It’s been a little while since the last issue of Flash: Rebirth. Late books happen, but sometimes the delay is more disruptive than others. In this case, the tardiness of the book was significant enough to comment on. The events in this issue have already been reflected in other books including Blackest Night. As a result, those stories had scenes that read awkwardly and this book has lost some of its relevance and momentum.
Late books are bad, mmmkay?
If you’ve read my previous Flash: Rebirth reviews, then you know I haven’t been a fan of this mini-series. In my eyes, Johns has taken the formula of the commercially successful (though criminally over-rated) Green Lantern: Rebirth mini and duplicated it here. But it all feels so forced and tired.
(On the upside, the book didn’t have a lot of momentum to lose in the two months since the last issue.)
I liked this issue less than any of the previous issues. As a long-time reader of Geoff Johns, I’ve gotten tired of some of his story-telling crutches. And this issue is filled with the Johnsisms that I hate.
Professor Zoom gets talky. He “monologues” long enough for Fro-zone to shut him down. There’s just no reason for it other than for Johns to shove his point-of-view down the reader’s throat. These aren’t things the character would say. He’s just Johns’ mouth piece. (See also: Sinestro in this month’s issue of Green Lantern.)
The story itself is pretty pointless. This isn’t a story at all. It’s an exercise in house cleaning. Geoff Johns is reshaping the Flash mythos to suit his needs. And of course that means he retconned the shit out of everything until Barry Allen became the center of the universe. Yep, Barry created the Speed Force now.
Honestly, these kinds of stories annoy me. I don’t need a 6-part story to justify continuity “fixes”. Johns’ retcons don’t feel any more natural just because he wrote a story where Professor Zoom “explained” it all.
There are some good moments in the issue. I was glad to finally see Wally, Bart and Max Mercury each get a moment to shine. (Granted, each of them only got a moment.) And Ethan Van Sciver’s art was definitely worth the wait.
I mentioned before that I thought Green Lantern: Rebirth was criminally over-rated. Both min-series consistently mostly of retcons to ser-up Geoff Johns’ run on the ongoing series. In the case of Hal Jordan, the retcons were needed to make him a viable leading man. But all you needed to do with Barry was bring him back and that already happened in last year’s Final Crisis.
Fortunately, Green Lantern turned out to be a pretty good book once Johns got all the house cleaning out of the way. Hopefully, that will be the case with the Flash as well. So, let’s get on with it guys! Pick up the pace! No more late issues!
Prior reviews:
Flash: Rebirth #3 (by Bruce Castle)
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