Yesterday I re-read Flash: Rebirth #1-3 by Geoff Johns and Ethan Van Sciver. Today I bought Flash: Rebirth #4 (and even managed to pick up the variant cover) and read it during lunch. Here are my first impressions, with a full review to come later tonight:
The story has really picked up. It seemed like twice as much happened as last issue.
It had some genuinely tense moments, including one at which I thought to myself, “If they actually go there, I’m done. Out. Finished.” Which made the subsequent save all the more satisfying.
In fact, there were at least three “HELL, YEAH!!” moments in the book, and Ethan Van Sciver made very effective use of splash pages for them.
Now that I’ve read the whole issue, Professor Zoom’s “negative speed force” concept (mentioned in the preview) makes sense. That said, there’s another revelation about the speed force that really, really bothers me. Yes, it’s been hinted for at least a year, but it feels extremely, well, forced. Also illogical, considering one of the primary functions of the speed force.
Overall much more satisfying than last issue, and the ending actually makes me want to read more.
I’ll post a full review tonight after I have time for a second read-through. Update: The full review is up!
Glad to hear you liked it. I was really disappointed in the first two issues, but issue 3 was pretty good. I’m looking forward to #4 (won’t be able to pick it up until Saturday or maybe Monday. bummer) but I’m hoping DC can get this series back on track in terms of scheduling. Hopefully the Blackest Night: Flash mini and the two new ongoing series won’t experience such delays.
It’s funny: I had the opposite reaction. I really liked #1 and mostly liked #2, but found #3 disappointing.
Here’s hoping that “reverse Flash reaction” trend doesn’t continue!
And yeah, I also hope they can get the schedule back on track.
I really liked it too. The art was out of this world, (although they aren’t quite doing the cool after-image effects that were in Blackest Night.)
Some of the reverse-flash’s exposition about the speed force and what he did to barry didn’t make sense to me. I’ll read it again.
And, is Johns’s thing always just “bring everyone back”? In GL, in JSA – everyone’s alive together. Makes things really crowded if no one is going to be dead in the DCU. Weird that the meaningful “death” here was Johnny Quick – who we watched die years ago.
Johnny Quick is one person I wish they would have brought back, but it looks like that is impossible now.
I was sorry to see the variant cover was marked at $14.99 at my shop. The both versions of the earlier issues had been available at cover price. Don’t know what was different this time.
Ouch. I was lucky enough to get this one for cover price.
I guess every store has its own policy on variants when they’re new, and I guess they can change. Maybe they ordered fewer copies this time, and didn’t get as many variants?
You know, it almost always feels like Johns takes a couple of issues to set everything up. But when he knocks em down, DAYAM.
That said, I wonder if we had the same “they better NOT go there!” moment.
Quite possibly. I’ll keep this thread spoiler-free, but I went into it in my follow-up post.
There was action, emotion, confrontation, and it was colorful – all very gratifying but to this point the plot is still pretty thin. Adding new rules to the speedforce as a major plot point isn’t really satisfying for me personally as I end up chasing my tale with questions and inconsistancies that they’ll never address anyway. The speedforce will ultmately be changed and retconned anyway.
I cracked open issue #1 and was fairly surprised at the considerable detail drawn into every nook and cranny of every panel whereas issue #4 seems colorful but far less refined.
For me it was a very exciting issue. My heart was about to explode when I was reading that Max was coming back!!! This issue brought back to memory the last chapter of the Terminal Velocity storyline and the Dead Heat saga, the Rogue War, I mean the excitement, the tense moments, which I didn’t have for a Flash story in years… YEARS! I thought that Geoff was going to disappoint me for the first time… but there are two more issues ahead so… I’ll have to wait and see.