Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Reviews

Flash #241
DC Comics
Peyer & Williams II

This comic has two sides to it. There is the side that gives you a story that moves quickly and shows off some great artwork using some fighting and some nice full page shots. Then there is the side that contains the story. Page after page goes by and by the time you reach the end, none of the elements you read about in the beginning are at all relevant anymore and you lose all villains and reason for their to be a fight. To be blunt this issue is at best just nicely drawn, fast paced non-story and at worst it’s a complete mess.

One of the few rules I have when reviewing a comic is that I try to only take into account the issue I am reading. I try not to view this as a piece of an arc or a trade paperback or chapter of a book. The issue can be all of those things but individually it must stand on its own. I bring this up because I simply don’t understand the direction of this title or this arc and it directly impacts my feelings for this issue.

The issue starts with Gorilla Grodd holding Flash, Jay Garrick and the villain, Spin, captive. Grodd is interrogating Spin trying to find out how Spin got a hold of him and transported him there in the first place. So far, so good.

Flash’s kids, then break out of their kidnapper’s car and we find that the daughter has rapidly aged to become a teenager. To me, this was a little much with the rapid aging, but clearly there are plans to make her Kid Flash or something that is pushing this. She calms down her brother who is freaking out and things in the issue are still great.

The kids help free Wally and Grodd escapes. Spin is left helpless where we discover he works at the TV station that has been bashing Flash. So we suddenly have no villains in the middle of the arc.

Abruptly, the Flash family races off to the Flash museum to combat a fire. In the process Wally begins to have severe anger towards Bart’s killer, Inertia. Left field? This is brought up because Wally must decide whether or not to save the suspended Inertia from the fire. He’s a hero, take a guess what he does. The issue ends with the daughter apparently on fire, controlling fire or something. I have no idea what is going on in this comic at the end, but she is the cliffhanger.

Where do we go from here? Are we to explore more about the changing powers and aging of the kids? Is there no other bad guy in this arc? Is Wally going to continue to look for a job? This arc is a mess. I cant believe this comic ended this way. I simply don’t get the point.

Now, to be fair, this issue is perfect for a new reader. You don’t need to know anything about Flash to read through this. This issue has plenty of a recap in it for a new reader. In fact, I recommend this issue for someone who only wants to read one issue of the Flash and never read the next one.

The artwork is the real highlight here. I was particularly impressed with how much Inertia looked like Bart. This really was excellent to see. Also, I enjoyed the depiction of the Grodd interrogation.

From my perspective, it seems that the purpose of this arc was to age the kids and change their powers and that Spin was tossed in as a token villain (who is new) and Grodd was thrown in to counter that new villain while giving the readers a villain they already knew. Sadly, I’m not even sure if this arc is over and I’m not even sure I care. This issue ended with such a rapid shift in gears I don’t know what to think anymore of this.

You may be surprised by the rating, but the issue was really good for about 15 pages and it had excellent art throughout.

2 out of 5 geek goggles.

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Flash #241