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By Jason Bourgeois
Before I get into the meat of the column this month, let me first take a few moments to cover the things I've got coming up over the next few weeks. Don't worry, it's actually interesting. From August 3rd to the 6th, I will be representing the Collector Times in Chicago, at Wizard's convention there for that weekend. I'll be all over the place, taking pictures, and chatting up some creators, and getting any interesting little tidbits I can get my grubby little hands on. After that, over Labor Day weekend, I'll be down in Atlanta for the huge scifi/fantasy convention, DragonCon, in much the same capacity. So, any of our readers who want to say hi, feel free to find me and do so. I'll be the dorky looking guy, carrying comicbooks. What? I can't make it easy for you! Also, be sure to look back here in September and October for my follow up reports being posted right here, for those that can't make it to the conventions themselves.
There is a noted lack of discussion of Civil War in this column, as I'm sure people have noticed, and some may be wondering why. I'm reading the book, and many of the tie ins, but with Civil War being so high profile, and everyone and their brother talking about it, with coverage of it being so widespread already, I decided to opt out of the discussions, and cover some of the books that are falling through the cracks while this chaos is going on in the Marvel Universe.
Well, with that out of the way, let's see what's up for this month. I'm sitting here watching the old Flash TV show, now available on DVDs, and the newest comicbook based on those characters is sitting right next to me, so it seemed pretty natural to take a hard look at the new book, and see if it's worth your time to bother with, especially since the people writing the new comic also happened to developed and produce the TV show. I won't be comparing the two, but it was a good enough excuse.
In the wake of Infinite Crisis, Wally West, the Flash since the first Crisis on Infinite Earths, has been lost in the Speed Force, which has also been seemingly destroyed during those same events, leaving only Jay Garrick, the original Flash, to carry on with the natural speed he had without the Speed Force to aid him. Also, Bart Allen, the speedster known as Impulse, and the grandson Barry Allen, the greatest Flash of all time, was trapped in the Speed Force while trying to defeat Superboy Prime, and eventually escaped, but had been aged a good eight to ten years, and lost his powers with the loss of the Speed Force.
One year later, Bart is working at a plant in Central City, Jay is doing the superhero thing, and everything is pretty normal for the scarlet speedsters. Bart is getting regular checkups at STAR Labs to see if there's anything wrong with him, or a remnant of the Speed Force within Bart to encourage and bring back his powers. Bart is reluctant to have this happen, he's fine with living a normal life for a change, and after seeing almost everyone he's known and loved be pulled into the Speed Force to die, he's happy to leave it be, not wanting that fate for himself or anyone else who may ever come along and touch it again.
However, it's discovered in due course that Bart has been lying for the past year, that the Speed Force is still out there, but it's somehow changed, and Bart is afraid of it, in addition to not wanting it to destroy him like it did Barry and Wally.
Mix in an explosion at the automotive plant, and that's pretty much the plot of the first two issues. No, seriously. Most of the two issues so far are spent with flashbacks and narration by multiple people, doing little more than padding the stories out, and making things more complicated than they need to be. Yes, the Flash mantle has a lengthy legacy to it, but most of it is, arguably, not germane to these stories. The information that is necessary to inform folks of the characters in the book could be put forth in a much clearer, and less ham fisted way.
After reading the first issue, I had no idea whom the book was about. Sections of it were narrated by, and featured Jay, Bart, and even Barry himself! Switching narrators between pages is very clunky, and only serves to confuse a reader unless it's done very well, and clearly defining whom is doing the narration. And dead narrators? That's a big no-no. Someone who is dead can't exactly be talking about things. Who is he speaking to, even? Not to mention, Barry narrates the event of his own death. And being dead, he's probably best left in that condition, rather than bringing him in for a few pages to talk about himself, and not actually part of the story. If you wanted to narrate the events of Barry's life, it could just as easily have been done by the other two Flashes in the story.
Which brings me to my next gripe. I'm still not 100% sure who this book was about. The first issue was about equally split between Jay and Bart, although we got to see more of Bart's personal life, and had a friend introduced, and supporting cast centering around him, so it was being made to look like he was going to be the star, the Flash, but he wasn't even doing anything speedy throughout the issue, not even exhibiting any Speed Force until the very end, so he's hardly Flashlike at that point.
At least in the second issue, he's racing around, and using Barry's old costume, so it does indeed look like Bart is the new Flash, but I'm still not entirely certain, even after two issues of the book, with even more jumping narration. The second issue was clearer than the first, but many of the problems still persisted, if more under control with the new issue.
As for the art, yes, the bad things about the book just keep on coming. I've been a fan of the artist for awhile, but he does tend to be from the Image school of art. The art was good, but could be very confusing on occasion, as the storytelling completely failed to convey what was occurring, especially in the opening sequence of the title, which was nothing but panel to panel confusion. Ken Lashley does a fair enough job with the characters, and story otherwise, but he's not very good at conveying the powers and motion of the Flashes, which is a hard thing for many artists to manage, but he just seems to drop the ball here, even more than he should. Not having much actual Flash action in these issues certainly doesn't help.
The book comes out being a confused mess on all levels, which is a shame, since I've seen much better product from almost everyone involved in this project. Flash may be slow to get going, but all these problems have made it fastest off my pull list, at least in awhile. I'd definitely give this book a pass until they can decide what they want to do with it.
And with that, I am off to Chicago and Atlanta! Watch for fire, I should be nearby.
Jason M. Bourgeois
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