The Flash #15 – Review

By: Francis Manapul (story & art), Brian Buccellato (story & colors), Marcus To (pencils), Ryan Winn (inks), Ian Herring (colors), and Carlos M. Mangual (letters)

The Story:  Grodd is jonesing for his Speed Force fix as Barry sees into the (possible) future(s) of Central City.

The Review:  This right here is a tale of two books.

For the bulk of the issue, it’s business as usual plot-wise, this time drawn by Marcus To.  The problem is that, if I’m being totally honest, it’s all just a little bit dull.  That dullness has been afflicting the Flash’s writing for some time.  Grodd, thus far, isn’t a compelling villain and lacks a distinct motivation beyond CONQUER!!!  Even stranger, for a book that for a while was moving TOO fast, things suddenly feel glacial – Barry is unconscious for the majority of the issue, Daniel West is still running around the city looking for Iris, Patty is still doing…not much, and Charles Xavier gorillas continue to suck up brainpower at the stadium, and the Rogues are still punching gorillas.  Precious little happens this month and worse still, Barry, Patty, and Grodd feel like little more than character archetypes: super-hero, super-villain, love interest.  None of them really jump off of the page.  Script-wise, this is pretty dry.

The Flash #11 – Review

By: Francis Manapul & Brian Buccellato (story), Marcus To (pencils), Ray McCarthy (inks), Ian Herring (colors)

The Story: Barry’s leaving behind the girl he loves and making a new life—country song, if I ever heard one.

The Review: I find it pretty amazing how much stuff can happen and how little actually changes.  I mean this in any given context, but most especially with fiction.  Probably the clearest mark of a weak story is one where all sorts of events and twists take place, and yet the character has barely moved one step forward from where he started.  Quite frankly, that is the situation where the Flash finds himself now.

For all of Barry’s time-traveling escapades, run-ins with emboldened rogues, and city crises, he doesn’t seem all that affected, either within or without.  Think about it.  Has he really shifted in any of his values?  Has he become any more or less confident?  Is he any closer to a true relationship with either Patty or Iris?  Has he developed any personal relationship with any other character?  Have either of the Gem Cities changed permanently from the unfortunate blackout?

The Flash #10 – Review

By: Francis Manapul & Brian Buccellato (story), Marcus To (pencils), Ray McCarthy (inks), Ian Herring (colors)

The Story: In which Weather Wizard pulls out a wand and does his best Harry Potter impression.

The Review: It took me a long time to learn this lesson myself, but excess may be the one of the least productive tactics you can take for any kind of writing.  When I used to grade my students’ papers, I sometimes got the impression they believed they’d be graded by length or weight, which misses the point entirely.  Writing too much does nothing for your work except obscure your ideas and make it harder for people to read.

It’s especially surprising to find Manapul-Buccellato guilty of this same crime.  You’d think with such talent for artistic storytelling, they’d know better, to show the story rather than tell it.  Yet from the opening pages of this issue, straight through to Barry’s monologue at the end, that’s exactly what Mananpul-Buccellato do.  They leave almost nothing to the imagination; everything gets explained to us through some awkward chunk of expository dialogue or other.

The Flash #9 – Review

By: Francis Manapul & Brian Buccellato (story and art)

The Story: For God’s sake, Barry, don’t do anything stupid like quote Planet of the Apes around here.

The Review: The Silver Age of comics might have superficially drawn upon an ever-growing understand of science to tell stories, but that did nothing to stem the tide of totally illogical and bizarre ideas and storylines upon which comics fed.  The Flash (Barry Allen flavor), perhaps as a resulting byproduct of that era, thus comes attached with some seriously wacky history, probably epitomized by his completely random relationship with gorillas.

It’s always been hard to take DC’s gorilla villains seriously—and yes, I use the plural because DC actually has at least two reputable villains of simian persuasion.  If you’ve watched Young Justice, you might know Monsieur Mallah, a hyper-intelligent gorilla who wears a beret, speaks French, and is a mutually reciprocated romance with an out-of-body brain.  Gorilla Grodd thus seems plausible by comparison, a hyper-intelligent, telepathic ape who feeds on brains to increase his mental power, but he’s still just too goofy to be considered a legitimate threat.

The Flash #8 – Review

By: Francis Manapul & Brian Buccellato (story and art), Ian Herring (colors)

The Story: Having to look at a stranger’s life for untold years would drive anyone crazy.

The Review: I often talk about “lack of direction” on this site, and that’s a stuffy, English-major type word that deserves explanation.  If you’re going to invest your time and interest into a long-form piece of fiction, you need more out of it than simply a series of entertaining tales; you need to see a clear progression in either the characters’ development or an overarching plot/theme.  If you hit issue eight and neither has changed much from the first, the title clearly lacks direction.

Now, obviously there have been a few changes to the status quo from #1: the Flash discovering the Speed Force’s effects on time and space, a couple villain clashes, a new girlfriend.  But if you take a step back and examine the book as a whole, these alterations are largely superficial.  They’ve done nothing to make our hero a different person than when he started, nor have they established a clear path or tone for what this series wants to be.

The Flash #7 – Review

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

The Story: This attitude of not knowing where you’ll end up and barging in anyway tells me you’re not the greatest road-trip companion, Flash.

The Review: I lost my first copy of this issue about five seconds after reading it on the bus—and while remaining in the bus.  If you know me personally, this shouldn’t shock you one iota.  My theory is a wormhole within the time-space continuum sucked it in, and any moment now, news will be breaking about someone finding a fifty-year old copy of The Flash #7, an ad for Resident Evil: Raccoon City on the back, in the middle of the Badlands.

Or maybe the homeless person next to me sat on it when he came in and didn’t notice, which isn’t out of the question as he was quite snookered with McGuinness at the time.  Whatever the case, the mention of wormholes seems appropriate in discussing this particular issue of The Flash.  If Barry had any doubt about Dr. Elias’ hypothesized connection between excess use of the Speed Force and time warps, he has incontrovertible proof of it now.  It does beg the question of how he never noticed this effect before if big honkin’ rips in space burst nearby whenever he does this, but let’s set that little bit of inconsistency aside.

If you have a glass-half-full mentality, you might say that this disaster at least prompts Barry to true, self-initiated action for the first time this series.  Considering his upstanding character, and his tendency to wait for the starting gun before running, his decision to use Dr. Elias’ treadmill for his own purposes is practically revolutionary, especially since he himself admits he “can’t pretend to know what will happen” if he generates another wormhole and runs into it.

The Flash #6 – Review

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

The Story: It’s safe to say Patty won’t be putting this in her top five romantic getaways.

The Review: The first arc of this series started off with a bang, almost universally blowing everyone away with Manapul and Buccellato’s dynamic art and fairly strong storyline.  As the arc progressed, however, Manapul-Buccellato’s inexperience with writing became more apparent, and though the last issue ultimately ended on a solid note, it also illustrated that you shouldn’t expect first-class or consistent scripting from this title.

You have to give credit to the duo for trying, though, and on the whole, they bring some interesting ideas to the table.  Elevating the threat of Flash’s rogues is a start.  As much notoriety as they have, the Rogues have always been third-tier villains individually (if you class Joker in the first tier and someone like Scarecrow as second-tier), only really posing a danger as a group.  While that sense of fraternity makes the Rogues rather unique among their peers, now seems a perfect time to make them even more dangerous by building up the powers of each criminal.

Beginning with Captain Cold seems natural, as he’s regarded as the Rogues’ leader and he has the most recognition of them all.  Some traditionalists may think taking away his guns and internalizing his freeze powers is a radical change to the character, but considering this man has had to pit himself against one of the most powerful metahumans on Earth with only a couple pistols, I’d say Cold desperately needed the update.  And I must say, the added ability to slow down the Flash in addition to his ice powers is a very nice, natural touch.

It might be a bit of overkill, though, since Flash can’t exactly run at full speed anymore, or else risk damaging the time-space continuum.  Again, some might think this a random and arbitrary limiter on his powers—and it is—but from a storytelling point of view, it’s kind of necessary.  Considering all the nutty physics-defying feats the Flash is capable of when he stretches his legs and goes all out, he needs every reason to do so as rarely as possible.

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.

The Flash #1 – Review

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

The Story: You have an uncanny resemblance to a guy I know.  Make that two dozen guys.

The Review: When Barry Allen returned to life a few years ago, quite a lot of people thought he would soon regain his position as the DCU’s primo Flash.  After all, Geoff Johns was writing him, the same Johns who brought back Hal Jordan and all but guaranteed he would become the most iconic of the Green Lanterns.  But somehow, Barry never really took with readers.  Even in his own ongoing, he never managed to establish a coherent identity or tone for himself.

Reading through this issue, you’ll realize the obstacle may lie in the very nature of Barry’s character: quiet, mild-mannered, more of a follower than a leader.  These qualities won’t pop out at you like the bolder, assertive personalities, but if you give them a chance, they might touch you.  You meet a lot of heroes who beat themselves up over a loss or failure, but none wear their sad heart on their sleeves like Barry, who even in costume remains a simple man who cares.

Still, when he gets into action, he gains some zip to his personality on top of the zip to his step.  While the civilian Barry seems content to let others take charge (mostly women and sometimes his boss) and lead him to the next thing, vigilante Barry charges into situations and sorts them out in a breezy (“Uuuhhh…  Note to self: don’t vibrate using that frequency.”), efficient manner.

Vigilante Barry also seems something of a player, as he has no issue dating colleague Patty Spivot (after two years of waiting to ask her out) while entertaining a flirtatious relationship with reporter Iris West.  The attraction of both women is equal and opposing: the bookish, delightfully awkward (“Methodical is kind of hot.  I can’t believe I just said that.”) Patty appeals to Barry’s inner nerd, while Iris’ take-no-prisoners attitude is in tune with the Flash’s cockier side.

Flashpoint: Kid Flash Lost #2 – Review

By: Sterling Gates (writer), Oliver Nome (penciller), Trevor Scott (inker), Brian Buccellato (colorist)

The Story: Oh, Bart, you can’t hide anything.  I can see right through you.

The Review: In watching a few episodes of Dexter I noticed that even though the titular lead is one of the most compelling figures in television, very little about the overarching storyline or supporting cast bears enough interest for me to keep watching.  It sort of proves that even if you have a fantastically developed character, if the rest of the material underwhelms, then the piece as a whole can never reach beyond serviceable.

That’s sort of the case with this series, as Gates writes a pretty excellent Kid Flash.  Bart started his existence as a hardcore gamer and television addict, and his portrayal as a geek culture otaku really works as a modern spin on that.  If you count yourself among that particular demographic, you’ll be delighted with his frequent references to definitively nerdy media, like the relatively obscure, “Put me down, Dr. Ball!” (see Robot Chicken cartoon, “Dr. Ball, M.D.”).

On the other hand, Bart is also a much more thoughtful, serious young man than the hyperactive boy he once was as Impulse, so a few gags and lines in this issue come off a little over-the-top.  Bart seizing the Cosmic Motorcycle may be fun as an idea, but in the context of the story and the current incarnation of his character, it seems wildly stupid and kind of pointless, as it steals one of Patty Spivot’s few opportunities to do something useful.

As the only supporting character to this tie-in, Patty really deserves more to do than act the cipher to Bart, but she functions merely as a means for Bart to escape from his predicament.  Why else would she take up Hot Pursuit’s costume and equipment?  Even Gates has a hard time rationalizing her previously adamant decision to involve herself in meta-crime again with her inexplicable, left-field declaration that “I’d found the tools that would let me pursue justice.”

Flashpoint: Kid Flash Lost #1 – Review

By: Sterling Gates (writer), Oliver Nome (penciller), Trevor Scott (inker), Brian Buccellato (colorist)

The Story: You ever get the feeling you just don’t belong to this world…and era…and reality?

The Review: Dealing with an altered reality and all the taken-for-granted conventions it entails (subtle or not) can get pretty mind-boggling to begin with.  And by now we all know anything to do with time-traveling comes packaged with paradoxes and quantum leaps and all sorts of other nonsense guaranteed to give you a considerable headache.  Now, mix the two together and you’ve got a whopper of a migraine just waiting to happen.

And so it is with Kid Flash, a character out of time to begin with, and now skipping along the time stream in a strange universe.  But you can shelve your aspirin for now; Gates sticks the issue to mostly one setting: the Flashpoint world of 3011, conquest of Brainiac.  His eternal quest for knowledge apparently involved watching The Matrix, as everywhere is covered with techno-organic structures bearing humans trapped in glassy cocoons (head attachments included).

Bart actually makes a veiled reference to the film when he finds himself trapped, Speed Force-less, in this dystopia, which thankfully saves the plot from looking like one giant cliché (not to mention unashamed plagiarism).  In fact, his casual use of pop culture for problem-solving is a kind of relic of his Impulse days, and tempered with the good sense and focus he’s gained as Kid Flash, Gates offers the most balanced portrayal of Bart we’ve gotten in a while (especially compared to emo Bart in the last few issues of Geoff Johns’ The Flash).

Plot-wise, we still have a lot of questions left up in the air: how Bart got dragged into the time stream in the first place, how Brainiac managed to “fish” him out, and what role he’ll have in the grand scheme of Flashpoint.  Gates gives some hints as to how all these issues will tie together when Brainiac claims he’ll “find a way to pull the chronal energy from your cells…”  It wouldn’t be surprising if this winds up playing an integral part of solving the whole Flashpoint mess, continuing DC’s tradition of giving young heroes central roles in these “crisis” stories.

The Flash #12 – Review

By: Geoff Johns & Scott Kolins (storytellers), Francis Manapul (artist), Michael Atieyh and Brian Buccellato (colorists)

The Story: What will Iris do when she walks in on the Flash—with another woman?

The Review: There was some risk that this “last” issue of The Flash would come off feeling rushed and inconclusive, what with Flashpoint coming right on its heels.  Johns spent a pretty good chunk of the last couple issues playing up the emotional dramatics among the Flash family, all of which would’ve been a waste if he resolved them too quickly just to get a move on with his sprawling, crossover storyline.

So it’s a relief to see Johns taking some care to tie up the series’ loose ends before putting his focus on bigger things.  Barry’s encounter with Zoom not only forces him to confront the grisly truth about his mother’s death, but since Bart comes along for the ride, the bad air between them gets cleared up as well.  With his internal conflict out in the open, that frees him up to have that much needed heart-to-heart with Iris, and all is well once more.

On the other hand, the ease with which all these tensions have been loosened up kind of show how needless all these melodramatics really were.  It feels Johns created that whole plot wrinkle just to sell this new, sudden revelation that Barry’s a closet ice-man, emotionally.  In fact, both Iris and Patty Spivot spend a good chunk of this issue harping on that point, even though Johns hasn’t shown it all that well.

You have to take into context that Barry was trying to deal with the knowledge that his mother died at the hands of—spoiler alert—Zoom, a man who became a villain “because” of him.  It seems very natural he’d need some private time to process this, a fact he tried to communicate to his family multiple times (see Flash #9 and #10).  But his family still overreacted to what they perceived as distancing himself from them, which was topped by last issue’s ridiculous intervention.

The Flash #11 – Review

By: Geoff Johns and Scott Kolins (storytellers), Michael Atiyeh (colorist)

The Story: Barry, can’t you see we’re trying to stop you because you can’t stop yourself?!

The Review: Juggling two A-stories in a comic can be tricky, especially when one is the ongoing tale and the other is an invasive crossover plot.  But really, Johns should actually have an easier time of it, considering he’s the mastermind of the crossover in question.  And indeed, Flashpoint seems to be integrating pretty well into Barry’s investigation of an age-changing murderer, what with all the time-space wonkiness going on in both stories.

In contrast to Action Comics #900, where Reign of Doomsday clearly distracts from the main events of that title, it’s clear Johns is turning this series into a vehicle for introducing Flashpoint.  This has the strange effect of making the non-crossover related material out of place in its own title, although the still fairly recent drop in page count affected the long-term execution of plotlines that probably would’ve had more opportunity to float with some extra space.

The Flash’s “intervention” definitely feels like it needed more time to build itself to this drastic scene, because it comes across incredibly staged—and futile, since none of Barry’s loved ones make it clear exactly what the problem is.  Jay Garrick and Wally West spend the majority of the time waxing poetic on how much Barry means to them—more of an exercise in nostalgia than doing anything useful to address whatever Barry’s issues are.

The whole thing looks like it gets set up just because “Bart said you didn’t come to the picnic because of him.”  Besides being an utterly laughable overreaction to what should be normal for Barry, given his history of flakiness, it also makes Bart seem angsty, temperamental and high-strung.  This would work if Johns was writing just another fictional teenager, but none of those qualities fit in Bart’s current personality—which Johns kind of established.

So maybe it’s a good thing Bart’s getting the timeout from Barry’s life for a while, although it happens in an underwhelming way.  Hot Pursuit doesn’t exactly do himself a lot of credit by glomming onto Kid Flash as the crux of the timeline problem, without even considering other possible suspects.  As a cop with access to information across parallel universes, you’d think he’d be more thorough in his investigation.