Flash #46 review


Wally West's head is spinning. As he regains more of his pre-Flashpoint memories, the more out of touch with his new reality he becomes. A worried Barry Allen calls in some experts.


In the future, Eobard Thawne and Hunter Zolomon, dark reflections of Barry and Wally, are trying to agree on how best to find happiness. 


Revenge vs recognition of tragedy? Is either Reverse Flash right?


Back in the present, Wally can’t take any more of being physically and mentally poked and prodded, and Aunt Iris, who's only just regained her memories of the original Wally West, a few months after Barry, agrees he needs a break. Barry, though, is determined to solve the problem of why his 'new memories' are tearing Wally apart, whereas he and Iris are fine. He decides to visit Batman, but the Caped Crusader is out with fiancĂ©e Catwoman. Bat-butler Alfred, though, is there to be the calm at the centre of Barry’s emotional storm. 



Is it wrong that a scene with Alfred and Barry is my highlight of what is actually a pretty good issue? Josh Williamson writes Alfred so very well. This issue would be more immediately appealing without Zoom or Thawne, I've just seen both far too many times, in comics and, recently, on TV. Just as the last couple of decades have seen Green Lanterns mainly fight other ring wielders, so speed-based powers have dominated Flash stories, with such unlikely souls as Gorilla Grodd and a revamped Top getting in on the act. And everyone is so obsessed, from Zoom with revenge to Zolomon with tragedy to Barry with solving his mother's murder and, now, the Wally problem. I can't wait until the current Doomsday Clock series by Geoff Johns (the writer who made the Green Lantern and Flash series into cycles of 'rinse and repeat') is over - surely someone has a story about Barry Allen's comic collection they're dying to see print. (Please God the recently announced Brian Azzarello Flash series is an extra book, not the sole deal; Azzarello is not a writer who skews to the whimsical.)

I enjoyed the testing scene a lot, it's a smart use of the superhero community, and seeing Scott Kolins draw Justice League characters is a real treat - I especially like that Zatanna panel, with the horizontal hair and surfeit of bunnies. Kolins does a terrific job throughout, it's great to see him draw Wally again - as Johns' partner on the old Wally Flash run, he defined the hero for years, and his art has lost none of its pizzazz.

There's plenty of energy in Williamson's script, too; I might not want to see the Reverse Flash and Zoom, but there's no denying he captures the drama of their encounter; Zolomon narrates much of the issue, and it works, reminding us that the guy is bananas. And I liked the surprise of where the Spiteful Speedsters' future scene fits in relation to recent DC stories.


So far as Easter eggs go, what is the 'P Age' of 2006. Platinum?

Luis Guerrero does a splendid job of differentiating the two Flash costumes with different shades of red, though Wally's DC Rebirth look remains, to use a British colloquialism, pure pants. Mind, he's only ever had one good outfit that was all his own, the red and yellow look, and Wally II has nicked that.  Steve Wands' lettering is as reliably fizzy as  ever, adding to the energy of the pages.


Add in two fine covers - the mind-mangling regular image by Dan Panosian and the tooth-jangling variant by Francesco Mattina, and you have a very solid prelude to Flash War. Speedster fighting speedster. Again.

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Flash #46 review, Joshua Williamson, Scott Kolins, Luis Guerrero, Steve Wands, Dan Panosian, Francesco Mattina

Comments

  1. 1986 B?? Then it is official: the original Bronze Age has just been wiped out of existence!

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    1. Probably just a case of them starting it ten years late.

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    2. Or maybe they measure it by who's Flash at the time. Those dates correspond to when Jay, Barry, Wally, and Bart took over the role.

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    3. Brilliant. I totally missed that.

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  2. I feel like I've turned some sort of corner. These nods to the past (there's a similar one in this week's Detective Comics, with Spoiler and Orphan learning they each were Batgirl in another life) used to excite me. But with this one -- even though, with Wally's situation, I've known it was coming -- I just feel a little worn down. I love Wally, and want him to be back, fully, and would like to see Linda become part of his life again. And yet... I can't help wishing DC would just commit to whichever reality is in front of it, and tell stories within that milieu. The luster is coming off teasing a return to the continuity of yesteryear for me...even if it's a continuity I remember fondly. I'm 48 and I just want to settle down.

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    1. I know what you mean, this whole Rebirth mystery is dragging on... just get on with it DC. It seems we’ve had a universal reboot every year since 1990. Why should we care about threats to the status who when, as you say, they won’t commit to one?

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  3. Barry & Iris should have taught Wally never to drink and run super fast for shame

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    1. Or maybe they did, and someone made him forget.

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    2. whomever they are eye call them Dastard and Dastard they must be

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  4. Barry apologizing and fixing the broken computer monitor is the highlight of the issue.

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  5. This will make me sound like a bad person but I hope Wally eventually drags Barry's face across the pavement after figuring out how much he's truly lost. I've genuinely hated Barry because of what his stupidity did to the DCU and what it cost everybody around him, especially Wally. But hey, as long as Barry got some new memories of his mom it meant he was free to just completely forget the actual DCU when Flashpoint was over, right?

    The most infuriating aspect about it is how Barry was never properly punished for Flashpoint, and how DC went out of its way to try and absolve Barry in the stupidest manner possible. If this story is gonna put Barry and Wally against each other, I hope Barry gets the shit kicked out of him and he gets properly called out for how he ruined everyone's lives.

    Granted, I'd be happier if XS is the one who gets to smack Barry in the face since she and the Legion have been screwed over the worst.

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    1. What stupidity? Every time there's been a time travel plot where the villain alters the past, the hero sets it right. Every. Single. Time. The original timeline for both pre and post was both Barry's parents being alive. The fact Johns decided to defy logic and precedent in this story puts absolutely no blame on Barry. Mrs Allen was alive when Barry went into the Speed Force, when Wally was a second rate Kid Flash, a lottery winner asshole, and then the cocky hero who couldn't handle a successful civilian life, and started a family. Barry did nothing wrong except try to save his mother who was murdered out of pettiness...

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    2. I’m looking forward to a time when we’re so far from Flashpoint that it just gets ignored. Meanwhile, I’m drinking to the original Henry and Nora!

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    3. I meant "Stupid" in how Barry went about trying to save his mom. He knows Thawne is super dangerous and the man nearly killed the rest of the Flash Family by himself, so Barry should've known better than to try and take him on alone. And besides that, Barry knows how dangerous it is to try and change the past even when he knows someone else has changed it, yet with all the people who've got experience in time travel in the DCU Barry did nothing to seek out there help or plan a more proper strategy to save his mom.

      It's not Barry wanting to restore his mom and dad's lives that was stupid. It was the way he went about it that was stupid, and in response untold trillions of people have suffered for it.

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    4. That’s pretty inarguably. Barry really was smarter than he was in the Flashpoint business.

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