I never have been a fan of the Flash. Of any speedster character to be honest. Their powers just don't click. They should be way more powerful but they always come up being effectively the same and they bore me.
I bought this book at the same time as Universe X for ActionMan as a Christmas gift. Unlike me, he seems to enjoy speedsters - and the Flash in particular.
This book starts with a BANG with a massive breakout at the local prison and a bunch of villain getting out. The art is engaging and really made me go "Oh crap, this CANNOT be good," which surprised me in a very positive way. I kept on reading and reading.
I won't spoil the story but it had something I found rarely in recent trade comics like this... "But hey JP, you don't read many of them" and you'd be right. I do not read many of them because of it. So... The story presents us with a new situation for the Flash. His wife is pregnant, his friend gets hurt badly in the breakout. Wally West (WW/current Flash) tries to live up to his predecessor Barry Allen. He is convinced he does the right thing all the time. A little one-dimensional.
But as the story evolve, WW is confronted with these convictions and has to face the choices he made. You get where I am going with this. He gets placed in a similar situation where he can make the same choice as Barry Allen or something else. By then I was really torn on what I wanted him to do.
The art is top-notch with perhaps a little too many full pages depicting just one character. It speaks for itself not requiring tons of writing to explain what is happening, it is clear and obvious. I really like that.
Oh! Completely random gem... This one really endeared me to it. This is a gathering of monthly issues. At the start of everyone of them is a single bubble that very succinctly explains the Flash: his powers and background. That. That is good comic writing IMO. As a new reader coming in at a random issue, I want to get the quick low-down of who this character is.
In all, I came into this one expected NOT to like it but found it impossible to put down. So for a rating... The issues I have with it is fairly minor: too many full-pages. The characters have depth. The one-dimensional-ity of WW does not remain throughout the story and we see him vulnerable and defeated a few times. Dude loses a lot of blood!
I avoid giving a 5/5 but I cannot find faults that would drop this rating below a 4.5, which rounds out to 5 anyway. Great work on this one, DC!
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