The Flash #1 – “The Flash” Review

Writers: Francis Manapul & Brian Buccellato

Penciller: Francis Manapul

Publisher: DC Comics

Flash! Ah-ahhh! He’ll save every one of us! OK, I know it’s a different Flash, but I’m never missing a chance to reference that Queen song. But no, this isn’t Flash Gordon, this is the Flash of DC Comics – Barry Allen. Barry’s story is a simple tale of a mild-mannered CSI doused in chemicals and struck by lightning, becoming the Fastest Man Alive, protecting Central City from everyday threats like time-travellers and super-intelligent psychic gorillas. Which are everyday threats in Central City. It’s a weird place.

Barry Allen was created by writers Robert Kanigher and John Broome, and artist Carmine Infantino, way back in 1955’s Showcase #4. Barry himself was actually a reboot of the original Flash, Jay Garrick, who first appeared during the Golden Age of Comic Books in 1940.

By the late 1940s, the Golden Age was definitely over, at least for superhero comics. Superheroes were a dead genre, with out of the hundreds of superheroes created during the war only Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Green Arrow and a handful of others surviving. DC editor Julius Schwartz looked to change that, but rather than bring back the old heroes, Schwartz decided to keep only the codenames and powers, creating new secret identities and origins. Schwartz was a huge science fiction fan, and his new heroes would be forward-thinking men of science, rather than the non-powered vigilantes and mystical heroes that were more popular during the Golden Age. For example the Atom, originally short but tough unpowered scrapper Al Pratt, was reimagined as Ray Palmer, quirky university physics professor who created a device that allowed him to shrink. Then there was Green Lantern, originally Alan Scott, a railroad worker with a magic ring that created green energy constructs of anything he imagined, reimagined as Hal Jordan, a test fighter pilot who became an intergalactic cop with a ring that did the same thing, only now the reason was super-advanced alien science rather than magic.

Fittingly for the Fastest Man Alive, the Flash was the first of these reboots, possibly because the original Flash, Jay Garrick, was one of the Golden Age heroes to have an origin based in science fiction already. Jay’s origin was that a lab accident had caused him to inhale heavy water fumes, granting him superspeed. See, airtight science. Even by the fifties that must have seemed implausible, so Barry’s origin was being struck by lightning. While being covered in a mixture of different chemicals. Now I’m no scientist, but I’m guessing that if I was doused in various chemicals while simultaneously being struck by lightning, the result wouldn’t be superpowers. Or very pretty. At least the results wouldn’t be very pretty, I imagine the actual moment would be pretty cool to see.

See what I mean?

The new Flash was – pardon the pun – a runaway success, leading to both the Silver Age of Comics and DC’s ongoing tradition of rebooting their characters. Because that’s what Flash #1 is – a reboot.

In 2011 DC cancelled all their series taking place in their main continuity, the DC Universe (DCU). They then launched the “New 52”, 52 new series, either brand new series or old series starting a new “volume” with a new issue 1. The idea, like the reboot in the fifties, was to re-introduce the characters for a new generation, modernising them and attempting a fresh start, ideal for new readers DC thought were put off by decades of continuity. Some characters, like Batman, were kept pretty much the same, with only minor updates to his costume the only real change. Other characters had more radical changes as stuff was added or removed from their backstory, like Superman no longer being married to Lois Lane, as was the case Pre-New 52.  Some rebooted characters were virtually new characters, with their personalities, costumes, sometimes even their ethnicity completed changed.

The reaction to this was… mixed. That’s an understatement. Seriously. To say that the New 52 was controversial is like saying that space is big – it’s factually true, but doesn’t really convey the scope. Personally, I’m kinda on the fence. I liked some changes they made, but I don’t like others. I’m disappointed, certainly, that certain series were cancelled for the New 52 (Bryan Q Miller’s Batgirl run in particular. Check it out. Seriously. The comic was amazing) but a lot of the New 52 series that I’ve read I’ve liked. Including, yes, the Flash. In fact, out of the New 52, the Flash is by far my favourite series. But before I get into the comic proper, I need to address the elephant in the room, or rather the elephant that is noticeable for its absence in the room. Wally West.

See, not only was Barry Allen not the first Flash, but for a long time, he wasn’t the Flash at all. Barry, like Coulson, died and was later brought back to life. This shouldn’t surprise anyone, as even people with only a causal knowledge of comics are fully aware that superheroes have a tendency to die and come back like a lemming in a time warp. But Barry didn’t just die as a cheap publicity stunt, his death was meant to stick. In the 1985 maxi-series Crisis on Infinite Earths (which was another example of DC rebooting their universe – see what I mean about it being a tradition?) Barry gave his life in a heroic sacrifice. At the end of the Crisis, Barry’s sidekick, Wally West, the Kid Flash, became the Flash. While Barry did obviously return, since he’s the star of this book, he wasn’t brought back until 2008. So Wally was the Flash for over twenty years, at least in real-time. He starred in his own best-selling Flash series, was a regular member of the Justice League, and was even the Flash featured in the hit animated series Justice League and Justice League Unlimited. In short, Wally wasn’t just a popular successor, for many fans he was the Flash, the Flash they spent two decades reading about, and for some the only Flash they’d known. And then the New 52 came and not only was Wally no longer the Flash – he didn’t exist. Wally, along with other fan favourites Stephanie Brown, Cassandra Cain, Conner Hawke and Donna Troy were all exiled from continuity, DC editorial proclaiming that these characters could not, for the time being, be used in any way by the writers. So for all those fans for whom Wally was the Flash, they were – understandably – extremely unhappy. All the above characters have since reappeared in comics, but since the new Wally West looks and acts completely different, it’s hard to argue that this is the same character, so this has done little to placate them.

But despite the controversies, it’s hard not to love Flash #1. We begin with Barry and his girlfriend, Patty Spivot, on their first date at the Central City Tech Symposium. Yeah, the fact that Barry was dating Patty was another point of contention for long-time Flash fans, since before the New 52 Barry was happily married to Iris West. In the New 52 they’ve never been married, as DC editorial felt that being married made Barry “too old” and “un-relatable”. I can’t agree with that, but for me the relationship between Barry and Patty softens the blow. Patty’s a great character, likable, smart, interesting and while a lot of her scenes in the current Flash series do revolve around her being Barry’s girlfriend, we are given some characterisation outside that.

We learn that it took Barry two years to ask Patty out, which Barry explains as being “methodical”, reminding us that unlike the hyperactive, short-attention spanned speedster stereotype, Barry is thoughtful, attentive and methodical. What sets the Flash, and Barry in particular, apart from the many, many other speedsters in comics is that he's a scientist who fights with his brains as much as his speed. It’s something we’ll see both in this comic, and later issues.

Speaking of brains, Barry and Patty run into Dr Darwin Elias, and we know he’s a brilliant scientist because his name is Darwin. It’s an unwritten rule in fiction that if your name is anything like Darwin or Einstein, you’re a brilliant scientist. Or a monkey. Or both. Barry fanboys over Dr Elias, but his squee-ing is brought to an abrupt end when a bunch of masked men crash through a skylight. Or rather krash through the skylight, since that’s how it’s written in the sound effect. In the highly unlikely event I ever become a superhero (who knows, maybe that lighting/chemical combo will work on me as well) I’m just going to avoid going to public events. Any public event a superhero attends will always be crashed by thieves, gangsters, supervillains, robots, etc. without fail. I think it’s part of the same universal law that states that if a detective goes for a quiet holiday away from the big city, they will stumble onto a murder before they’ve finished unpacking.

The mysterious masked men flood they place with knockout gas, or what I presume is knockout gas since one of the men says “time to go to sleep”. However the knockout gas doesn’t seem to affect anyone, and pretty much everyone seems fine in what can only be a few minutes or so later, so if it is knockout gas these guys buy their stuff from the same dodgy ACME supplier who’s being selling stuff to Wile E. Coyote all these years. The gas does provide Barry cover to change into the Flash, in what is an absolutely stunning page. Seriously the art in this comic is gorgeous. I would have literally any single panel or page from this comic blown up and put on my wall as a piece of art. Francis Manapul’s soft pencils match perfectly with Brian Buccellato’s muted, soft colour scheme, creating a look for this book that’s unique and distinctive. Sadly, Manapul and Buccellato are no longer working on The Flash, now having moved to Detective Comics. It’s a real shame, as I miss them working on the book and why The Flash is still overall a good book, it’s current artist, Brett Booth’s work is… well, I’m not a fan. To put it mildly. But I plan to look at later Flash comics at some point in the near future, so we’ll criticise that bridge when we come to it.

Seriously, I want this on my wall.

The masked men have grabbed a strange handheld device and make a run for it. Two of them, given the numbers 45 and 57 rather than names, are told to slow the Flash down, but since these guys appear to just be normal men and the Flash is, well, really, really, fast, he’s already disarmed half the group and deals with 45 and 57 in nanoseconds. You could say their numbers were up.

The remaining masked men, one still holding the stolen device, run towards a plane-helicopter thing that’s waiting for them on the edge of the roof. Surely someone noticed this thing flying so damn low in a populated area? You would’ve thought any aircraft flying that low in a city would have been spotted by the military and had a couple of fighter jets blasting the crap out of it by now.

Flash grabs the last man, who’s holding the stolen the device, just as he grabs the net hanging out the back of the plane. The masked man throws it to another, numbered 33 (so we’ve got 45, 57 and 33. Another couple more and it’s bingo!). Flash grabs the device before 33 can get it, meaning he’s holding onto a masked man with one hand, the device with the other and no hands on the net. But it’s fine, the guy he’s holding onto is grabbing the net and he’s hardly gonna let go and let them both plummet to their deaths. Right? Right?

Flash: Come on, guys, you’re making this too…

Masked man promptly lets go of the net, sending Flash and himself plummeting towards their deaths.

Flash: …easy.

Now, Barry, what have we learnt about tempting fate?

This puts the Flash in a bit of a pickle since he can’t fly and he isn’t invulnerable, meaning that falling from a plane is going to do to him exactly what it would to anyone else, World’s Fastest Man be damned. But Barry has a plan. OK, so it’s a bad plan, but it works despite logic and physics saying otherwise. First, Barry spins his arm at superspeed, creating a mini-tornado. He then uses this mini-tornado to send the masked man to safety. OK, so to safety means sending him head-first through a plate glass window, but it’s relatively safer than falling from a great height towards solid concrete. Now, you might think the Flash would use one of those tornados to try and slow his descent, but no. Instead, Barry waits until he’s almost hit the ground, then vibrates his molecules so fast he vibrates through the street, landing in the sewer water below, cushioning his fall. It’s all kinds of cool, if completely impossible. Oh, I don’t mean vibrating so fast you can phase through solid objects, I’m no physicist so I no idea whether that could hypothetically work. But I do know that hitting water (well, sewerage, so mostly water) from at least 10 stories up at terminal velocity, well, it wouldn’t exactly soften the fall. In fact hitting the concrete might be the safer option. But aside from making a few physicists cry, all went well – apart from the portion of street Flash vibrated through exploding. See, stuff like this is why taxes in Central City are so damn high.

Central City reporter Iris West is on the street when part of it explodes, and she does what every good reporter in a superhero universe should do – walk straight up to the hole the explosion made and start conducting an interview with the resident superhero. Flash plays it cool, saying everything went just as he planned (including blowing up part of the street?). Gotta hand it to Barry, it’s very hard to act cool and nonchalant when floating in raw sewage. Trust me.

A short while later, Flash hands the device the masked men tried to steal back to Elias, and I really hoped Barry washed both it and himself. He runs off, only to reappear in seconds, dressed in normal clothes. Barry is then promptly told by Patty that they’re back on the clock – there’s a body.

Said body is the guy Flash put through the window during the fall. Throwing a guy through a window is usually bad enough for their health, and doing so at superspeed has got to be worse, so cause of death seems obvious. To make matters worse, not only does Barry have to worry whether he’s accidently killed someone, it’s an old friend of his, Manuel.

We have a flashback (no pun intended, I swear) to Barry and Manuel years ago, presumably at high school or college. They’re running away from a whole rugby team, Manuel saying “she was totally worth it”. Even in a comic with art this good, these flashback deserves a special mention. The colours are further muted, making this look almost sepia-toned. And short though it is, just half a page, we’re given a pretty good idea who Manuel is. He’s the complete opposite of Barry – reckless and impulsive.

Now it looks like that recklessness and impulsiveness has really backfired. As the cops wheel Manuel’s corpse out of the building, a crowd of journalists are waiting, including Iris.

Iris: Is it true that the Flash had something to do with that suspect’s death?

Barry: Who told you that, Iris?

Iris: So it is true? That’s huge.

Huh. You’d think for a guy with a secret identity, Barry wouldn’t be so easily duped into revealing confidential police information.

The next day we see the Central City crime lab are working on the case, introducing us to some more of the Flash’s supporting characters, including David Singh, the director of the crime lab. Singh is the stereotypic police boss man, ranting and raving about getting results as soon as possible, even saying the stereotypical “I needed that report in my hand yesterday!” All that’s missing is for him to say “the mayor is riding my ass on this one!” Later issues will show that Singh’s a good man who genuinely wants the best results, but who tends to prize speed over thoroughness. This often puts him at odds with Barry who is, despite his superspeed, is through and methodical in his work, believing that getting the truth and making an airtight case is more important that speedy results.

We also meet Captain Darryl Frye. Fans of the Flash TV show who aren’t familiar with the comics may be wondering where Joe West is. Well, Joe was created for the show but he fills the same role as mentor and father figure that Frye does in the comic. Like Joe in the show, Frye is an old friend of Barry’s parents since before Barry was born – and looks an awful lot like Barry, leading to some fan suspicions about Barry’s true parentage.

Speaking of the Scarlet Speedster, he’s doing the standard depressed superhero thing of standing on the edge of a high ledge, looking pensively into the distance. Eh, Batman did that before it was cool and everyone started doing it. Barry’s feeling pretty crappy, possibly accidently murdering one of your friends can do that to you. Elias arrives (we’re never shown how the hell he knows where the Flash will be) and tells Flash the good news – he’s not a murderer! No, Manuel just dropped dead mysteriously. Whew, that’s a relief. Except Barry’s spirits aren’t lifted because, well, Manuel’s still dead. But now that Barry knows he didn’t kill his friend, he’s going to find out what did.

Barry borrows Elias’ Genome Re-Coder (that device that Manuel’s Mysterious Masked Men attempted to steal) and experiments in his apartment with the Re-Coder and a sample of Manuel’s DNA. He discovers that Manuel’s DNA has been altered, which doesn’t make any sense. Sure, the Re-Coder is designed to rewrite a person’s DNA, but Manuel only had it for two seconds, and it wasn’t turned on, so couldn’t change him then.

Barry’s investigation is interrupted by someone breaking into his apartment. Barry grabs the hooded intruder at superspeed, slamming him up against a book case. The intruder is revealed to be none other than – Manuel.

Jayne Cobb: Spry for a dead fella!

Flash is obviously a bit shocked that his previously dead friend is now alive and well. Although possibly a little too shocked, seeing that Barry himself has died and come back. Admittedly, the jury’s still out on whether Barry’s death and return still happened in the New 52 but people coming back from the dead seems to happen so often in superhero universes that it’s a wonder anyone bothers to go to funerals anymore. I just assume most headstones, especially superhero ones, just have BRB engraved on them.

Barry wants an explanation, but Manuel says he doesn’t have time to explain. Or at least, gets partway through explaining he doesn’t have time to explain when someone kicks in Barry’s door. Manuel climbs out of Barry’s window, telling Barry to “try and keep up”. See, it’s ironic because Barry actually has superspeed but Manuel doesn’t know that.

Barry and Manuel run through Central City, starting to be chased by more and more guys. Barry wants to know what’s going on, but Manuel remains evasive. Finally, Barry’s had enough of running away – being a superspeeding superhero, he’s more of a running towards kinda guy. He pretends to trip and fall into the river they’re running beside, even making the water shape “Splash!” as he falls in. Seriously, though, I love when comics do stuff like that with sound effects. This comic has a few, but this is the best of the bunch.

Manuel sees Barry go into the river, but doesn’t even slow down. Jerk. Barry’s of course fine, changing into his Flash costume underwater and racing after Manuel and the guys chasing him. The Flash, of course, catches up to them in seconds, but there’s two complications. One, the pursuers, now a large mob, have caught Manuel. Secondly, they’re all identical copies of Manuel…

To be continued!

The Flash #1 is a great first issue. While the controversy surrounding the New 52 did and will put people off this comic, it’s a great story with action, emotions and a killer cliffhanger. Part of the idea of the New 52 was to reintroduce these characters and have the #1 issues as a perfect place to start for new readers. To that end, The Flash #1 is a resounding success. It requires no pervious knowledge of the Flash to enjoy, but by the end of this first issue, you know a lot about Barry, both powers-wise and, more importantly, as a character. We’re introduced to his supporting cast and given the start of a really interesting first story. If you’ve never read the Flash, you could do a lot worse – and little better – than starting here.

I’ll get back to The Flash in the near future, but next week I’m heading back to the Marvel Universe with S.H.I.E.L.D. #2, where Simmons is a supply teacher for a superhero and Coulson faces his most difficult challenge yet – school dinners.

The Flash #1 is the property of DC Comics.