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The Flash – City of Heroes (Review)

Posted on October 11, 2014 by Darren

So, I’m considering reviewing this season of The Flash, because the pilot looks interesting and I’ve always had a soft spot for the Scarlet Speedster. I’m also considering taking a storyline-by-storyline trek through the 1987-2009 Flash on-going series as a companion piece. If you are interested in reading either of these, please let me know in the comments.

Appropriately enough for a television show based around the fastest man alive, City of Heroes moves pretty damn quickly. The forty-five minute episode tears through all the requisite superhero origin elements in forty-five minutes. It takes us two minutes to brush through the story of Barry Allen’s childhood trauma. By the ten-minute mark, Barry has already been hit by lightning. At the end of the forty-five minutes, his uniform is complete and his ensemble fully formed.

There are some minor problems with The Flash, but City of Heroes offers a pretty solid start for the series – hinting that perhaps the show has already found its legs.

Suit up…

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: city of ehroes, comic books, geoff johns, johnsian literalism, reverse flash, Television, the cw, the flash | 4 Comments »

Brightest Day (Hardcover Vol. 1-3) (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on January 18, 2012 by Darren

This January, I’m going to take a look at some of DC’s biggest “events.” This one’s not so much an “event” as a bi-weekly miniseries, but let’s count it anyway…

Balancing the internal storylines is a tough task for any anthology, especially one running over the course of an entire year. In this respect, 52 feels like the exception rather than the rule. It’s a fairly fundamental problem with Brightest Day that not all of the plotlines are interesting (and certainly not all of the time). It’s a rather strange phenomenon: the early issues try to balance the characters somewhat evenly across the issues, and feels somewhat awkward in trying to devote an equal amount of space to stories that aren’t equally compelling; on the other hand, the second and final thirds seems more comfortable devoting large stretches of single issues to certain characters (and to have other members of the ensemble go unheard from for issues at a time), which has the bizarre effect of meaning that a cliffhanger or two isn’t picked up for two or three chapters. It’s a tough balance to get right, and I’m sad to say that Brightest Day doesn’t acquit itself particularly admirably. It’s a shame, because there are some interesting ideas here.

Everything burns...

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: blackest night, boston, brightest day, Brightest Day (DC comics), Captain Boomerang, captain cold, dc universe, flash, geoff johns, green lantern, green lantern: rebirth, Greenlantern, Martian Manhunter, maxwell lord, peter tomasi, reverse flash, The Flash: Rebirth | 2 Comments »

Geoff Johns’ Run on The Flash – The Dastardly Death of the Rogues & The Road to Flashpoint (Review)

Posted on January 6, 2012 by Darren

This January, I’m going to take a look at some of DC’s biggest “events.” I’ll be starting with the most recent one, Flashpoint, following a week full of Flash stories.

It’s hard not to look at Geoff Johns’ return to The Flash and wonder what might have been. After all, his original run solidified Johns as a talent to watch in the superhero field, fed into his iconic Green Lantern run and paved the way to his ascent up the DC food chain. And it’s quite clear that DC were putting a lot of energy into pushing The Flash as the next “breakout franchise”, clearly hoping that Johns could find an angle on the character and mythos that would push the book up the sales charts to match the Batman and Green Lantern franchises. That obviously didn’t happen, but it feels like a shame because it very nearly could have happened, had things gone a little differently.

Flash! A-ha! He saves every one of us!

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: comic books, Comics, dc comics, dcnu, final crisis, flash, Flash (comics), flashpoint, flashpoint (comics), Francis Manapul, geoff johns, grant morrison, green lantern, reverse flash, review, road to flashpoint, rogues, the dastardly death of the rogues, The Flash (comics), the rogues, time travel | Leave a comment »

Flash: Rebirth (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on January 5, 2012 by Darren

This January, I’m going to take a look at some of DC’s biggest “events.” I’ll be starting with the most recent one, Flashpoint, but – in the spirit of the character – we’re going to have a marathon run through Flash stories before we get there. Check back daily this week for more Flash-ified goodness…

From the outset, Flash: Rebirth was going to be an infinitely more complex endeavour for writer Geoff Johns than Green Lantern: Rebirth had been. Both miniseries aimed to firmly establish an older legacy character (in both cases, the iteration of the character active in the late fifties/early sixties) as the core of that particular franchise, replacing their replacements, as it were. However, Hal Jordan had been absent for about ten years, and had been hovering around the DC Universe in various guises during his absence from the role of Green Lantern. Barry Allen, on the other hand, had been gone twenty years and his appearances had been far scarcer. There had been a whole generation of fans (including the author of this miniseries) who grew up with Wally West as the Flash. Bringing Barry back was always going to be tricky, but here it becomes evident just how tricky.

A darker shade of red?

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: Abra Kadabra, art, Barry, barry allen, comic book review, comic books, Comics, continuity, dc comics, dc universe, dcu, ethan van sciver, final crisis, flash, geoff johns, Greenlantern, hal jordan, justice society of america, rebirth, resurrection, retcon, retroactive continuity, reverse flash, review, silver age, speed force, the flash, The Flash: Rebirth, wally west, zoom | Leave a comment »

Geoff Johns’ Run on The Flash – Ignition, The Secret of Barry Allen, Rogue War

Posted on January 3, 2012 by Darren

Superman soars above everyone. Batman hides from everyone. Wonder Woman preaches to everyone.

Me? I run right alongside everyone. My name’s Wally West. You probably know the rest.

– The Flash reintroduces himself, The Secret of Barry Allen

Geoff Johns’ run on The Flash can really be split into two distinct sub-runs. The first saw him working with artist Scott Kolins, defining Keystone and building up a supporting cast. The second, following the climax of Blitz, is something of a revised origin for the character – an attempt by Johns to tell his own particular version of an origin story for the character. Of course, it isn’t a literal origin like his own Green Lantern: Secret Origin or Superman: Secret Origin, rather a rediscovery. Although I do have a slight preference for the earlier half the run, there’s no denying that Johns has put together quite a wonderful story during his tenure on The Flash.