Months back, a picture was released of the upcoming animated series Batman: The Brave and The Bold. The image showed Batman in a more 1950’s style, appearing in front of a clean-shaven Green Arrow and the current version of Blue Beetle. While I wasn’t exactly ecstatic about it, it at least interested me more than The Batman. Even disregarding the “fuck the fanboys” interview that preceded that series, I just couldn’t get into it.

But Brave and the Bold already had two things going for it. One, it had a good concept. One of the things that made Justice League Unlimited so cool was the idea of a random superhero you may have never heard of showing up in an episode alongside someone you have heard of. Hell, that’s how I was ultimately introduced to Booster Gold. Here, it’s simplified with the original JL roster being replaced with just Batman, holding the series together in a looser continuity, while teaming up with a different guy in each episode. It’s not so much a Batman cartoon as it’s another DC Universe cartoon. That’s cool. I can get into that.

The other thing that it has going for it is Blue Beetle. I’m not just saying this as a fan of Jaime Reyes. There are two things I ultimately felt were missing from Justice League Unlimited: Plastic Man and Blue Beetle. For some reason they didn’t have the broadcasting rights to either character over the course of the show and the most we got was Elongated Man bitching about Plastic Man without us ever seeing him. Granted, it isn’t Ted Kord in this series, but I’ll take what I can get.

Say, I just noticed that Ted Kord is sort of Spider-Man-like while his successor Jaime is Venom-like. Huh.

I forgot about this series, until the recent release of the trailer. Gentlemen! Behold!

That’s… pretty awesome. Plastic Man’s there too! There’s another thing going for it! Yeah! I wonder if Tom Kenny will be voicing him again. For those out of the loop, he played Plas in a failed cartoon pilot a year or so ago.

According to Wiki, Booster Gold and Skeets will get their own episode too. This thing just keeps getting better and better. Not to mention Green Lantern Corps and Red Tornado. And on the villain side, not only do they have Gentleman Ghost, but they have Black Manta in there… and they’re allowed to call him Black Manta this time!

Consider me stoked. I’m in the mood for a lighter Batman right about now.

I only have two requests.

1) Show more of Gotham city and how they react to the Batman.

2) Make Edward Nigma the villain, and make sure it’s this version. Have the media call him the Riddler before he’s revealed.

The past two films have been all about villains trying to kill other people. Nigma isn’t after that. He’s just heard stories of the “Dark Knight Detective” and he wants to see if he can outsmart him. He pulls off complicated heists, tricky kidnappings, and generally causes high impact, but low danger, crime to get Batman’s attention. He leaves behind a clue or two, maybe a green question mark on a postcard with a rhyme on the back.

He doesn’t want to kill. He doesn’t want to murder. He’s just a thrillseeker who happens to be super-smart. Also, he doesn’t wear a stupid costume. He’s dapper and slick, and probably knows Bruce Wayne in real life, but hasn’t made the connection between Bruce and Bats yet.

Get on it. 2010.

Also, my brother-from-another William points out something fun– Eddie should be black. Just because.

Right now I’m getting ready to go see The Dark Knight. As I type this, it’s near 2 am.

Unfortunately, my work schedule this week doesn’t give me many liberties in terms of checking this movie out at a reasonable time. Hell, it’s also the reason I’ve been a bit dry on updates lately. So the other day I went to the nearby IMAX, a one minute walk from work, and asked what the earliest showing was of the movie. The answer? 3 am. Eh, good enough.

Around this time it’s proper to discuss favorite Batman comics and stuff like that. For me, I look towards the Diniverse and the timeless Batman: The Animated Series. When people think of great moments in the Diniverse cartoons, they’re quick to mention the Flash tearing apart the Luthor/Brainiac hybrid or Tim Drake murdering the Joker. All great moments, but still somewhat fresh in the fans’ minds because of being the most recent.

For me, one of my all-time favorite moments is the latter minutes of His Silicon Soul, an episode of Batman’s cartoon that acted as a sequel to a story arc where he fought the evil computer HARDAC. In this episode, despite HARDAC’s destruction, a robot copy of Bruce Wayne/Batman exists. He wakes up and gets shot at by some thugs, quickly revealing that he’s a machine due to all the exposed wires hanging out of his stomach. Even though he truly believes that he’s Batman, it’s explained to him that he only has basic memories.

Luckily, someone made a YouTube video that condenses the episode into about 7 minutes. The final moments is some powerful, chilling shit.

On another note relating to the movie, there’s a Watchmen trailer attached to it. It’s online all over and it rocked my socks off. Shortly after its release to the internet, Entertainment Weekly revealed its Watchmen-oriented cover. I don’t know about you, but something seems a bit familiar about Ozymandias…

We danced on Sprockets 35 minutes ago.

Basically, my interpretation of Batman is this: Batman loves his job. There’s more to it, of course, but that’s the most important bit.

Part of Batman enjoying his job means that the “Bruce Wayne is the mask” interpretation is both true and false. In the sense that Bruce Wayne is overall expendable and exists solely to provide income for Batman, it is definitely untrue. As Jon Bernhardt says in this piece for Funnybook Babylon, Bruce Wayne as Mask is a drastic misreading of Dark Knight Returns, and antithetical to the idea of Batman.

In essence, Batman wears two masks. One is the Batman mask– it’s an urban Zorro. The other is Playboy Bruce Wayne, and that one is an exercise in theatrical distraction. Playboy Bruce Wayne provides the perfect alibi. Who’d believe that this flighty guy could ever do anything worthwhile? This is part of the reason that Bruce Wayne hasn’t had a lasting relationship. The Playboy role is a barrier against that.

The Batman mask, though, is the interesting one. Bruce Wayne is, at heart, damaged goods. When his parents were murdered in front of his eyes, Bruce Wayne immediately went from innocent to lost. He can’t make the same emotional connections that other people do. Look at his best friends– all costumes. Does Bruce Wayne have non-costumed, or non-costume related, friends? Lucius Fox, perhaps.

Bruce is incapable of sustaining a regular relationship. He connects best with the other people who wear costumes, or run in those same circles. Look at his long-term on-again/off-again relationship with Catwoman. Look at Zatanna and Wonder Woman. Maybe it’s just a side effect of the job and shared experiences, but he tends to hang with super-women.

Anyway, going from innocent to lost doesn’t mean that you stop being a kid inside. The Batman mask and persona, if you think about it, are the reaction of a kid who had his childhood stolen from him. He puts on a mask and a cape, emulating his favorite hero, and fights the thing that hurt him when he was a child. He goes out at night and plays at being a hero. Look at Batman’s conduct. He puts on a gruff voice and uses parlor tricks to strike fear into the hearts of criminals, who are “a superstitious and cowardly lot.” He’s acting like something he thinks criminals would be afraid of.

Though, this doesn’t mean that he doesn’t love his job. Being Batman is what Bruce Wayne uses as an outlet for his aggression. One thing Frank Miller does in All-Star Batman that I love is that he writes a Bruce Wayne who has a childlike glee at being Batman. Everything from the dialogue to the inner monologue speaks to a man who is a) acting (he’s deciding which persona to put on before he strikes), b) acting poorly (Dick Grayson sees through him immediately), and c) loves doing it anyway (“Every inch of me is alive“). He strikes with a laugh, rather, “the laugh” because he knows it scares criminals. He makes it a point to use theatrics when he fights. It gives him an advantage in the fight and it lets him playact.

I mean, for real, though. That giant t-rex and all those other trophies were in the cave before Robin got there. That’s Brucie at work.

Batman is a dark, serious, brooding, and violent knight, but he’s also someone who has to enjoy what he does. He likes getting out there, acting gruff, and breaking bones. He likes being able to make people safe and striking terror into the heart of criminals. In DKSA, this is best shown by the scene where he’s relaxing and leaning back in his Batplane, hands behind his head and feet up on the console. “Striking terror. Best part of the job.”

Batman is also that guy who is scarily competent at everything. It isn’t that he’s a genius. He’s just a person of maybe slightly above-average intelligence who applies himself. He studies and practices and trains with a fervor most people don’t ever employ. He can place the origins of accents by simply hearing them, give you the etymology of certain words and which poems they were used in and why, and even track a wolf eighteen miles through the underbrush. Why? Because he thought it’d be a good idea to know all these things.

He’s the ultimate jack-of-all-trades. In hindsight, he essentially spent the remainder of his childhood studying to become the Batman. He travelled the world, studied martial arts, science, and who knows what else solely so that he could be the best at his job. He turned himself into a detective of incredible skill just in case he needed it later. He’s an obsessive amongst obsessives, if that makes sense. Capo di tutti capi.

Finally, Batman has to have Robin. Robin is the perfect foil for Batman. Where Batman is the guy who lost his childhood, but never really left it behind, Robin is the child that came close to losing his, but managed to find it again. Batman isn’t so much a father figure to Robin as a big brother. They go and hang out together and play all the same games.

Robin existing gives both of them a chance to win back some lost humanity. They can use each other for moral support, since they are so similar in origin, and when that doesn’t work, they can go out and bust heads together. For Bruce, Robin is in danger of going down the same path he did. He’s lost his parents in a tragedy, just like Bruce did, but being Robin gives him a chance to cope. It gives him an outlet for his grief.

Alfred keeps Bruce honest. When he sometimes slips a little too deep into the Batman persona and starts to walk his talk, Alfred is there to call him out on it. His constantly sarcastic wit reminds Bruce that he is still a human being, and an adult at that.

The somber, super serious, depressed, hates-to-live Batman that was popularized a few years back is a mistake. Batman gives Bruce Wayne a reason to live and enjoy life. He likes being Batman. He feels that it’s right. Robin provides a balance to his darkness, and Alfred keeps him honest.

That’s the way it should work, anyway.

I’ve gotten into a couple conversations over the past week or so about Superman. I’m not sure what brought it on. Maybe it’s something in the air, or the creative changes on Superman, or whatever whatever. One thing that always comes up is what exactly makes up your own personal Superman.

It’s that personal continuity, or apocryphal continuity that Morrison inadvertently created, again. Some stories count for you that don’t count for others. Other stories are so terrible (War Games) that you just wish everyone else would pretend like they never happened. Why even mention [Sins Past, Parallax, Clone Saga]? They suck, leave them in the past, right? Anyway, apocryphal continuity is something that I think everyone practices, whether they realize it or not. I mean, seriously, how many Superman fans think that Superman really almost starred in a porno with Big Barda?

My Superman is pretty widely defined, but there are a few pet peeves and specific traits I think he should have. First and foremost, though, is that he doesn’t say “Great Rao!” or “Moons of Krypton!” or whatever fakey-fake Kryptonian religion crap he found out about second-hand. That’s lame and way too Silver Age-y. So is “Great Scott!” Superman talks like a normal person.

Superman and the Legion is one area that I’m not entirely certain on. I have a friend (or two) who swears that the Legion is necessary for his life as a boy, but I’m not so sure. My thought was that Superman’s powers don’t fully manifest until he’s basically grown, as in Birthright or the Death/Return of Superman. As a kid, he knew he was different, and he at some point found out who and what he was, but he wasn’t exactly a Superman at that point. Sure, he could fly, maybe had a little bit of laser eyes, but he wasn’t thoroughly amazing.

The reasoning behind the Legion of Superheroes being significant for Superman’s origin is that it shows him the impact he will have on the future, which serves to simultaneously create an environment where you can tell stories about Superboy fighting things other than runaway tractors and bears (or whatever infest the midwest) and to create a situation where Superman must live up to his own legacy.

Basically, I kind of liked it when the only legacy Superman had to live up to was his father’s. It’s smaller scale and much more personal, I think. He’s just a young, confused kid who’s got to find his own way in the world and try to do the best he can. Knowing for a fact that you basically become the greatest hero to ever do it takes away from that a bit. It makes him more sure of himself without doing the legwork. I’m not a hardliner on it, though, and can go either way. I’m just hesitant about the Legion because I can’t really get into it in general.

Superman is an alien, but he is also a human being. In fact, he is a human being first and foremost. He was raised by people who instilled that in him, along with humility, a need to do right, and a need to not do too much. He has the power to wreck the planet to get his way, but he studiously avoids any action like that. He understands the fear that would strike into the hearts of regular people. So, he tries to live his life the way his parents raised him.

Kryptonite will kill him, but so will the loss of Lois Lane. I really liked Brian Azzarello and Jim Lee’s For Tomorrow in part because it hammered that point home. Superman lost his wife, and losing his wife basically means that he lost his center. He isn’t out of control, exactly, but he’s much less likely to go easy on you. Lois is the most important thing in his life and his anchor with both his human and Kryptonian heritage.

In the Fortress, he’s Kryptonian. He’s surrounded by the remains of a dead world and statues of his birth parents. In Kansas, he’s surrounded by his past and his oh-so-human parents. With Lois, he can let down his guard and be both. In Action Comics #775, “What’s So Funny About Truth, Justice, and The American Way?”, there’s a bit where he’s laying in bed with Lois and thinking about the next day when he’s due to throw down with some people who might actually murder him.

The scene is the perfect intersection of man and hero. When Clark is Superman, he has to be flawless. He can’t make mistakes. He has to be perfect in order to protect the Earth. As a man, though? In the dark, with his wife? He’s allowed to be unsure and imperfect. He’s allowed to let his voice crack and wonder if he’s doing the right thing, even though he already knows that it’s the only thing he could ever do.

Superman, like Captain Marvel, should always be one of those few superheroes I think should stay kid-friendly. There’s just something about him that encourages that. Maybe it’s what he stands for or how he operates, but a story about Superman having committed murder, for instance, is a hard sell for me. You could add mind control into the mix and I still wouldn’t be interested. He’s Superman. He doesn’t do that kind of thing. Ever. That’s the way it goes.

Also, my Superman got into a fight with Muhammad Ali and caught a beatdown.

Yo, I can’t fully become my mother’s guiding light
’til my dad returns to tell me what the other side is like
I keep the things you taught trapped in mind
I know you cared…
Even though you weren’t here half the time
But who am I to blame?
I’d probably do the same in your shoes
–Copywrite, “June”

Fathers are an important element of a lot of comics characters origins, and I haven’t really seen a lot of attention aimed in that direction. This is odd, because the three biggest comics characters (Super/Spider-/Batman) are orphans with surrogate parents. Superman has Jonathan and Martha Kent, Batman has Alfred, and Spider-Man has Aunt May and Uncle Ben. I’m going to talk about Jonathan Kent, and Ben Parker to a lesser extent, in specific here, I think.

(For what it is worth, Martha, Martha, and May [their supergroup is named 3M and May is lead singer] provided the compassion that fuels all three heroes in their daily interactions with the citizenry. In each case, both parents are vital and equal components of the hero’s heroic persona. That should probably be another post, however.)

I could probably do an essay apiece on these guys, so I’ll take it slow and focus specifically on the treatment of Jonathan Kent in All-Star Superman #6, “Funeral in Smallville.” I find the regular DCU Jonathan interesting, too, especially in light of Adventures of Superman #500, but I’ll get to that later.

Ben’s influence on Peter Parker is two-fold. First, he’s the source of Peter’s superheroic morality. “With great power comes great responsibility” is basically the reason that Spider-Man became a hero, instead of a celebrity. The other angle is that he’s a source of grief and guilt for Peter, providing a secondary reason for him to keep heroing. Ben Parker is, essentially, Peter Parker’s first failure. Gwen and Captain Stacy are two further failures.

Jonathan Kent, in light of this issue, is essentially Ben Parker. In this updated story about Clark Kent’s past, Jonathan is already elderly at this point, and has heart troubles. Three mysterious Supermen appear and attempt to prevent Clark from fighting a Chronovore. Instead, Clark presses on into battle and loses three minutes of his life. In those three minutes, his father suffers a fatal heart attack and dies.

Before this, Clark was essentially invincible. There was nothing he could not do. There was nothing he could fail at. However, his first failure was harsh enough to instill in him a resolution (I’d hesitate to call it a fear) to never fail again.

The scene where Jonathan dies is cut into the fight against the Chronovore, including a rough scene where Clark is flying so fast that his hair ignites while he screams that he can “save everybody.” The scene directly after that is the funeral, which explains the moral fiber that Jonathan instilled in his son.

“Jonathan Kent taught me that the strong have to stand up for the weak and that bullies don’t like being bullied back. […] He taught me about life and death.”

This page is about as good a summary of Superman’s modus operandi as you’re going to get. He’s there to work toward a better world, to protect those weaker than him, and to live up to his father’s example. In a very real way, Superman’s hero, the person he looks up to the most and attempts to emulate, is a normal man.

This adds an interesting wrinkle to the All-Star Superman. He’s already experienced the worst feeling in the world and it became a vital part of his character. He took the loss, adjusted, and now he’s there to try and live up to his father’s memory. It isn’t guilt, exactly– it’s more of a respect thing.

The twist in the issue is that one of the Supermen is actually our Superman, who has traveled back in time. He’s there for one last chance to be with his father. He knows that he can’t save him, and that sometimes bad things happen, but that you’ve got to take joy where you can get it. If that means talking with your father about your future just before he dies… so be it. It’s an experience to be treasured, yeah?

Not Cam’ron, Mindy Owens‘s favorite rapper. I’m talking about Cameron Stewart, artist of Seaguy, Catwoman, Guardian, and a host of other books you should be checking for.

I recently found out that he has a blog, the Cameron Stewartwork Blog according to the header!

Stewart is one of my favorite artists. I first saw his work on Seaguy, most likely, and then Catwoman, 7 Soldiers: Guardian, and The Other Side. He does Sin Titulo weekly. It’s a part of the Transmission X network, one of the more interesting webcomics collectives out there. TX Comics also includes Luz, which is about peak oil, kind of.

Anyway, I really dig his style. He’s cartoony, expressive, and flexible in a way that I can admire. Beyond being drawn by the same dude, Seaguy, Sin Titulo, Other Side, and Catwoman don’t look like the same book. It’s like he’s always trying to switch up his style. As near as I can tell, it’s paying off. I’m just hoping that ST is going to end up collected at some point so I can throw some money at him.

Anyway, he’s got a blog he posts artwork on. He’s talked about Wall-E and a few other summer movies. He did a sketch of Black Cat that I would straight up kill for. (I wish he did commissions.) He also has a feature called Girl Fridays.

Girl Fridays is a series where Stewart draws a cute girl a week. It’s an exercise in style (both art and fashion), design, and color. It’s interesting to look at, and it’s Cam Stewart drawing cute girls. Who could hate that?

I’m a big Flash fan. I love Wally, Barry, Bart, and Jay. I love the way the laws of physics crumble around them. I love the relationships in the book, from Rogues to loved ones. The Flash is easily one of DC’s best heroes, and I wouldn’t mind if they turned the JLA into “Flash and Batman, plus those other guys.”

One thing I realized the other night, though, is that one of the coolest things about the Flash franchise is that they are a bunch of legacy characters that I actually care about. Two Wildcats, a bunch of Hawkmen, a Dr. Mid-Nite or three, and a family of Starmans? Ehhh, that’s okay, I guess, but give me the Flash any day. Jay’s the most interesting character in the JSA, Barry seems like one of the more fun dudes from the Silver Age, Wally is one of the most well-rounded characters in the DCU, and Bart is that young kid trying to live up to not one legend, but three.

Seriously, think about it. Wildcat’s son just has to live up to “being the son of a guy who dresses up like a cat and hits people really hard.” Hawkman has to hit things with maces. Wonder Woman’s mom was basically so much like her daughter that she replaced her on the JLA and I didn’t even notice. Who cares that there’ve been like six Atoms? He shrinks. Who does Stargirl have to live up to? A slacker, a dead man, a blue alien, and a scientist. That lineage is so square you could use it as cool repellent. Bart’s got it rough, man.

I’ve often joked that the JSA is a team of guest stars. Generally, they’re (Wildcat) the kind of characters (Wildcat) that make me go, “Oh, man! It’s Wildcat from that one comic! That’s pretty cool!” It’s not that I don’t like them, it’s just that I’m haven’t really been sold on most of them. I’m down with Black Adam, Jay Garrick, and sometimes Mr. Terrific, but the rest? Ehhh. They’re all right. They’re like the DC Comics version of the Secret Defenders. “Hey look! It’s Darkhawk, Dr. Druid, and what’s her name with the shadow powers!”

Being a guest star isn’t all bad, though. In the past few years, Barry Allen has put in enough work to become the best guest star that ever did it. Every time he’s appeared lately has been rocking.

The first one that comes to mind is during the tail end of Geoff Johns’s run on the Flash. He’s wrapping up loose ends, having the Rogues go wild, and letting Zoom run free. Zoom ends up going to get Professor Zoom, Barry’s nemesis, and uses his speed powers to use the time treadmill to force Wally to relive the worst day of his life over and over.

“It’s a bad day, Uncle Barry,” may well be one of the best lines of Geoff Johns’s career. It is exceeded, however, by the next one.

In Infinite Crisis, Superboy Prime has gone nuts and is just dismembering Teen Titans left and right. He’s screaming how they’re making him just like them, it’s their fault he’s pulling off their limbs, and what’s the deal with this rock and roll music kids listen to these days, anyway? The Flashes grab him and try to get rid of him. Jay Garrick hits the wall early, Wally pushes too hard, and only Bart’s left to keep fighting. Superboy Prime taunts him, causing Bart to freak out. Mid-freakout, a voice comes out of the ether. “Bart. You’re not alone, either.”

“Grandpa?” beats “It’s a bad day.”

The next one is much more recent. In Final Crisis, a New God is dead, John Stewart is arrested, and J’onn J’onnz is dead. Jay and Wally are investigating the death and locate the place where he died. Coincidentally, it’s in the same place that Jay first met Barry.

Look at that. Barry is the busiest dead man alive.

Zoom is a pretty awesome guest star, too.

“I’m fueled by tragedy!”

From this week’s Permanent Damage
:

Speaking of upheaval, all this, including the underlying idiot notion that karma would rise up to bite Dan Didio on the ass for Chuck’s ill-treatment, got exacerbated by the revelation that Marvel’s SECRET INVASION #2 was the top book of the month, with DC’s supposedly pivotal FINAL CRISIS #1 coming in second, along with the speculation that “we can’t imagine anyone at DC is very happy about that.”

What?

It has become ridiculously easy to confuse reviewers’ commentary on comics with the real-world facts about those comics, but usually the one doesn’t have much more than peripheral connection to the other. I’ve mentioned in the past the dichotomous, contradictory standard “fanthink” on the matter: the comic that we like that fails failed because the audience isn’t sophisticated enough to appreciate it, the comic that we don’t like that fails failed because the audience couldn’t be fooled by crap. Corollaries: the comic that we like never fails because it’s crap and we’re the ones who got fooled by it; the book we don’t like that succeeds always succeeds because the rest of the audience is dazzled by crap.

The bold’s the important bit, the whole piece is well worth a read. The idea that Final Crisis wasn’t #1 because it’s “too smart” is dumb, possibly terminally so.

Hey, who remembers Bart Allen? Impulse? Kid Flash? Flash? Yeah, that kid. Remember when he died and DC restarted the series with a back-from-limbo Wally West?

Oh. That was just a year ago.

Flash’s mid-stride reboot, courtesy of Mark Waid and friends, has not been all that well received.

From an interview:

I don’t know. You know, I just think, in retrospect, the stars were not in alignment in a lot of ways. I kind of knew we were in trouble right off the bat when I so loved Daniel Acuna’s artwork. I so loved it. And I was so unprepared for the insane volume of hatred from the online community about how much they just despised his work on the title. I knew at that point, I thought, “Oh god, we’re in trouble.” Once more, the online community has me questioning what I thought was good. Which I shouldn’t let happen, but it’s hard not to do when the volume is that loud.

And at this moment in time, I just … in terms of superhero work, I feel frozen. I kind of… I feel like I’m momentarily out of step with what fandom wants because I don’t get it. The same voices that are screaming that we gave Flash a wife and kids and family, because they say that’s not what Flash is, are the same people who are screaming that they’ve broken up Mary Jane and Peter Parker. “How dare you take his family away!” I’m like, wait! Wait! What? Which way is it? So… growth and change good… or growth and change bad?

That’s about it in a nutshell. Waid helped put the Flash back on the map back in the day. He’s one of the biggest writers in comics. DC is still strip-mining Kingdom Come. He’s put in a lot of work writing exactly the kind of stories that DC fans enjoy. I mean, for a while, they’d do a thing at cons where you’d try to stump Mark Waid on DC trivia. He’s a fan’s fan.

I’m not sure why his Flash didn’t work. I bought the first few and pretty much enjoyed them, even though I thought the Inertia imprisonment was creepy. It was an interesting twist on the Flash series, but I didn’t exactly jones for the series.

The question is, however, who wants to read a book about Flash, his wife, and his twin kids who keep aging at superspeed?

I dunno, but after Flash #241, it turns out that I do. Of course, I would realize this the week that what’s probably going to end up being the last arc for this creative team is announced.

I read the latest issue and turned a corner. Waid is off the book and Tom Peyer has taken over. Freddie Williams II is still the artist, and he’s doing a pretty good job, I think. I like the way he shows superspeed. But, I realized this issue that Tom Peyer really gets Mark Waid’s Flash Family idea. Waid called him “probably the best writer out there that no one knows about” and I think that he’s absolutely right.

A couple of things turned me around on Peyer. Not that I disliked him or anything, don’t get me wrong– if I didn’t like him, I would’ve quit buying Flash. But, I didn’t love his work on Flash.

The first thing that made me turn was when I realized that he did a really fun Jack Kirby homage in #241. When looking to pay tribute to Kirby, most people go for the typical– Kirby Krackle (or Dots), a guest appearance by a Kirby creation, or something like that. Something really obvious and unmistakable. What Peyer did in #241, though, was something entirely new to me– a Kirby dialogue homage. See for yourself:

A lot of Kirby’s dialogue was clunky and cluttered, but he did one thing that really stood out to a lapsed English major like myself. He used quotation marks like they were going out of style. Peyer bringing that back for a page, plus the Kirby-style dialogue and terms (Negatonin? Brother Drive?) were really nice to see. It’s the kind of thing that’s unobtrusive if you don’t get it, and dorky fun if you do.

The other thing is less of a one-off gag and more of a theme for the series. Basically, it’s about the terror inherent in starting, and maintaining, a family. From what I’ve seen, parenthood is pretty much equal parts joy and sheer brain-curdling terror. Your kid smiles and it makes your day. He busts his lip and you’re suddenly thinking about maybe buying a cushioned bubble, organic food, and a bodyguard.

I’m big on family in comics. This should be old hat by this point, honestly. I love seeing it done well and have an irrational hatred of it being done poorly. I have straight up stopped reading books because of a character doing something stupid with regards to their family. I will write endless paragraphs about how characters are jerks for being jerks to their family. Maybe I have a complex, I dunno, but it counts for me.

Peyer’s Flash gets it right in a few short pages. Flash has always had a strong element of family to it, and now it’s been cranked up to eleven. The best parts of this issue aren’t the fighting, which there isn’t a lot of, anyway. It’s the dialogue between Iris and Jai about their shortened lifespan and their shared moment. It’s Wally’s pure terror at the thought of losing his kids, and willingness to put that aside to let them live the life they deserve. It’s the Flash Family racing to go do good. It’s the uncertainty of a man who has fought the worst mankind has to offer and still worries about his kids. It’s of a parent having to put on a happy face when he’s gripped by fear.

In a way, isn’t the fear that your children will grow up too fast a common one for parents? That you, and they, won’t get to enjoy their childhood before they enter the terrible world of adults? That’s this, but filtered through a superheroic lens.

It’s even more interesting since it’s been filtered through Wally. We’ve had the benefit of actually seeing him grow up over the years, from Kid Flash to Flash to Father. He’s easily seen the most character growth of the big name characters in the DCU. Sure, Dick Grayson went from Robin to Nightwing, but the biggest difference there is that he lives in a different city now, he wears pants, and he’s six inches taller. A super-family means super-problems, and Wally’s got to deal with that.

Look at all the changes Wally went through in comparison. He went from being the kid sidekick to the hero with no self-esteem to the petulant hero to the seasoned hero to the stuck-up hero to a hero with kids. It’s been an interesting evolution, and I kind of hope that Barry coming back isn’t just going to leave him by the wayside.

I like the kids. I like the conceit of them randomly aging. I like Wally suddenly having a very real weakness. I like Linda having to become an overnight expert in high velocity biology. I like the Flash Family. It’s interesting and engaging.

It’s a very un-DC comic, I think. DC Comics about imperfect heroes tend to be about mind-bogglingly huge things. Superman in For Tomorrow, John Stewart in Mosaic, Hal Jordan and Coast City, Green Arrow and his stupid city getting invaded by demons or whatever… all very large scale and very enormous. They are more like challenges, rather than continuing imperfections. After Barry died, Wally was the hero who felt he was owed the world. It’s nice to see that Peyer is continuing the trend of Wally being very realistic in a certain sense.

So, yeah, Peyer has me on the hook. What sucks is that Peyer has two issues left before the (very capable!) Alan Burnett comes onto the book for “This Was Your Life, Wally West.”

Better luck next time, I guess. Hopefully I’ll get a nice trade out of this arc to go along with the Mark Waid HC in August.