Flash #4:
What Happened: Kilg%re is slowly taking over the planet, feeding off of electricity to power itself. Upon realizing this, Flash, along with Cyborg, who came along as the resident cybernetic genius, begin to push for the entire world to shut down their power grids, figuring that would cut Kilg%re's power supply and starve it to death. Unfortunately those damned dirty commies aren't exactly sure if they want to cooperate... Ah, it's fun reading about the Cold War through comics, especially when you realize how inept the Soviet's turned out to be... While the world's diplomats are hard at work, Wally has deduced that Kilg%re had murdered the real Dr. Schmitz and replaced him with a clone... How the HELL did he jump to THAT conclusion?! Wally and Cyborg end up searching the dome Kilg%re first emerged from and Wally's deduction is confirmed when the two find a cloning chamber... Huh... Eventually, the Soviets agree to shut down their systems, as does the rest of the civilized world. Dr. Schmitz(who Flash left to work with the US government in order to keep an eye on him) begins to panic and rushes out towards Kilg%re's dome once the world's power is shut off. Flash figures that Kilg%re would want to jump into Schmitz' body since there was no other electronics to feed off of(how the hell is he figuring this stuff out?!), so Flash chases after Schmitz. Eventually Flash manages to destroy the robotic Schmitz body and after a while, Kilg%re, deprived of any electricity “dies”. And that's pretty much that.
The Good: I can't help but like the way Wally is being written here... He's WAY more realistic than most of DC's characters... For example, he repeatedly hits on, and presumably sleeps with, a doctor who was assisting him with the Kilg%re problem. The doctor is married, but has been estranged from her husband for a year. Now your regular boy scout hero wouldn't go anywhere near this woman seeing as that she IS still technically married, but Wally, being a 20 year old guy, overlooks that, and while it does weigh on his mind a bit, his hormones end up trumping his brain. I liked seeing Wally and Cyborg work together in this one, they make a good team.
The Bad: Kilg%re was defeated too easily in my opinion. I don't get why Wally didn't immediately point out that Schmitz was an evil robot clone... The way Wally came to certain conclusions was just crazy... Dr. Schmitz had a new finger, so the first thing Wally suspects is that the real Schmitz was replaced by an evil clone!? Really?!? How was THAT the first thing Wally thinks of? That would be like the 506th possibility for me! Not the first! Weird. This comic read a bit long... There were certain times when my mind was wandering.
The Verdict: Overall, this was a good comic. Wally was, as usual, great, and the addition of Cyborg was logical for the story and was enjoyable. You know Wally fooling around with the married woman(who happens to be like 12 years older than he is) is going to lead to some trouble down the road, possibly as soon as the next issue, as the woman tells Wally at the end of this issue that she needed to settle things with her estranged hubby. So while I was disappointed by how easily Kilg%re was dispatched, I am looking forward to the next couple of issues.
Score: 7 1/2 out of 10.
Good ol' Wally...
That relationship sounds really interesting isn't something you can see in mainstream comics in general
ReplyDeleteThanks for this retro reviews X! I'm learning more about Wally West thanks to you
A lot of the stuff that early Wally did wasn't exactly stuff you'd expect from hero. He would fool around with married women, ask for rewards, he was an all around jerk. But then he was still a teenager when he became the Flash, so he still didn't understand what it meant to be responsible yet. It's what made him becoming a real hero that much more gratifying. You could see him mature as the series goes on, which of course now is a moot point since it seems Wally never existed... Man do I hate Johns and Didio... >:(
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you're enjoying these though, Alien. That makes doing them worthwhile.