All Flash #1
By Hervé St-LouisSep 3, 2007 - 10:40:33 AM
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Writer: Mark Waid
Pencillers: Karl Kerschl, Ian Churchill, Manuel Garcia, Joe Bennetr, Daniel Acuna
Inkers: Karl Kerschl, Norm Rapmund, Manuel Garcia, Ruy Jose, Daniel Acuna,
Cover: Josh Middleton, Bill Sienkiewitz
Wally West, the third Flash is back and his first thought is to avenge the death of his cousin, Bart Allen, who was killed in Flash #13 by the Rogues. This one shot is the introduction of the new Flash series by returning writer Mark Waid. It will lead into the continuation of Flash where the second last series left off.
The story is a series of flashback, and of course the first person narration that has made Mark Waid and the Flash popular. The story adds details about the Flash and his family and reestablishes his support cast.
I don’t like the random way in which the Flash looked and toyed with Inertia. Why damage public property when you already hold the person that you want? Neither did I like the punishment he exacted on Inertia and not allowing the villain to have a fair trial. Another thing I did not like was the addition of new powers, or I should say, an expansion of old ones.
I really looked forward to reading about the Flash, but so far, it seems like it will be a rehash of the very old plots and contrived situations that made Waid popular a decade ago. I’m in no hurry to read the same old stories I’ve read before and although Waid knows Wally West, and has even aged him for the readers who are approaching their mid-life crisis. I’m still not interested. With the future already written everything feels inescapable. It is that same sense of destiny that has immobilized the DC Universe for over a decade after the publication of Kingdom Come. All the cards have been played and the DC Universe is moving closer to that reality that Waid wrote a decade ago with Alex Ross.
Where has all the imagination at DC Comics went the last few years? Why are they constricting themselves to write stories that will appeal only to a minority of readers? I can already imagine that the old guard of readers has given Waid their total approval as the current scribe of the Flash but I certainly cannot. Waid is responsible for taking a lot of fun out of the Flash by introducing the Speed Force in the first place. As soon as the Speed Force was imposed, it limited what one could do with the Flash. Waid and his replacement on the Flash, Geoff Jones wrote the same story over and over again, having him escape the Speed Force because of his link to his wife.
Speaking of his wife, she’s not even interesting anymore and was not even given a speaking role in this story. Instead, the old Flash wife, Iris West is given all the space that the Flash’s romantic counterpart should have occupied in this story. As the Flash is more concerned about his aunt, which he even claims is the first person to have loved him ever, one wonders why he even has a family and a wife? I wish they would just remove Iris West from this comic book. She’s an old character that’s supposed to be dead and is aware of the future. The only reason Iris West still roams free in this comic book is as the token representation of Barry Allen the second Flash.
A decade ago, I enjoyed seeing the legacy that Waid had built by reintroducing the Golden Age Flash to the series and making West’s ties with Green Lantern Hal Jordan stronger. The problem is that this way of writing has invaded everything that DC Comics publishes these days. There is only one voice at DC Comics and it’s the one that Mark Waid propagated a decade ago. It has variations in the form of Geoff Johns and Brad Meltzer, but it really is the same old conservative way of seeing DC Comics.
I’m hoping that people at DC Comics will read this review and think things through. I’m an old DC Comics’ fan and I have to admit that most stuff published by that company these days is boring and reeks of the same unified way of seeing comic books. It reeks of old boys’ network and Waspish values. DC Comics today is as boring as it was in the Silver Age with that rigid way of creating storytelling. The only change is that the writers use modern tricks and sensibilities to deliver the message. But the message is the same.
The artwork is a medley of artists so it’s useless to criticize. It’s solid work overall and the story’s structure makes transitions easy between different artists. The Sienkiewitz variant cover is ugly and makes the comic book look like something like the early 1990s, when Adobe Photoshop had just been discovered. That cover alone is a symbol of what DC Comics and this new Flash series are. They are stuck in time.