Flash Facts

Well, yesterday I feverishly picked up the fateful comics (Flash: Fastest Man Alive #13 and Justice League of America #10) to see if good ol' Barry Allen had been brought back to life. 

As you might recall from my previous post, I'm a big fan of the character and was hoping mightily that he would be the "new Flash" DC's been crowing about.

For those of you who haven't read the comics in question yet, I'll go into spoiler mode after the jump, but I will say this:  While the issue of Flash was pretty "meh" (much like the entire short-lived series itself), the conclusion of "The Lightning Saga" in Justice League featured some top-notch, nitro-powered storytelling.  "Suspenseful Intensity" might be a good way to describe it.

Okay, time to jump to some spoiler-
filled blather.  Don't say I didn't warn you!

First, let me get this off my chest:

Okay.  I'm good.

Soooo close!  Wow...what an insane roller coaster ride that was! 

I know, I know...things didn't turn out the way I'd hoped for Barry. As you can see from the page below, it was Wally West and his family the Legion pulled from the mysterious Speed Force (click on it for a larger view).

However, despite the No-Barry letdown, I have to hand it to DC for staging such a wonderfully intense, exciting ride leading up to the big reveal.  There were times I was sure it was going to be Barry, then not so sure, then kinda sure....all the while building tension like the drumroll accompanying circus acrobats.

Am I disappointed it wasn't Barry?

Yeah, I am...though it was good to see
someone else shared in my disappointment...

The World's Greatest Detective, no less.  I guess I'm in good company.

Don't get me wrong, I'm no "Anti-Wally" crank, so I'm sure I'll warm up to the "new reality" just in time for his new series to begin (I'm such a Kool-Aid drinking lemming).

Still...having come so close.....(sigh).

Oh well....so long, Barry! 

I guess this means you're gone for good....even in the "anything's possible" Never Neverland of superhero comics.

UPDATE: Upon re-reading the issue of JLA, there are some intriguing, ambiguous statements from the time-traveling Legion that make me wonder what might really be going on here. There appears to be more to the story. Stay tuned!

Comments

[Ted]

I was pretty shocked too. I thumbed through Flash #13 at the store and saw what happened there and when I read my purchased copy of JLA my first thought was, "ooh, Mark's gonna be pissed..."

I thought it was a very good series of events in the JLA book and the artwork is, well, delicious.

[Mark Engblom]

LOL! Well, I wouldn't say I was "pissed"....that's a little strong, since (as I've said) I'm not anti-Wally in any way.

(By the way, does it ever strike any of you how strange some of the sentences we type out are? "I'm not anti-Wally"...that'll show up in a few internet searches, I'm sure).

Yeah, the JLA issue was pretty well done. It was a classic fake-out, with just enough mysteries throughout to make me question what's really going on here.

DC's definitely going for the "mystery wrapped in an enigma" style of storytelling these days.

[Drew Clements]

Hey, that was a pretty awesome issue of Justice League. It had me guessing right up to the very end!

I'm glad to see Wally back and am very interested to see where all this is going. Like you said though, Barry's story may not be done just yet.

As for the new issue of The Flash, I've never been that attached to Bart, but I think killing him is a bit too much. I don't understand the whole "let's kill characters instead of retiring them for a while" thing.

In the end, though, it won't matter too much to me since Wally is back!

[Tom the Bomb]

I came into the Flash during the Wally era, so I'm okay with this. I was curious about seeing what they'd do with Barry.

I, too, am not convinced this was the end of it. I don't have my issue in front of me to check the Legion's comments, but I trust Batman's first instinct in this case. Besides, I can easily see Waid playing with an expanded Flash Family roster.

[Mark Engblom]

"As for the new issue of The Flash, I've never been that attached to Bart, but I think killing him is a bit too much."

I agree. Despite the spectacle of the Black Flash on the cover, I still wasn't thinking DC would actually (literally) pull the trigger on Bart. I have no particular attachment to the character, but I think mutts at the dog pound are killed with more class than Bart was (not to mention it being wildly out of character for the Rogues to kill a kid).

"I, too, am not convinced this was the end of it. I don't have my issue in front of me to check the Legion's comments, but I trust Batman's first instinct in this case."

Yeah, like I said in the post, it's kinda nice to have Batman on my side. Granted, everything was happening way too fast for the World's Greatest Detective to puzzle things out, but...like you said....his instincts were firing in another direction. Something tells me Batman's not going to let it drop, either.

As for an expanded Flash family, sign me up! The more the merrier...especially with Barry!

Okay, okay.....I'll let it drop (for now).

[Kelson]

Well, as a Wally fan, I'm happy to see him back. Though I do think that, if the Legionnaires' hints don't play out, DC has missed an opportunity. In the last few years, Wally has grown out from under Barry's shadow to the extent that I think the DCU could support both. Of course, given the way DC treated Bart...

Ironically, while I liked the outcome of JLA #10 and hated the outcome of Flash: TFMA #13, I preferred the storytelling in Flash to that in JLA. For some reason, "The Lightning Saga" just hasn't grabbed me.

[Mark Engblom]

" In the last few years, Wally has grown out from under Barry's shadow to the extent that I think the DCU could support both."

Good point. Considering the grown Nightwing and Red Arrow interact regularly with their mentors, I don't see the problem with having Barry, Wally and Jay all running around together. They did in the Pre-Crisis era (when Barry was inarguably the star of the threesome)..but when it comes to the Flash, DC seems to apply a different standard.

What I've found frustrating in the days following the big "Is it Barry?" hoo-hah is an interview with Dan Didio (for some Indiana newspaper, of all places) where he once again goes out of his way to say that Barry is dead, dead, dead. I'm not sure how many more times they can keep going back to the well teasing us about Barry's return and then yanking it away. If he's dead, don't keep suggesting he's not. Find something else to do.

[alex.jean]

I've never really been much of a wally fan,i mean he's alright and all but i was always for Barry's return,I wasn't that disappointed to see wally revived yet ill still always be hoping for Barry's return some day,I mean he was the first flash to wear the red and yellow and has a had such a huge legacy, and one of the most impressive rogues galleries in the DC universe, i wasn't born around the times were Barry had was still alive but I've read several of his comics and developed a high interest in the character, and i mean after all those short appearances even after his death that he's had,it always seems to tell me that either he will always have small appearances in the DC universe, that he would actually be reintroduced some,day after all the way he died didn't seem like an absolute permanent death, so i personally would love to see what would happen if Barry were around.