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.
