Flash #1: Writer: Geoff Johns. Artist: Francis Manapul.
We begin the official (re-)start of the Barry Allen era of the DCU with Saint Barry chasing down the Trickster's car and apprehending the Rogue. From there the perpetually late Saint Barry heads to his day job, that of a CSI with the Central City police department. DC's Saint gets acquainted(and reacquainted in some cases)with his co-workers, and while that is going down the Mirror Master teleports into the middle of a busy Central City street and collapses in the street dead. The cops decide to send Barry to investigate, and upon checking the corpse, he realizes that the dead Mirror Master was neither the old Mirror Master from the Silver Age, nor the new Mirror Master from the Modern Age, but a new Mirror Master all together. A call then comes in over the police radio saying that a similar teleportational rift as to the one that brought Mirror Master had opened not that far away, so Saint Barry switches into his Flash outfit and races over. Upon arriving, Barry discovers a bunch of characters wearing the costumes of his Rogues, while claiming to be police officers from the future. This issue concludes with the futuristic Rogues telling Barry that he was under arrest for his future murder of the Mirror Monarch.
My thoughts on this issue probably aren't going to be much of a surprise to anybody who knows me. This was the reason we needed Saint Barry back so badly? After reading this comic, I couldn't help but think, “Why couldn't this have been Wally West?”. I guess I'm still just sour over Saint Barry taking Wally's spot, but that's me. It's going to take a while(and better comics then this one)before Saint Barry wins me over and makes me look at him as anything other then an unneeded retro-character. As for this comic, I expected more. With Geoff's obvious lust for Saint Barry, I was expecting him to have an amazing story prepped for the start of second Age of Barry, but this was no better or worse then any other Flash comic Geoff has written before. Maybe in 3 or 4 issues time I'll have changed my tune, but after reading this comic I can't help but feel underwhelmed.
Score: 7 out of 10.
Run Saint Barry, run!!!
I liked it for what it was, I know you've got your issues with Barry taking back his spot from Wally after so long, and I agree, but eh, for now I guess we gotta deal with it. But I did enjoy this comic.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I think I caught ya testing ya blog haha, It was like a bunch of letters and whatnot. Popped up on my blogger thing, I thought you'd been hacked or something for a minute.
I saw that too, JT. I thought maybe it was Bizarro X-Man or something.
ReplyDeleteI know you don't like Barry, X, but you have my respect for giving his new series a shot anyway. As a Barry fan I'm definitely interested to see how the new book turns out myself.
You know JT, after I finished this comic I was SO disappointed... I mean, the difference between this comic and GL #1 is like night and day. I expected A LOT more out of Geoff, especially considering the fact that Barry is now the "IT" character in the DCU, and this issue really fell flat. I wanted to give this comic a much lower score, but it WAS good, just not anywhere near what I expected.
ReplyDeleteWell thanks Marc. This series actually has six issues to win me over, since that's how much longer my Flash subscription is for. After that, I'll be doing some real thinking as to whether or not this is the Flash character for me...
Yeah guys, you caught me, I was fooling around with the fonts, colors, etc, and accidentally pressed enter... Although I laughed out loud at Marc's reasoning that maybe Bizarro X-Man was responsible... Hmm, Bizarro X-Man... You know, I have an issue of New Avengers laying here that I REALLY don't want to read, maybe I can convince my alter-ego, Bizarro X-Man to do the honors... If nothing else, that'll be fun for me to do, I'd feel sorry for anybody wanting to read it though!
Lol so did I because I remember our Bizarro X-Man conversations. Oh man, If you do a Bizarro X-Man review I'll laugh, but I highly doubt I'll understand anything.
ReplyDeleteBizarro X-Man just told me that he doesn't want to read and review Uncanny X-Men...which, of course, means that he does since he's a Bizarro and all.
ReplyDeleteI like that Bizarro X-Man would make you laugh JT, but for reasons you couldn't comprehend!
ReplyDeleteYou know Marc, you keep giving me good ideas! Maybe I should just let Bizarro X take over certain comics I really dislike and review 'em. That way, if the comic turns out to be surprisingly good, I can still do a regular review, and if not, it gets the Bizarro treatment! I'm definitely liking this... Maybe I'll even throw more pics into a Bizarro review then usual to make up for the sheer awfulness of it all! Hmm, I'm def going to sleep on this idea!
With everyone calling Barry a saint, mockingly or seriously, I think people are missing an excellent pun...
ReplyDeleteWell I can't seak for my fellow bloggers, but I say Saint Barry with the utmost contempt! To me, Saint Barry(who can do no wrong)has pretty much stymied the characters of both Waly West and Bart Allen.
ReplyDeleteAs for that pun, I can't for the life of me figure out what it is!
RE pun: that the name "Bartholomew" (Barry and Bart's proper first name, you can check Secret Files #1 1997 if you doubt me) is that of one of the Twelve Apostles of the New Testament**.
ReplyDelete**I'm actually an atheist, I'm just interested in the culture.
Huh, I never would have known that in like a million years! See that, it's true when they say you learn something new everyday!
ReplyDelete