The Flash #12 – Review

By: Francis Manapul (writer & artist), Brian Buccellato (writer & colorist), and Wes Abbott (letters)

The Story:  Glider is crowns herself the new leader of the Rogues as Central City is torn apart by a Rogue civil war.

The Review:  While I think Marcus To is an excellent artist, I can’t overstate how happy I am to see Manapul and Buccellato back on art for this title.  They really have visually defined how best to draw a Flash comic in 2012 and, next to a JH Williams III illustrated Batwoman, I feel their Flash is the best looking book of the new 52.   We get fantastic action sequences, great lay-outs, naturally likable characters, and a wonderful sense of speed and motion.  All of this is, of course, covered by the lush, painted colors of Buccellato.  The action sequences this month are particularly enjoyable in their creativity, their tremendous awareness of space and setting, and their basic flow; once again, I feel that in the Flash‘s action scenes, you really do feel the benefit of the same guy(s) being behind both the writing and the art.  I also love their take on Glider: she’s a burst of peachy pastel colours, ethereal and constantly flowing with a sense of weightlessness.

Flashpoint: Citizen Cold #1 – Review

By: Scott Kolins (writer and artist), Mike Atiyeh (colorist)

The Story: Citizen Cold versus Mr. Freeze.  What can be cooler than that?

The Review: For a while now, DC has played the dicey game of allowing artists to take up writing duties, with mixed results.  It can be a difficult transition to go from thinking in terms of visuals to more substantive storytelling.  Developing rounded characters, layered plots, credible dialogue, and conscious themes is pretty hard, after all.  So letting a fairly weak artist write a title that’ll be published regardless of consequence takes the diceyness to a whole new level.

Although he’s been co-credited for conceiving a few characters with Geoff Johns, Kolins seems to have little to no experience in fiction-writing, and it shows—rather painfully.  His dialogue reads like every groaner line from every action flick you’ve ever seen, with excessive text styling to boot: “You broke the rules coming to my town, Freeze!”  “Cold?  I don’t have time for this!”

But the clichéd dialogue is only the symptom of Kolins’ weak character writing.  He essentially latches on to the most superficial qualities of each character and plays it up embarrassingly.  The Scottish Mirror Master talks like a bizarre combination of Willie MacDougal and Yoda: “He cannae help yeh now.  Either dead or run-off he is.”  Iris West reeks of the falsest emotions in reporters: “…it is this reporter’s opinion: that Lisa just needs someone to care—to help.”