This is the first issue of a Flash comic I have ever bought or read. Considering I loved Green Lantern: Rebirth I was really excited for this book, and wanted to get in at the start assuming of course that Johns or some other top tier talent will be working on a Flash on-going once this finishes up.
Probably my biggest surprise upon first finishing the book was how little of Barry Allen there was in it. After starting up with a murder we see how other members of the Flash family are reacting to Barry's unexpected return. I knew about Jay and Wally a bit from reading other books, but I was not familiar with Bart at all. In just one page Johns does a pretty solid job of helping me get accustomed to the character.
Luckily for me the main scenes featuring Barry also feature Green Lantern Hal Jordan who as mentioned had a Rebirth of his own. Their interaction here is awesome and has definitely made me want to seek out old stories involving the two of them. Unlike everyone else Barry isn't celebrating his return, but expresses to Hal his concern about why he has come back and how long his return will last. I don't know too much about Barry Allen, but to me this type of characterization made perfect sense. The only thing I am still kind of confused about is the Speed Force itself, so hopefully Johns delves into that a little bit more in the next issue.
The real mystery of this whole story arc doesn't kick in until the end of the issue, but I won't ruin that for you.
Not much to say about Van Sciver's art, it is fucking amazing.
Scalped 27
Last month we got Diesel, this time around Aaron focuses in on Agent Nitz who is a pretty important character who for the most part rarely gets seen. Like in all these other one and done tales Aaron tells a bleak and haunting tale that nicely fills in the past of a character in 22 short pages. Scalped usually follows the same format of an arc of one-off stories followed by a more structured 6 part arc that moves the story along. I can tell we are getting close to the end of this round of one-shot stories because even though this was another strong issue I am ready for the story to get moving again especially after how the first issue of this arc ended.
In regards to the art, another fill-in artist whose work here is solid. Only complaint is that in a lot of panels it looks like everyones eyes are closed.
Iron Man 12
After the way last issue ended and upon seeing the cover for this issue [Namor and Tony wrestling under water] who would have thought Tony's part of the story would end up not being my favorite part.
"Pepper Potts gets to work"
I am absolutely loving what Fraction has done with Potts' character, and her scenes in this issue are the best ones yet. Plus, these scenes give Fraction a chance to portray Osborn as the crazy mother fucker he really is.
That is not to say the Iron Man part of the issue was bad in any way, it was really solid. However, I'm not as infatuated with Namor as plenty of others on the internet so while those scenes were really good they were not my favorite.
Maria Hill's part in this issue was rather short, but still well done and pretty damn frightening. I know nothing about the history of the Controller nonetheless I am excited to see where this goes especially considering what happens here in Issue #12.
As you can tell I am digging how Fraction has split the book up and I hope it continues after the whole Dark Reign thing fades away into oblivion and gets replaced by something else.
Since its inception this has been a nice book to look at when guys and girls are flying around in suits and shit is blowing up. In other areas though the art has often fallen flat. While not consistently I noticed in spots that it seems as if the art and coloring are starting to improve in some of these areas where they have been weak for the past year. Hopefully the trend continues.
SIDE NOTE - Probably finally going to record the March Podcast today or tomorrow.
<3
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