoint characters are alive in the September relaunch, but does anyone enjoy reading about mass deaths? This is of course not unique to the Citizen Cold series, as it’s in all the Flashpoint titles I’ve read, but the first issue was so enjoyable that I was hoping we wouldn’t get a lot of it here.

However, my biggest disappointment with the issue is the portrayal of Lisa Snart. In the past I’ve grumbled about the way Geoff Johns and Scott Kolins depicted her in regular DC universe flashbacks — generally more of a victim than the capable supervillain she always was. And it’s true that here in the Flashpoint world she’s a different person and never took up a costumed identity. Regardless, I’m still dismayed to see Kolins portray her as purely a victim in Flashpoint — she puts up with years of abuse, cries and pleads a lot, gets kidnapped by bad guys, and ultimately murdered. The only agency she shows in the entire Citizen Cold series is shooting her abusive father, which is pretty much overshadowed by all the tears and terrible things happening to her. Even if she had to die for the sake of the story, I would have liked to first see her stand up for herself against the Rogues.

That said, I did enjoy the issue. Trixter’s over-the-top yapping was fun again, and Cold flirting openly and awkwardly with Iris is both amusing and cringe-inducing in a good way. He’s always been creepy about pursuing women since the Silver Age, and though we don’t see it in modern comics, it’s a reminder of why he sticks with prostitutes in the regular DC universe. At the same time, there’s the interesting contrast between regular and Flashpoint Cold; one is an unabashed criminal with a set of morals, and the other pretends to be a hero but behaves worse than his villainous counterpart. Apparently the absence of the Flash not only left a vacuum in Central City for Cold to become its ‘hero’, but also meant there was no positive influence to make him a better person.

The artwork situation is very similar to the last issue; it’s Kolins’ familiar style and done well, although again the colouring is murky and dark. This dark colouring makes the action somewhat difficult to follow in places, notably the scene in which Piper encounters the ice-duplicate bomb. And again there’s some of that strange underlining of words in the lettering, which I find slightly distracting.

I look forward to issue #3, but hope it won’t involve many deaths. However, I suspect there will be a final showdown between Cold and Piper (who probably survived the cliffhanger bombing) and possibly another character or two believed dead, and it will likely be bloody. Iris probably won’t fare well either. As with any alternate universe, we could easily start a betting pool on who will live and who will die, a sign that comics in general should probably end this cliché lest the industry implode any further. Why not surprise us and give a (relatively) happy ending for at least some of the characters?

Flashpoint: Citizen Cold #2
Story by Scott Kolins
Art by Scott Kolins

Review — Flashpoint: Citizen Cold #2 is a post from Speed Force.

Check out the comments after the jump…

NOTE: These reviews contain spoilers regarding the events of Flashpoint: Reverse Flash.

Devin:

Flashpoint: Reverse Flash is written as a companion piece to The Flash v4 #8, “Reverse Flash Rebirth” and further fleshes out the new origin of Professor Zoom. We’ve seen the extent of Zoom’s messed up actions previously in Flash: Rebirth and the aforementioned Reverse Flash profile issue, but now we are really delving into Thawne’s psyche and exploring the screwed up thought processes that lead to those actions. Thawne has suddenly become a lot more interesting to me now that we are getting down to the meat of him and they definitely have my attention. Not so much in the overtly messed up stuff that Professor Zoom does to young Barry & company (although they are pretty sadistic) but the twisted thoughts before and while he is doing them. Bringing his character and just how truly disturbed and obsessed he is into a different light.

Kolins does a great job with the story and was obviously a large contributor and/or learned a lot while working with Johns on The Flash v2.  He manages to strike all the right notes with the characterization and really nails it in hammering home that Thawne is right up there with Grodd as one of the more twisted and cutthroat Flash villains out there.  The Rogues never want to really kill the Flash, they know that in order for them to keep the game going and keep other “capes” off of their backs that it is in their best interest to avoid killing a Flash. But Thawne has no such qualms and the only thing keeping him from killing Barry is the fact that he physically can’t. Barry and Thawne are forever connected as Thawne cannot exist without Barry, and his negative speed force can’t exist without Barry powering the “positive” speed force. This of course inspires a greater pathological need to hurt Barry as much as humanly possible without killing him and thus we see Zoom traveling through time experimenting with Barry’s life and cutting and pasting where he deems it necessary. And that is where the “fun” begins with Thawne. Watching his rollercoaster ride of experimentation and his twisted thoughts whilst toying with someone else’s life is almost hard to read at times and that is why it works.

While the story is a great continuation of “Reverse Flash Rebirth” I find myself missing Kolins and Manapul when looking at the art. Not all the time, but a lot of the time. The overall look and style of is pretty solid but the faces all look scrunched up as if they smell something bad and the more I look at it the more it comes off as a knockoff of Manapul’s style. I remember a little while back when Kolins unveiled a look more similar to Manapul’s which ended up, in my opinion, evolving into the best of both worlds. Unfortunately this one just doesn’t have those same qualities, yet. I don’t hate the art at all (it definitely doesn’t come close to the levels of Freddie Williams II on Wally’s last run) but I wouldn’t want to see this guy on a Flash title full time or anything. I will point out thought that his non-costumed characters look a million times better than his costumed ones. Whenever they had Barry or Thawne in costume they just looked off to me like they didn’t fit the page or something. I do like his proportions though. Too many artists like to overly bulk up The Flash ridiculously. I personally prefer a more streamlined look to my speedsters and he definitely nailed that.  I could see him doing a future one-shot or fill-in story and probably being a bit better, as he definitely showed some improvement towards the end of the story (the last page was especially chilling). Also I hate to nitpick but the lightning is a big issue for me. Whereas EVS had the tendency to throw lightning everywhere, which got to be distracting and overdone after a bit, here we just see wispy trails of light to represent the lightning. It is like the opposite end of the spectrum almost like it is not enough. Again I know this is nitpicking.

Overall I definitely enjoyed the issue.  I’m also looking forward to another One Shot filling in all that history with Wally later on (I can dream can’t I) and hoping that some of it will stay intact. The Return of Barry Allen was such a great story and I believe it deserves some respect. I know DC (or WB or whatever) is less than interested in keeping anything that developed Wally West into the beloved and much missed hero he is today but I would love to keep some of that intact. O.K. that wasn’t entirely fair. DC is giving us some Wally love with the Retrospective Issues coming out in August by Bill Messner-Loebs, Greg LaRocque, and Brian Augustyn so I can’t complain too much. At least they are acknowledging that Wally still exists for the time being; his role in the DCNu has yet to be revealed.

-Devin “Flash” Johnson

Random Notes

Really interested to see what look and what changes Zoom is going to take on in the DCNu. I’m guessing that things are going to end up all new and shiny because of whatever action they take to fix the universe.  I’m just curious to see where Zoom is going to fit in. I think we could be seeing a radical redesign and I could see them eliminating the yellow for something that translates to a move better. We will see.

Scott Kolins is killing it with his Flash-related stuff lately. This story combined with Citizen Cold are definitely amongst my favorite reads spinning out of Flashpoint, although I’m going to have to mark Citizen Cold a bit higher because it is both written and penciled by Mr. Kolins. I think I’ve mentioned before how Scott is probably my favorite artist on the Flash period. He nails everything about The Flash that I love.  I wonder if he was offered to be involved in the new series at all or if they automatically went to Manapul and Buccellato.

Greg:

Flashpoint: Reverse Flash is essentially a continuation of the story from November’s Flash #8, where Geoff Johns and Scott Kolins explored the backstory of Zoom as is stood post-Flash: Rebirth.

After having the pleasure of reading Flashpoint: Citizen Cold, it was good to see Kolins is playing in the Flash sandbox in more ways than one.

Kolins’ recent Flash writing has been strong and has me interested in his recent writing work, including the Solomon Grundy series and two issues apiece of Superman/Batman and Magog. Having worked with the Flash characters for so long, he really understands the pacing needs of the book and the implications of the powers involved.  Zoom’s time-traveling experiments (he is a Professor, after all) completely devalue key moments in character’s established stories and in the readers’ memories, and are certainly effective enough to warrant more than one look.  Used as a plot device, it directly addresses unanswerable questions about stories and continuity.  This is obviously a timely subject, given what is on the horizon at DC after Flashpoint.

Gomez’s art is wonderful.  Regular Flash artists (and new Flash writers themselves) Manapul and Buccellato have almost established a new “house” style for Flash comics, and that can certainly be seen here since Buccellato handles coloring duties.  Some of Gomez’s figure work on the first couple of pages is a little flat, but there are plenty of panels brimming with energy and the product as a whole is a very entertaining Flash comic.  The Flash vs. Zoom sequences are worth it on their own.

NOTES:

• On the opening page, I initially thought Zoom was Wally West.
• Though I do love the experimental aspect of Zoom’s actions, I am now officially confused as to what is in continuity and what is out.  For instance, Barry is shown deliberately breaking Zoom’s neck by violently twisting his head.  This also appears to occur in front of Iris, as the panel appears in the scene where Zoom is explaining the nature of his repeated attempts on her life.  Is this just a tangent timeline that Zoom created during his experiments, and did Flash still unwittingly break Zoom’s neck while saving his then-fiancée Fiona Webb?  I assume it is the former, for clarity’s sake.  Still, it is very effective stuff.
• Gomez pays great attention to detail, which complements his penciling style.  When portraying the first time Flash caught a criminal, both the Turtle and a set from the Showcase #4 story (the alley) are shown in the panel.
• Zoom’s torment of young Barry is fleshed out in some painful ways.  Though I have always felt that a big part of the appeal of Flash is his status as a “normal guy” with extreme power, I can see why Johns enacted some of the changes for his new Flash.

Reviews: Flashpoint – Reverse Flash is a post from Speed Force.

I got to do something that Geoff Johns laughed about; I gave Weather Wizard that goatee. It’s a reference to when we had originally changed his costume in the Flash books years ago and made his pattern green with yellow stripes on it. At that time when I did sketches for him to show DC what we wanted to do I had given him facial hair; at that point it was a handle bar mustache. Geoff was like, “This looks great…lose the handlebar mustache.” So this time when he saw the goatee he was like, “All right, fine. You finally get to put it on him.”

He also mentions that he has his next project already lined up. It’s not one of the 52 relaunched books for Septemeber, so presumably we’ll see something from Kolins’ pen launching in the months to come.

There’s a lot more. Read the whole interview at That F’ing Monkey.

Scott Kolins Talks Flashpoint: Citizen Cold is a post from Speed Force.

 Citizen Cold #1

Spoilers behind the cut…

Citizen Cold is what passes for a hero in Central City, although given the dark hints we’ve seen in other parts of the Flashpoint world, his harsh methods don’t seem particularly unusual. He also drinks and womanizes too much, which is perfectly in line with his regular-universe behaviour. In fact, his behaviour is fairly similar between the two universes, suggesting that whatever Professor Zoom did to the timeline, it didn’t affect Cold too much. Since he still has the abusive father here, it strongly suggests that his terrible upbringing affected him a lot more in both universes than the presence of the Flash or other Rogues.

Things played out similarly for Cold in the Flashpoint universe as in the regular one, only here we get a more explicit reminder of one of the crueler things he’s done: leaving his sister Lisa at home with their abusive father. This was brought up during Geoff Johns’ run on The Flash, although in this reality Lisa never escaped by becoming a professional skater or villain, and eventually kills her father out of desperation. It seems especially callous on Cold’s part because here he’s rich and famous and could have easily rescued her, and really emphasizes what a selfish jerk he is. I’d like to hear his rationalization (if any) for it in a future issue.

While we don’t see much of the other Rogues, they’re a lot of fun. Axel is hilariously obnoxious and irritates everyone around him, and I’ll never be able to stop chuckling at Weather Wizard’s goatee. But I hope we find out hints of the life choices which led to them becoming who they are; for instance, since Weather Wizard never killed his brother, why did he still become the Weather Wizard? Was James Jesse around and Axel then took the mantle from him, or did Axel become the Trickster (ahem, ‘Trixter’) all on his own? The same question applies to Evan McCulloch and his predecessor. It does seem a bit too coincidental that many of the current regular-universe Rogues are also around and working together in the Flashpoint world, which is arguably a plot flaw but perhaps future issues will tell. At least including non-Rogues like Fallout helps keep the lineups from being too similar.

One point of interest is that we learn the name of Cold’s father for the first time: Lawrence (I’ll assume it’s the same between the Flashpoint and regular universe). This is helpful, because for lack of anything else I’ve been calling him ‘Daddy Snart’ or ‘Old Man Snart’ for years!

The art is what we usually expect from Kolins; slightly cartoony but very detailed and distinct. He draws the Rogues so often that they look very familiar to Flash fans, and I like that. The colours are slightly dark and muddy to my eye, however, and could really stand to be lightened. In some panels it’s difficult to figure out what’s going on. And as an aside, there’s a lettering oddity in the first few pages of the book: emphasized words are underlined rather than bolded, and I don’t think I’ve seen that anywhere else. It’s jarring because it’s unusual, but fortunately only a few pages are like that.

The issue is definitely worth picking up, and one of the more enjoyable Flashverse stories in quite a while (it’s a bit of a shame we had to go into an alternate universe to get it). Hopefully the next two issues will be as good as this one.

Citizen Cold #1 Review is a post from Speed Force.

Well, here it is, the supposedly final issue of The Flash. So how does it read? And how does Geoff Johns & Francis Manapul’s brief 12-issue run hold together?

This one’s better than the previous issue, with a super-speed battle, revelations about Professor Zoom, the Speed Force, Flashpoint and Kid Flash, and even the background between Barry Allen and Patty Spivot. Scott Kolins’ art looks better as well — whether he had more time, or whether the super-heroics is just better suited for his current style, I couldn’t say — and Francis Manapul’s cover (revealed just yesterday) is great.

Still, the whole “Road to Flashpoint” arc feels like something’s missing. The biggest problem, I think, is that everything from Flash: Rebirth to this point was supposed to be a steady build toward Flashpoint, but the combination of slowly-paced long storylines and publishing delays meant that instead of progressing from A to B to C to D to E to Flashpoint, we instead spent a lot of time on A and then a lot of time on E without actually following the steps to get there.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think maybe making a clean break at this point and starting fresh after Flashpoint is exactly what the book needs.

A bit about the art:

I mentioned that I liked Kolins’ art better in this issue than last. One sequence that stood out was the way he portrayed Zoom and the negative speed force. It looked more like flowing energy streams within Zoom’s body than the usual lightning leaking around it, which was a nice change, and a good way of showing that Thawne was using the powers differently. Still, I miss the background details that Francis Manapul works into his art, like the fire extinguisher behind someone who’s still carrying a flame.

Further discussion will require SPOILERS!

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So: Thawne’s nonsensical plan stands revealed: He was just trying out his powers. Um…OK. He also provides an interesting interpretation of the speed force: that it effectively is time. This takes me back to an essay I read during the late 1990s suggesting that the Flash’s powers weren’t really super-speed, but slowing down time…essentially what Hunter Zolomon’s powers were later described as in “Blitz.” Of course, those powers were described as being distinct from the Speed Force. The Flashes may need to revisit that theory.

It seemed likely from last issue that Hot Pursuit was wrong about Kid Flash being the cause of the Flashpoint, though I think they missed an opportunity for his actions against Bart to factor into Thawne’s plans. Speaking of Hot Pursuit, I was surprised to see him die (mainly because we know he’s involved in Flashpoint: Kid Flash Lost — though I can think of three ways off the top of my head to make it work), though it was obvious his fate was sealed the moment Thawne saw his face. That two-page sequence in Flash #8, in which Professor Zoom is so intensely frustrated that he can’t kill Barry Allen without interfering in his own past, made it clear that he’d leap at the opportunity to kill him without consequences. (I wonder if he’ll pull a Gog and start tracking down the remaining 50 Barry Allens around the multiverse?)

I’m glad that they didn’t go to the effort to drag Patty Spivot back from limbo only to kill her. That would have been a waste. I find it interesting that in the new history, she was actually a scientist at the Central City crime lab before Barry Allen, while originally she started shortly before Iris’ death. Setting it up so that she wanted a relationship with Barry way back when, and still holds a torch even though she knows it can’t go anywhere, sets up an interesting dynamic without tarnishing Barry and Iris’ past…though as a long-time reader, I have to wonder: why graft this story onto Patty, when there are other women (Daphne Dean, Barry’s childhood sweetheart, or more importantly Fiona Webb, whom Barry almost married) who already have this sort of history with him?

All that said…it seems kind of pointless to introduce new character dramas when the DCU’s entire history is wiped out at the end of the issue. Yeah, the whole idea of Flashpoint, like Wonder Woman: Odyssey, is to figure out how to change history back, but still…

The main problem is with the emotional drama at the core of the story: Barry isn’t paying attention to his family. At least, that’s what we’re told, since they haven’t really had a chance to show it. I know I described the intervention last issue as “payoff” for the little things that have been wrong about Barry since his return, but the more I think of it, those have only been in “Rebirth” and “The Road to Flashpoint.” There was no time in Blackest Night, and “Dastardly Death of the Rogues” led us to believe he’d worked through all the drama. This is where more, tighter stories would have worked better. We could have seen Barry repeatedly blow off family obligations until it built to the point that the intervention made sense, rather than having to take it on Bart’s and Iris’ word that it’s a problem.

When Barry Allen first appeared in the Silver Age, twelve issues would have given us 24 stories about the Flash…not two and a couple of stories about his enemies. I’m not saying we should go that far, but imagine if we’d had four three-issue stories between Blackest Night and Flashpoint. That would have gone a lot further to really establish Barry Allen as the Flash, tell some stories, and build up to the big event. As it is, it feels like the series has simply been running in place until Flashpoint was ready to start.

The Flash #12
Story by Geoff Johns and Scott Kolins
Art by Francis Manapul and Scott Kolins

Review: The Flash #12 – “The Road to Flashpoint” Concludes is a post from Speed Force.

Actors John Wesley Shipp and Joyce Hyser (Barry Allen and Megan Lockhart from the 1990 Flash TV Series) [Update] and classic Flash artist Carmine Infantino will be at Motor City Comic Con (May 13-15) in Novi, Michigan (near Detroit).

Frequent Flash artist Scott Kolins will attend two cons coming up soon: Phoenix Comicon (May 27-29) in Phoenix, Arizona and Heroes Con (June 3-5) in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Signings: Geoff Johns, Scott Kolins, John Wesley Shipp, Joyce Hyser is a post from Speed Force.

On one hand, I found Flash #11 — chapter 3 of “The Road to Flashpoint” — to be a lot more engaging than the previous issue. On the other, it highlights some problems with the series.

I was disappointed to see that Francis Manapul didn’t draw this issue, though seeing Scott Kolins’ name was a relief. That said, while I normally like Kolins’ art on The Flash, it actually looks rushed, especially on the early pages. I have to wonder how much time DC gave him to draw the issue.

The pacing, however, is much better than the previous two issues. After an issue-long teaser and another issue that was 50% exposition, we actually get into the meat of the story here — a story very much about Barry Allen, the man who works as a police scientist, not the Flash who happens to be Barry Allen (which may be part of why I liked it better than #10).

It was nice to see the story actually address some of the problems with Barry’s post-Rebirth isolation, though I get the impression that this was intended to develop over more story arcs. As with the artist change, I can’t help but wonder what we might have seen if they’d been able to keep this book on time. Monthly from April 2010 through May 2011 would only have included two more issues, but the two Rogue Profiles wouldn’t have been added. Under those circumstances, Johns could have fit another 4-issue story between “Dastardly Death…” and “Road to Flashpoint.”

Geoff Johns does a good job of keeping Hot Pursuit’s motivation and methods ambiguous throughout the issue, keeping it unclear whether he’s causing or tracking the murders. The super-heroics kick into gear at the very end, with not one but two cliffhangers to be resolved in next month’s series finale…though with a title like “The Road to Flashpoint,” it seems pretty clear that it’ll wrap with some sort of transition. I expect the “last issue” to end in one of two ways: Either it will feature a teaser with Barry in the altered reality of Flashpoint, or it will end with a fade to white like all of DC’s “Zero Hour” tie-ins back in 1994.

So, let’s move on to some talk including SPOILERS…

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The intervention sequence is the payoff for all the little things that haven’t been quite right about Barry and his relationships with his extended family since he came back. I found myself really wanting to see what we’ve been missing with Bart that’s brought him to the point that he doesn’t even want to deal with his grandfather anymore. Bart’s usually the picture of happy-go-lucky, but when he gets depressed, he gets really depressed. That said, I would have liked to see Jay and Wally do something other than gush about how great Barry is.

So, Hot Pursuit believes Bart’s presence to be the source of the Flashpoint time anomaly. Either he’s not as meticulous in his research as he claims, or he’s just feeling way too rushed to realize that Bart’s been in this time period for years. My guess: Whatever Hot Pursuit does to send Bart back ends up creating an anomaly that the Reverse Flash can use.

Speaking of the Reverse-Flash…Geoff Johns is really making a habit of bringing in the Reverse Flash in the second half of a story as a surprise villain. “Rogue War,” “Flash: Rebirth,” and now “The Road to Flashpoint.” In this case the manner of his return made very little sense as well (He transformed himself into a child so that he could develop his powers? Huh?) — though I’m sure we’ll get another couple of pages of exposition next month.

I’m not sure what I think of the implied extra-personal backstory between Patty and Barry, even if (as is most likely) it was simply an attraction that never went anywhere. One one hand, it does add more layers to the character relationship, and if they keep her around, she’d be a more appealing pseudo-rival for Iris than Barry’s childhood sweetheart, Daphne Dean. And it makes a little more sense in a world where they were colleagues working side by side for many years, rather than a scientist and a lab assistant working together for a year or two as they were during the Bronze Age. But something I can’t quite put my finger on strikes me as unnecessary…

…and I can’t shake the feeling that this backstory has been added solely so Zoom can kill someone important to Barry without killing off a member of the current cast. It’s always a cheap shot to bring back a long-disused character just to kill them, but it’s happened with three Flash villains (Savitar, Christina and the Black Flash in Flash: Rebirth) and a trio of supporting characters (the Three Dimwits in Justice League: Cry for Justice) in just the last two years.

One last thing: The return of the letters column. It’s nice to have a permanent record of at least some of the fan response. I’ve seen message boards lose or purge older posts, I’ve seen blogs lose their old posts in database crashes, and websites just shut down all the time…but a letters column lasts as long as your copy of the book does. (It’s also more interesting than tossing in the same editorial article that’s in every other DC book the same week.) Even so, it still feels unnecessary. I had to remind myself to read it…which was fortunate, because I saw the first confirmation that Abra Kadabra will appear in Flashpoint.

Review: Flash #11 — “The Road to Flashpoint” is a post from Speed Force.