The Flash #5 – Review

By: Francis Manapul & Brian Buccellato (writers and artists)

The Story: Apparently, Mob Rule has a strict literal bros before figurative bros policy.

The Review: Let me tell you about a friend I have.  He’s quiet, but good-humored, intelligent, hardworking, honest, makes a fine living, and is good to pretty much everyone he knows and many strangers besides.  In short, he’s so centered and balanced (in direct contrast to me, for instance), and so devoid of drama, that most people never talk of him but to speak his praise.

While all these qualities make for an excellent human being in the real world, it makes for a rather dry character in fiction.  And that’s exactly the problem—if you can call it that—with the supremely well-adjusted Barry Allen.  While it’s true the emotional and social hang-ups Geoff Johns gave our hero in the previous Flash series annoyed me, at least they gave Barry a platform upon which he could experience some conflict and, subsequently, change.

But as I noted in my review last issue, it doesn’t feel like there’s much room for Barry to develop as a character, at least in the traditional way of improving upon his flaws (of which there are few).  Furthermore, he has such a reserved personality that even when he’s being confronted, he tends to react rather passively, which makes a lot of the tension one-sided, much as Manuel’s (highly misdirected) rage at the Flash feels here.

The Flash #4 – Review

By: Francis Manapul & Brian Buccellato (writers and artists)

The Story: If you can’t find Multiplicity playing on cable, this is the next best thing!

The Review: Today, let’s talk about a fictional tactic I like to call the After School Special (or “ASS”, and please—let’s try to be mature about this acronym).  You know how all those kiddie movies and TV shows always seem to have a pivotal moment where the characters address the big lesson they’re meant to learn, and how annoying that gets when you’re older?  Well, it pops up pretty often in grown-up works too, where it’s equally as annoying.

ASS usually appears in one of two forms.  The first is when the characters have a confrontation, during which they self-righteously proclaim to each other the important takeaway of the story.  In this case, we have Patty wailing into Manuel for leaving Barry behind with Mob Rule.  Her ire would’ve gotten across sufficiently had Manapul-Buccellato stuck strictly to passive-aggressive remarks, like, “I don’t run away at the first sign of trouble.  I’m not a coward.”

Patty can’t leave her disgust at just that, however.  She then launches into a yelling fit which, after a while, just becomes repetitive and overly preachy: “Nobody means anything to you!  You don’t give a damn about anything but yourself.”  It’s not that she doesn’t have good reason for this outburst, but it just seems like a very blunt, overwritten way to get the point across.  I’ll leave it to you, however, to decide if it works or not.  ASS scenes can go either way.

The second form of ASS is when a character, by him or herself, stands and delivers a long speech summing up what he or she has learned about him or herself.  These bits go for less melodrama, but more of the cornball.  In #1, I called Barry out on doing this, and here he’s guilty of it again, breaking into a winding monologue about what kind of duties he intends to use his powers for.  Besides its eye-rolling smarminess, the problem with the scene is it doesn’t actually reflect a change in the character or a revelatory insight; it just reiterates what Barry already stands for: “It’s my job to protect the Gem Cities.  To protect my friends.  No matter what price I have to pay.  I won’t stop running.  I’m the Flash…this is what I do.”

The Flash #3 – Review

By: Francis Manapul & Brian Buccellato (writers and artists)

The Story: The city that never stops—just did.

The Review: I eat spring rolls dry.  Even though I’m Vietnamese, I can’t stand the smell of fish sauce, so the stuff rarely touches anything I eat.  When I pass on the bowl of pungent liquid, people always react with surprise, like they’ve just discovered some critical fact about myself.  Frankly, I have no idea what my prejudice against fish sauce says about me, but it’s taught me that you can get a strange sense of enlightenment when you learn these asides about people.

This applies even more so to fictional characters.  At first glance, Barry seems so good-natured and clean-cut, you’re surprised he takes coffee at all, let alone “I feel like I could use a fifty-shot espresso right about now…”  But that drink’s not an option for our favorite speedster; its jittery effect on his body, combined with his powers, can lead to unpredictable results, like vibrating through the floor into “the women’s basement locker room before getting control of myself.”  It’s a funny story which lends some much-needed color to Barry’s vanilla personality.

The anecdote also naturally preludes his rescue of a crashing jetliner by vibrating it through the Gem Cities bridge.  Interestingly, the Flash doesn’t follow up this feat by confronting the villain responsible for the cities-wide blackout; no such villain appears.  Instead, we get a sequence of something we haven’t seen in a while: our hero simply serving the public, be it retrieving kids trapped on a roller coaster or wheeling a man on a gurney straight to the hospital.

Better yet, the rest of the Central City P.D. get in on the job, with Singh, Forrest, and Patty doing their share.  Manapul-Buccellato couldn’t have chosen a more endearing way to build up the supporting cast, letting them act beyond their roles as the Flash’s out-of-costume ciphers and putting them on the same heroic footing as the star.

While her bookworm glasses tend to give Patty a soft, almost frail air, we see the woman wearing them is anything but.  Once you see her don a bulletproof vest to venture fearlessly into the darkened city, helping anyone she sees, you may start crushing on her a little.  And that’s before we get to the two of them riding the P.D. mounted division’s horses to traverse the un-drivable streets, she taking the lead while he struggles (“Whoa!  Not that way…”  “You’re a natural, Barry.”).  It’s just plain fun, something comics are in short supply of nowadays.

The Flash #2 – Review

By: Francis Manapul & Brian Buccellato (writers and artists)

The Story: An apple a day keeps the robbers away.

The Review: It’s not shocking why there’s so much buzz surrounding this title.  On a purely visual level, practically everyone and his mother agrees The Flash is a stunner, if nothing else.  The artistic approaches Manapul and Buccellato have taken to storytelling may not earn them the same prestige as Will Eisner, but clearly, they walk in his steps.  Eisner, however, was a skilled and subtle writer in addition to his artistic boldness; it’s uncertain if we’ll get the same here.

No matter how you cut it, Manapul-Buccellato are still pretty new to this writing business, and it shows in little ways.  With Barry’s narration, they seem to follow the short, staccato school of dialogue, meaning strings of lines that like, “I can see everything before it happens.  I can weigh every possibly outcome.  I can make the right choice.  And I can do something about it.  Before anyone even notices.”  It’s a very specific rhythm, one that occasionally jars rather than flows.