DCU Comic Book Reviews

THE FLASH:  THE FASTEST MAN ALIVE #9

Full Throttle, Prologue:  Split Decision

April 2007

Written by March Guggenheim

Pencils by Ron Adrian

Inks by Art Thibert

Cover by Ethan Van Sciver

Synopsis

In Los Angeles, Bart Allen (aka The Flash) defeats a character who calls himself Impulse.  After apprehending him, Bart finds a strange item, which he learns is from Apokolips.  In Keystone City, Bart and his girlfriend Valerie enjoy dinner with friends, whom Val told Bart was The Flash.  Afterwards, Bart is angry at Val for revealing his secret identity.  She doesn’t understand why he is upset and they break up.  The next day, Steppenwolf arrives in Los Angeles looking for the artifact Bart recovered.  Bart fights him long enough until the Justice League of America arrives to help out.  Later, Bart calls Robin to decline the boy wonder’s invitation to rejoin the Titans.  Bart wants to wait until he is ready to join the JLA.

Review by Binkley (e-mail)

This is issue was a significant improvement over the Previous issues of this series, but that is not saying much considering how bad some of those early issues happened to be.  It was great seeing the old Bart back in action; Guggenheim infused the story with humor and whimsy that had been missing.  This is the type of story and the characterization of Bart that this series needed from the beginning.  Essentially this was about Bart and about how he is trying to find a place for himself in the world, both in terms of a superhero, but also in terms of a boy who suddenly aged into a man.  The only problem I had is the fight with Steppenwolf, which seemed to go on a little bit longer than needed.  Bart has been a hero for some time; I would think that given enough time he could’ve won the fight.  I didn’t mind the JLA coming to the rescue, but if that is the way to go, they should’ve done it sooner.

Does the split between Val and Bart signal that new writer Guggenheim did not want her as part of the usual cast, or is this leading into something down the road?  New writers have a tendency to chuck what they don’t like in favor of what they want to accomplish.  While I can’t blame Guggenheim for ditching Val as she seems like a complication that is not really needed, at the same time I hope the break up leads somewhere rather than just ignoring her by keeping her off panel. 

In the credit box there is a special thanks to Brad Meltzer, the current writer of the Justice League of America and the writer of the mini-series Identity Crisis.  I am assuming he was given the thanks for the method in which Bart and Val were split up.  And for the use of the JLA characters at the end.  Perhaps Bart’s infatuation with the league will lead to his inclusion in Meltzer’s book.