THE FLASH:  THE FASTEST MAN ALIVE #7

Speedquest, Chapter 1:  Angel City

February 2007

Written by Danny Bilson & Paul Demeo

Pencils by Ron Adrian and Art Thibert

Inks by Rob Lea & Alex Lei and Art Thibert

Cover by Daniel Acuña

Synopsis

In Keystone City, a parade is being held in honor of the Flash, but for some reason he is missing.  Instead, Bart Allen is in Los Angeles attempting to “find” himself.  Instead, he finds Abra Kadabra.  Bart recognizes immediately that the magician is using a Hollywood appearance to steal a bank, which Bart easily foils.  In Nevada, Inertia receives his supply of Velocity 9 from Deathstroke, who then repeats his offer for Inertia to come east and join him.  In Hollywood, Bart moves into his new apartment and meets his next door neighbor.  Elsewhere, Inertia puts his plan into place; Mota’s laboratory, with his daughter Valerie inside, explodes.  Later, Valerie pulls herself from the wreckage to find the highway, only to be attacked by a horny truck driver.  Inertia comes to the rescue.  Later, Bart receives a call from Valerie to meet her in Las Vegas, except it is actually Inertia with a voice changer. 

Review by Binkley (e-mail)

I could go over some of the problems with this book, including the continuing use of different artists (there were two pencillers and three inkers for this issue), but that would be beating a dead horse, I think.  Besides, that is not the worst thing in this issue.  No, I think what really hurts this issue is the opening sequence.  Jay and Joan Garrick patiently wait for Bart Allen to arrive for the parade being held in his honor.  Bart doesn’t show, which portrays him as irresponsible and juvenile, which is a bad way to depict your leading character.  Worse, at no point in the issue do the writers attempt to let Bart explain why he missed the parade.  Apparently Bart was aware it was happening, so the fact that he skipped seems to be intentional.  You would think there would be some reason for Bart to skip it.  You would also think the writers would address this issue.   

Unfortunately there are other problems with this issue as well.  The ending is problematical since Inertia’s last words to Valerie don’t seem to jibe with what occurs on the very next page.  Granted, it looks as if his words are meant to be sarcastic, but if so we need to see that and we don’t.  It gets even worse since we just saw Inertia save Valerie from the truck driver.  If he wanted her safe, why did he allow her to get blown up in the middle?  Wouldn’t that be risky, that she could die in the explosion?  She is locked in a glass container at the time of the explosion and shattered glass could easily slice her in half.  And speaking of the explosion, what happened to Mota?  All of these questions suggest that the plotting was not examined too carefully or properly explained to the reader.

Overall, it just seems as if the plotting and the story seems to be ill-conceived.  I am not sure how much of this is due to Bilson and Demeo being new to writing comics or how much is related to editorial pressures or even to the lack of a consistent artist.  Either way, the series will never get off the ground properly until the contents are rock solid. 

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