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.

WCBR’s Top Picks

Dean’s Top Picks

Best From The Past Week: Batman #6 – This was easy.  For my money, I think this was a better comic than Batman #5 which everyone (including me) gushed over.   The art team of Capullo/Glapion/FCO is giving us a wonderful and fresh visual look on Batman.  It’s art that we’ll see artists still trying to emulate 20 years from now.  It’s that good.  But…it isn’t just an art book.  I love that Scott Snyder has created a menacing new threat in the Court of Owls.  New villains just beat the hell out of the old standbys because we really have no idea what the Owls can do and what lengths they’ll go to.  Awesome!

Most Anticipated: Prophet #22 – I totally whiffed on Prophet #21.  For some reason the cover art didn’t appeal to me and I also REALLY wasn’t attracted to the idea of revisiting a 90’s Image comic.  I was WRONG.  After hearing everyone (and I mean everyone) praise #21 I checked it out and it was splendid!  It is totally new reader friendly and follows the John Prophet character who has re-emerged onto the surface of the Earth after hundreds or thousands of years of hibernation underground.  Um….let’s just say that things have changed.  The big hook here is the mystery, as we have no idea why the world is a wasteland and where all these mutated animals are coming from.  Wonderful art too, but I think different artists are doing each issue, so we can just hope for similar excellence.

Other Picks: American Vampire #24, Bulletproof Coffin: Disinterred #2, Morning Glories #16, Captain America and Bucky #627, Atomic Robo: Ghost of Station X #5, Secret Avengers #23

Alex’s Top Picks

Best From The Past Week: Wonder Woman #6 – Loved the art, loved the story, and continue to love the modern mythological tale Azzarello is weaving.  I never imagined myself enjoying a Wonder Woman comic as much as I am this one.  Great stuff and if you’re a DC reader, but this isn’t on your pull-list, you need to go about rectifying your error post-haste.

Most Anticipated: Secret Avengers #23 – So I’ve finally gotten on the Rick Remender band-wagon, having caught up with his Venom and Uncanny X-Force runs.  While it was tempting to make one of those my pick this week, Secret Avengers still has my curiosity piqued more than anything else.  The zany, big ideas are there and the cast is a fun one, but I’m looking forward to more of the character-work Remender excels at.  It’s been solid, but I’m hoping that with this second issue, this series begins to take off.  It certainly doesn’t help that Hardman and Breitweiser are a fantastic artistic team who should be surgically joined to one another’s hips for years to come.

Other Picks: Uncanny X-Force #22, Venom #13.3, Wolverine & the X-Men #6, Fantastic Four #603, Mighty Thor #11, American Vampire #24, Aquaman #6, The Flash #6

The Flash #6 – Review

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

The Story: The Flash goes on trial and tries to settle the score with Top.

What’s Good: I remember a little over a year ago, when I lived in the UK (Bristol to be exact), having a conversation about Geoff Johns with a Forbidden Planet staffer. He said that he enjoyed Johns’ work because, while it was rarely overly cerebral, he could always rely on Johns for “good old fashioned superhero stories.”

As this issue wraps up this Flash relaunch’s first arc, that really stuck in my head regarding this month’s installment, and this new Flash series in general, because that’s exactly what this book’s strong-point is. This issue ties everything up in a “good, old fashioned superhero story” sort of way and yet, while this means it doesn’t re-invent the wheel, in typical Johns fashion, it also doesn’t feel phoned in or uninspired. In fact, the book feels incredibly lively, exciting, and downright gleeful. It may be just your average superhero story, but that only makes Johns’ own excitement all the stronger and all the more infectious.

Breaking it down into its components, there’s a lot to like here. The action scenes are great and Johns does a really great job in making Top and Flash’s dialogue flow amidst and among the fighting, no small feat given how explosive the battle actually is. Johns also does surprisingly strong work on Top, creating a villain who believes the reasons behind his actions to be totally rational, even though those very reasons are so absolutely absurd to everyone else. Despite this, Top never comes across as exaggerated in his lunacy.

Johns also handles the whole time-traveling thing fairly well, which could’ve gone horribly awry given how much this issue is centered around changing the past. It’s all kept as simple as possible, never really leading to any big head-scratchers, while also opening the door for some light ruminating over the Renegades’ MO that works quite well. The fact that this reflection occurs in a conversation between Barry and Iris only makes it better, as the Iris/Barry dynamic has been one of the strongest, and warmest, aspects of this series.