The Flash Shows Us How It's Done

[aaron_bourque]

Two page spread from The Flash #1 behind the cut.




I think Flash was the only comic of the new 52 to do that old fashioned origin blurb thing.

Comments

[darkknightjrk]

I've seen that drawing many times the past few months.

It still never fails to make my eyes happy. :D

[crabby_lioness]

There's also the amazing fall off the building.

[stubbleupdate]

That did stand out for me in the preview.

[fifthie]

The Flash, showing us how stealing the costume of a better, more competent hero is done.

[mrstatham]

Funny, because I thought the costume was redesigned, just like, oh right, EVERYONE ELSE'S.

[fifthie]

Redesigned into an ugly version of Wally's, yes.

[mrstatham]

Weren't their costumes largely the same except for some cosmetic crap? It's a freaking red jumpsuit with lightning bolt or wing tip ears. They looked the same.

[misterbug]

Plus Wally has a slightly darker, metallic material, and whited-out eyes.

[icon_uk]

He had the whited out eyes for a while, but long since lost them.

[thatnickguy]

And then went back to them during Flash: Rebirth.

[aaron_bourque]

Oh, Wally?

Wally wasn't a "better, more competent hero."

They're both good, get off the high horse.

[kd_the_movie]

Wally didnt cause Flashpoint so id say he wins in the more competent department.....

[freezer]

As the kids say: OH SNAP!

[aaron_bourque]

Yeah, but he rewrote time at least twice on his own. And, made a deal with the devil! So, he's no saint, either.

[aaron_bourque]

What?

[icon_uk]

The lightning bolts around the waist are Wally's design (joining in a V at the crotch rather than a simple ring effect) not Barry's.

[arbre_rieur]

Wally, of all characters, really has no room to talk there.

[icon_uk]

Different scenario. Wally was taking over the role from a dead man. He chose to become the Flash and wear the costume to honour Barry, but altered the costume a bit to make it clear he wasn't Barry.

This feels like Jim Lee looked at pictures of the Flash from the last ten years and didn't care that it wasn't Barry he was looking at. Which is, I freely admit, valid since this is a reboot, but nicking the costume design from the character you supplanted (rather than replaced) is just going to annoy those already irked at Wally being kicked repeatedly in the sensitive parts since the return of St Barry.

[jcbaggee]

Actually, Wally wore Barry's exact costume for the first 50 or so issues, until Vandal Savage sabotaged the costume making equipment that Barry had left him. STAR Labs used a new, friction resistant material to create Wally's second Flash uniform, which was the first to feature the V lightning belt and whited out eyes.

He wore that uniform for a couple years until he touched the Speed Force, then began wearing a new uniform made of solidified Speed Force which looked almost identical, except it wasn't shiny and the eyes were uncovered again. After Hal!Spectre erased everyone's memory of Wally's secret ID, he wore a fabric replica of that costume briefly until Barry returned.

[flash_fan]

We all miss Wally, your pessimism however will not bring him back.

[okkult3000]

Neither will DC.

[cloud_wolf]

Yep.

[mrstatham]

Wow. Manapul's come a long way since he was doing the Necromancer for Top Cow. He could almost give Williams III a run for his money... Almost.

[valtyr]

I misread that as 'tenuous sense of justice' and was all, that's honest and upfront of them.

[tacitoz]

I love it when they used letters as panels, it's a nice touch and leaves more space for the art!
(and now I finally know how the Flash (at least Barry) got his powers

Saint Barry FTW

[detective_deathman08]

Barry Allen is the man, I love the genuinely nice guy hero.

[detective_deathman08]

I really think wally was not a hero in this new verse. I mean he was not brought up in red hood outlaws, and no one made huff in teen titans about there being a new kid flash(in teen titans when barry denied realation), and he barely knows iris west.

I prefer barry allen but Wally west should not just be swept away...get rid of kyle rayner. Wally west and the new guardians would be sick.

One more question

[detective_deathman08]

Was wally wests identity public knowledge? I read his dc retroactive and he walked around mask-less(he was also a broke loser).

Re: One more question

[jcbaggee]

He revealed his ID after Barry's death so that the world would know who The Flash that had died for them was, and made Barry's ID public knowledge. After Zoom caused Linda to miscarry, Hal!Spectre erased everyone's memory of Wally's identity.

[kusonaga]

This. This is what you need to pull people into comics.

Even if it is Barry Allen.

[aaron_bourque]

Even if it is Barry Allen.

ESPECIALLY IF IT'S BARRY ALLEN!

HA!

[jcbaggee]

Barry seemed fun and had a bit of a personality here. I think that was the chief complaint of post-Rebirth Barry: no one really cared. He was still pretty boring, by the numbers, and showed no signs of real life.

I do hate that his marriage to Iris has been retconned. The concept of a Flash Family where they're all family men (and women, if you count Jesse) was a great touch, and one of my more endearing notions. However, I'm happy with how the comic feels, and Iris is at least a strong presence in the story, it seems.

I do miss Wally. It's his personality and his history that made me love him, and I will maintain to my dying breath that Barry Allen was much more effective as a dead spirit that everyone was trying to live up to after such a noble sacrifice, but I'm not going to shun this book just yet.

And as mentioned before, MY GOD THAT ART. So good.

[mrstatham]

Funnily enough, isn't the 'boring' thing also tacked onto Hal Jordan at times, and especially while Johns has been writing him? I think the key is there, personally, and says a lot about Johns interpretation of these characters. Get Barry from under his pen and he becomes a bit more interesting? Imagine that.

[jcbaggee]

The problem is Johns wants to write them like epitomal Silver Age Christ-like figures walking the Earth, and really play that up. But you can't DO that anymore. Readers want characters with flaws just as ugly as the things that make them beautiful now.

Barry and Hal as a by-the-book Police Scientist and a fearless, ladies man air pilot worked in the 60s because their secret IDs were second fiddle to the costumes and the bad guys. In this day and age, the trials of the human are just as important as the super human.

[jlbarnett]

not every reader. I just like to point out there's at least one who doesn't.

And I've certainly never considered myself a unique person