The adventures of the Silver Age Flash continue for at least one more issue as we see the conclusion to this CONVERGENCE tie-in. Barry Allen was visiting the present day after the classic “Trial of the Flash” storyline had propelled him into the future with Iris – and of course, before his sacrifice in the original Crisis on Infinite Earths, when the dome fell. Now that the dome is down and his powers have returned, we find Barry up against the Tangent Superman! What happens now? Okay, it’s time to say…
SOME SPOILERS AHEAD!
CONVERGENCE: THE FLASH #2 starts with 7-8 pages (depending on how you count it) of exposition – you really didn’t need to read issue #1 to know what’s going on here. In fact, it does a pretty good job summing up the basic idea of CONVERGENCE itself. Still, if you didn’t know much about the brief existence of the Tangent Universe, you’ll get a better idea about that universe here. Eventually, Barry has had enough exposition for one book and decides that the Tangent Superman may be playing him. With that, the battle is on!
The Tangent Superman believes his powers give him an unbeatable advantage, but Barry is quite powerful himself, and his determination keeps him going in what turns out to be a pretty good action sequence. Eventually, the Tangent Superman uses his telepathic powers to bring the battle to a halt…but not in the way you might first think.
It is at this point that the Tangent Superman finds something unique about Barry. Everyone else is separated from their original world…but Barry is disconnected from EVERY world and timeline. Tangent Superman points out something that sharp-eyed readers noted last issue – Barry mentioned the Speed Force, yet that concept was unknown to Barry before the Crisis on Infinite Earths (which makes sense, since that came into canon during Mark Waid’s run with Wally West as The Flash). The Tangent Superman becomes aware of Barry’s eventual role in saving all of reality, and yields in order to allow Barry to live (or rather, to live long enough to meet his eventual fate).
NOTES: It was great for this old Silver-Age reader to see the “original” Barry Allen again, and the action sequences in this issue were well crafted. That created a great middle section for this book. Unfortunately, the start and finish of the issue were not quite as strong. There is such a thing as “Too Much Exposition” (just check out the song by that name from the musical “Urinetown”) and that phrase applies here. I found myself itching for some action to start long before we actually got to the battle. And, the ending was simply anti-climactic – I get the explanation, but it didn’t seem like much of an ending when compared to the truly good action sequence that preceded it. This just seemed like a rather abrupt good-bye to the Tangent Universe (not that I expected it to return anytime soon, but still…).
SUMMARY: Overall, it’s worth the buy if you are a Silver-Age fan, and it is stronger than some of the other CONVERGENCE tie-ins. Even so, the overly-long expository intro and anti-climactic ending don’t quite live up to the excellent action sequence in the middle of the book. That’s just my opinion – what do YOU think? Leave your comments below.
I loved the art. When Booth leaves they should snag up that guy.
*Spoilers*
This story was insulting and terrible. Abnett should be ashamed.
It is not only a lame story (Barry literally contributes nothing. Had he done nothing and simply stared blankly the story would have gone the same.) But it takes one of the most ICONIC MOMENTS IN COMICS (Barry running himself to death to save the world) and craps all over it.
In the original story, Barry saw the inevitable and defied it. He established a hallmark of the Flash’s character by showing he was a temporal wild card defined not by the concept of “Fate” but by his willingness to be a hero.
Now, he was told by the magic super cool better-than-him Superman 9 that he is DESTINED to do all this and that him sacrificing himself wasn’t the fulfillment of his heroic spirit but him simply playing his part in divine preordained destiny.
And the worst thing: this is all for nothing. Nothing gets accomplished or changes, it just shows up and belittles a classic icon of the DCU for no purpose and accomplishing nothing.