The Flash #9 – Review

by Geoff Johns (writer), Francis Manapul (art), Brian Buccellatto (colors), and Sal Cipriano (letters)

The Story: Barry Allen finds himself assigned to a very unusual homicide case as Hot Pursuit runs amok in Central City.

What’s Good: For the second month in a row, Geoff Johns hits it out of the park on the Flash.  However, what makes it more important this time around is that while last month was a one-shot of sorts, this is a prelude to the coming months of Flash and Flashpoint.  In other words, this issue being as good as it is a very good sign for the future.

That said, I’ll admit that I’m biased.  I’m a huge, huge fan of Brian Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming’s Powers series.  The idea of homicide detectives investigating superhero murders will never stop being awesome.  This month sees Johns send Barry into just such a task.  There’s a mysteriously dead “cape,” pre-naturally aged, found dead under mysterious circumstances.  It felt like Johns had basically taken Barry Allen and thrown him into a Powers comic, and the resulting mash-up of superhero noir and classic DC comic was an absolute pleasure to read.  It’s a plot I’m really looking forward to seeing more of, as Johns sets this up perfectly as a superhero-related detective/police drama.  It’s very, very cool.

Johns also does a very good job this month of highlighting Barry’s faults as a human being.  Barry’s presented as a man tied to his job, but not in the traditional, clichéd sense.  He’s tied to his job because he’s utterly bound to doing what’s right and doing as much public good as possible.  The tension and loss that this creates in his private sphere is obvious, however.  It’s a familiar, but really effective clash that Johns puts forth, that between doing the public good and the private, with Barry seemingly unaware of the latter.  This also leads to yet more fantastic writing when it comes to the Barry/Iris dynamic, which Johns has been doing so well with.  Iris is understanding and forgiving beyond belief, but she’s also clearly aware of Barry’s failings and isn’t immune to disappointment, however patient she may be.

Art-wise, this the best looking Flash comic in months.  The reason for this has been colorist Brian Buccellatto’s major adjustments.  While Manapul’s artwork is always really awesome and likable, I’d found that Buccellatto’s colors were getting increasingly brown and muddy to the point where they were starting to mute and detract from Manapul’s great work.  This month, Buccellato completely reverses on that.  Things are lighter and crisper, augmenting Manapul and allowing him to shine.  What results is crisper, cleaner, and much more impressive.  I also have to mention that both men did really well depicting Hot Pursuit’s motorcycle in action, which was a treat to watch.

The Flash #8 – Review

by Geoff Johns (writer), Scott Kolins (art), Brian Buccellato (colors), and Sal Cipriano (letters)

The Story: The origin of the Reverse Flash…or at least the origin that he creates for himself.

What’s Good: In many ways, this issue can be read as one centered around a comic writer gone mad.  Rather, it’s about a character gone retcon crazy, who is hell-bent on retconning his own history as many times as necessary until he gets the optimal result.  It’s a very dark, but also slightly humorous bit of self-aware superhero comic goodness and it shows just how clever a writer Geoff Johns can be when he really tries.

The best part of it is how closely Johns plays it; Eobard Thawne and the Reverse Flash are separate characters.  Thawne is the story’s lead, no doubt, and the Reverse Flash is rather a demonic, mostly wordless presence, lurking around the corner, always ready to jump in and give Eobard a redo whenever things don’t go his way.  What results is a ridiculously fun romp through time that’s an absolute pisstake on the very idea of retroactive continuity.  The Reverse Flash “redos” become increasingly frequent as the issue wears on, which only makes it more amusing.  By issue’s end, you get the sense that if Eobard got a B on a paper, his future self would step in to kill the professor before ever having to write the paper.

That’s not to say that the things the Reverse Flash perpetrates are minor.  We learn that in his becoming antisocial and isolated was a slow, gradual process, one that he was one the one hand doomed to, but one that is also ironically exacerbated by his later attempts to retcon his own history.  Along the way, he does some truly evil things as only the Reverse Flash can.  As ever, the Reverse Flash is a bad, bad man and the acts he’s guilty of are fairly shocking.  Of course, Eobard and the Reverse Flash are two different kinds of evil, and one sees the descent between the two.  At least Eobard, while a wretch, is still human; the Reverse Flash comes across as something not so much