Hokey smokes, the Flash has gone from the top of my reading pile to the very bottom, so I only read The Flash #6 just now. The writing is terrible; Bilson and Demeo seemed to get worse with each issue instead of better. There's nothing really written into Bart's character that makes me want to accept him as the Flash. I could go on and on, but this issue does have a surprise at the very end. If you've read Infinite Crisis and Justice League of America #0, you may have noticed hints that there is a new parallel Earth in the DC Universe. From the time I saw it in JLA #0, I always believed we would find Wally West tucked away on this world. Flash #6 proves that is true. Not only are Wally, Linda, and the twins there, but there is an alternate version of Jay Garrick. There's a scene on that Earth set just after Superboy broke out of prison, which looks like it was hooked up to a number of Red Sun generators. Wally passes the ring to Bart and sends him packing back to DCU Earth-1, loaded up with all the Speed Force in the world. Let's hope eventually Wally gets it back. Nuff said.
Recently in The Flash Category
I was highly disappointed by the new Flash #1. The writing was clumsy as well as the artwork. I didn't quite grok that Bart getting "the Illyana treatment" (instantly aged into a young adult) was a permanent change. I didn't initially review Flash #1 because I had hoped that Wally would turn up as the Flash later on in the arc. Sad to say, this is not longer the case, as Didio explained at Heroes Con:
Responding to a question about the Flash and Bart Allen becoming the new Flash as a result of Infinite Crisis, Didio said that he felt a change was needed with the character as he stood because, as he said, there was something very generic about the Flash. Themes were repeating, he said, and he wanted to bring a new generational aspect to the forefront again. In noting that Bart is the Flash for this new generation of the DCU, Didio added that Wally West is gone, but not forgotten.
I can't see anything generic about Wally West as the Flash. He had a great run under Mark Waid, Grant Morrison, and Geoff Johns. He discovered the Speed Force and became the only man to merge with it and come back to reality. I suspect the real problem was the one writers faced back in 1986: the Flash is powerful that they cannot come up with threats deadly enough to threaten him. Witness the awful last arc by Joey Cavaleri that closed out the Flash's second volume.
Didio must think he's going to pull off the same trick as DC did in the 80s with Wally appearing in Flash #1. There are some parallels--Wally wasn't a very likeable character in the first two or three dozen issues. He took money to deliver a heart to the West Coast and slept with every bimbo in sight. As the series went on, Wally became a better person and a more reliable hero. I think we stuck with Wally as readers, because we had a two decade history with him. We had already invested a certain amount of time, from Wally as a teenager in the Flash to a college student in Titans. Bart has had only a decade or less. I could actually see sticking with Bart if they hadn't made him into a sucky dude drinking in pubs. It might have been better to have him learn how to control his Impulse-nature into something more mature. The big question is whether this new Flash will lure in any new readers than Wally West. Nuff said.
This is the week I've been both looking forward to and dreading at the same time. Flash Volume 3, Number 1, will be in comic stores this Wednesday, June 21st. Can a couple of TV hacks really reinvigorate this character? Will the Flash turn out to be Bart Allen or Jay Garrick or Wally West? I'm betting that things will start off leading us to believe the former and wind up with the latter at the conclusion, just like Wonder Woman is doing with the Donna Troy business. I have no doubts about Ken Lashley on the artwork. Blog @ Newsarama tipped me off to this article about Lashley on the Canadian MetroNews site. There's also a review of Flash #1 which doesn't really say anything, except to indicate that the first arc is another example of decompressed storytelling. Can't wait till Wednesday. Nuff said.
A lot of people who are reading Infinite Crisis are not hardcore DC fans; even if you are a DC fan, you may not have read the Flash for the past 20 years. What is the Speed Force and who were those guys in Infinite Crisis #4? To answer that, we are going to go back to the beginning-to Barry Allen, the Flash of the Silver Age of comic books.
Barry Allen always assumed that his origin was tied up with a bolt of lightning striking his laboratory. The chemicals that splashed over his body supposedly transformed him into the scarlet speedster. But in a flashback shown in Speed Force Special #1 (1997), we could see that Barry started to doubt this theory. After an encounter with a villain called Cobalt Blue, who seemed to withdraw the speed power from both Barry and Wally West (Kid Flash at that point), Barry suspected a greater force was at work.
Everyone knows by now that Barry Allen died in the original Crisis on Infinite Earths mini-series. He went out like a hero, running circles around the Anti-Monitor's machine in order to destroy it. However, what most new fans won't know is that this is only half of the story…
In 1988, DC published Flash Annual 2 (Vol. 2), featuring the Secret Origin of Barry Allen. It was written by a wonderful writer named Robert Loren Fleming and drawn by Flash's co-creator, Carmine Infantino. In this story, which actually covered most of Barry Allen's life, we see at the end that he transformed into a creature of pure energy…
…and eventually became a lightning bolt, going back in time and striking Barry's lab full of chemicals. In effect, he created himself. Who knows if DC's current generation of writers remembers this annual? Is it still canon? But I like it, only if I can say that the lightning bolt is not an endless, repeating loop, and that it eventually goes to the Speed Force. We would have to wait seven years to ask these questions...
In Flash #1 Vol.2 (1987), we see that Wally West is making good on his promise to become the Flash (which he stated at the end of Crisis). His speed power is nowhere near Barry's, as he can barely match the speed of sound. A trip across America to deliver vital supplies takes an hour and Wally's so exhausted at the end that he has to scarf down a ton of fast food to restore his energy.
Wally's quest to regain Barry's speed was a recurring theme in the new Flash's first 90 issues. When Mark Waid took over, Wally's scientist friends kept telling him that it wasn't possible for any human being to run as fast as Barry. After a trip through time, (courtesy of Zero Hour) Wally runs past the speed of light-but he pays a price. In Flash 95, Linda stumbles through a doorway to find that Wally is becoming a being of pure energy!
To make matters worse, Wally's seen a glimpse of the future-that he will die saving Linda-dissipating into pure energy. Despite all of Wally's best efforts to avoid his fate, it comes true at the hands of Kobra. In Flash 99, Kobra fires an energy weapon at Linda. In order to stop it, Wally must run faster than ever before. He saves Linda and explodes in a flash of light.
In Flash 100, Central City has a big problem. It is sealed off from the rest of the DC Universe, and Kobra's terrorist cell is in control. Linda Park proves she is no pushover and manages to survive on her own. Just as Kobra finally corners Linda and gets ready to kill her, Wally returns, surrounded by bolts of lightning. He defeats Kobra using speed powers we've never seen him wield.
According to the Comics Continuum, Justice League Unlimited is back on Cartoon Network this Saturday. The new episode is called "Flash and Substance". Yum, yum, an all-Flash episode with his Rogues Gallery: Mirror Master, Captain Cold, and the Trickster are slated to appear. Plus they worked Linda Park in there. Now, what is really funny is that over on Ain't It Cool, people in the UK are watching the penultimate episode of JLU already! For once, our friends across the pond get to watch something ahead of the United States. This means...that all these JLU episodes are already torrented. Yep. Nuff said.
Dan Didio spilled the beans (here on Newsarama) about who will take over the writing reins on The Flash when it reboots with a new #1 issue. In case you weren't keeping score, there was plenty of speculation as to who this might be; Mark Waid and Grant Morrison were two of the names mentioned. Who is it really? Danny Bilson and Paul De Meo. Wha-huh? I knew the names right away--they were the producers/creators of the Flash TV series which I reviewed just the other week. Talk about serendipity, getting an 16 year old TV series (which they probably never thought to see another dime from) collected on DVD and then getting to write the comic book series a few weeks later! Ken Lashley will be doing the artwork (click to expand his developmental art work on the right), although it might be cool if Bilson and De Meo were paired with Howard Chaykin (their co-producer on the Flash) as the artist. Lashley is just fine, but Bilson and De Meo had better be freaking outstanding. Interesting comments from Didio on the Flash's role in generational change within the DC Universe. I totally agree. Nuff said.
Flash #230, written by Joey Cavaleri, marks the last issue of the Flash's current run. Instead of wrapping up 20 years of history with a touching farewell, it is just pointless filler material. It tries to bring Wally's adventures full circle, by having him fight the same villain from Flash #1: Vandal Savage. I couldn't get into the story. Savage is so over the top, with his little space cult, and dropping names like Chairman Mao. It really has no meaning or impact on Wally's life and really suffers in comparison to Johns' last two years on the book.
Long time Flash fans will remember Flash 350, which was the final issue for the Barry Allen character. Written by Cary Bates and appropriately drawn by Carmine Infantino (the greatest silver age Flash artist), this issue wrapped up two years worth of plotlines and reunited Barry with his wife Iris--who we all thought had been killed by Professor Zoom! It gave Barry and Iris a brief bit of happiness in the future--enough time for them to conceive twins. The ominous caption in the last page read "They all lived happily ever after...for a little while."
DC should have ended the series with Geoff Johns' final issue, which had a great sendoff to Wally West. It eerily paralleled Flash V1 350, by resolving the most tragic event in Wally and Linda's marriage--losing her unborn babies. Wally undid the tragic event in a near-fatal confrontation with Zoom. He ran off down the road with memories of his past adventures, like a cowboy riding off into the sunset.
The events in Infinite Crisis #4 are really intriguing. The Wests are leaving Earth for another place, but where? A new Earth? Or perhaps the future, where Barry found refuge? I can't wait to find out. On the other hand, I'm not too excited about Bart becoming the Flash, but I'll give it a chance. Wally becoming the Flash was a big event, but it felt like he earned it with numerous Flash appearances, short stories, and as a founding member of the Teen Titans. I'm sure younger fans can say the same about Bart. Flash #1 with Bart feels weird. Nuff said.
Now you gotta know, based on my name, that the Flash is my all-time favorite character. I love the Broome\Fox\Infantino version, the Baron\Guice version, the Waid\Weiringo version, and the Johns\Kolins version. And this was way before 1990, but I had fairly good memories of the TV show that premiered that year. Yesterday I received the Flash DVD set and watched the pilot episode. Oh my god. It stunk worse than a crate of thousand year old eggs. All the characters dress in the excesses of the 80s. It's like all the extras and rejects of Miami Vice and MTV showed up on the Flash set. Paula Marshall plays Iris Allen and wears clothes that might have looked good on Boy George. The sets were decorated in primary colors (blues, purples, etc.) which reminded me of Warren Beatty's Dick Tracy movie. The pilot features the threat of a--gasp--motorcycle gang, who peddle around the studio set very slowly lobbing lime green balls that are powerful enough to explode buses and set cars aflame. The actors don't seem to have much enthusiasm, except for John Wesley Shipp as the Flash and Tim Thomerson as his brother. When you see ol' Jack in a piece like this, the quality speaks for itself. Although I think he's probably the best actor in the pilot!.
Watching this, you see how far technology has come in modern TV shows. In some of the action scenes, the movement of all the actors and stunt men is way too slow. The way they portray the Flash running around the streets, they just took some film and sped it up. The Smallville episode with Kid Flash had small Matrix-like effects to convey the sense of speed. Kid Flash could run on the water with no difficulty. His race with Clark Kent at the end looked pretty good, too. I don't know if I can watch anymore 1990 Flash. I had some good memory of the Trickster episodes...but it's Mark Hamill. Nuff said.
Giant-Size Marvel: Marvel artwork, classic covers, reviews.
