I HATE "FLASH: REBIRTH"

As Pedro knows, I have been meaning to blog about "Flash: Rebirth" for MONTHS now. But I just! Can't! Do it!

It's just too goddamned mediocre. It's just a deck-clearing exercise. It's like the "previously on" segment of a television series; how do you summarize and make fun of "previously on?" Sure, technically the "story" in "Flash: Rebirth" is a series of new events (consisting, as par for the course for a Geoff Johns comic, of a nostalgic older character thrust into a nostalgic older status quo), but it's nothing more than prelude for a new "Flash" ongoing. That is ALL IT IS. It's just... impossible to mock.

Well, okay... let's give it a shot.

There's a lot wrong with this comic, and I'm thinking it's because, again, they had to shove six or seven plots that would, by themselves, make for satisfying individual storylines into six issues so everything is "cleared up" for the new series. However, even discounting that, and trying to look at the story as a story, you'll find that Geoff Johns already wrote this EXACT SAME STORY.

Y'see, back in the 90s when DC was, while not always providing a quality product, at least moving the universe forward and using their past as a springboard instead of a blueprint, Green Lantern Hal Jordan's city was destroyed, and he went a little nuts. He stole the power of the Green Lantern Corps, killing thousands of fellow guardsmen and snapping his archenemy Sinestro's neck. He then screwed around with time in order to bring everyone he killed back to life and make the universe a better place, maiming and slaughtering all former friends who got in his way and undoubtedly causing countless trillions to never exist, before dying himself. In Geoff Johns' "Green Lantern: Rebirth," it was "revealed" that he had actually been possessed by an ancient fear demon set upon him by a suddenly-alive Sinestro, who had intended to torture Hal and destroy his reputation even among his closest friends.

In "Flash: Rebirth," Barry Allen's possessed by some sort of speed force malady that causes him to kill his fellow speedsters with a touch. It turns out to be the work of the Reverse Flash, now suddenly alive, whose plan is to destroy the Flash's legacy. Newly alive hero is a menace, turns out its the work of his formerly-dead archnemesis, who is also alive. However, with "Flash: Rebirth" all of the menace stuff is shoehorned into three issues, instead of being, you know, the basis of the character for half a decade. And that means the rest of the "story" where the Flashes just get into a big ol' fight with Professor Zoom is further condensed into 3 pages. MULTIPLE times during the series, Barry Allen thinks to himself how he can't really compare his return with Hal's, but you can't say that when you just took the old plot and wrote in Barry's goddamned name!

Speaking of which, when Hal Jordan came back, he brought with him the Green Lantern Corps. GLC might not be your thing, but it's a whole universe of thousands of new characters and concepts and conflicts. With "Flash: Rebirth," the only thing we really get besides the dead character being alive again (and we already got that in "Final Crisis" btw) is more SPEED FORCE EXPLANATIONS.

The "speed force" was a concept invented by Mark Waid when he wrote a much, much, god so much better run of "The Flash" in the 90s. He thought it weird that six or seven disparate characters would basically have the same super speed powers, so he conceived of a speed force, an extradimensional energy that all speedsters tapped into. Sometimes, like, a monster would come out of the speed force or something, but it was more explanatory than the basis of the book. In "Flash: Rebirth" it's the basis of the book. I am not lying when I say that the fourth issue consists almost entirely of three people standing around explaining how the speed force works. Oh, and the villain invents an "evil" speed force and uses it to poison people and change the past and a bunch of other arbitrary crap, so I guess just having stories where like the Flash catches a bunch of bullets and then blows a bunch of thugs away by windmilling his arms really fast just doesn't cut it in our modern world.

Also, apparently when a speedster dies, they're just stuck in the speed force, and if you're willing to run really painfully fast you can get them out. I don't know why they didn't go and get some of the guys who died back in 1997 out of the speed force until this series; sure, it seems dangerous, but superheroes kind of do dangerous stuff to save their friends all the time. It's a good thing most of the Flash's problems can be solved by running. Oh, and who wants to bet all the evil speedsters are in the evil speed force, and in 2 years we'll be reading what's essentially a Flash-version of "Sinestro Corps War"?

Oh, and here's a speed force fun fact. Barry Allen didn't tap into the speed force when he got hit with speed chemicals. He CREATED it. And I know what you're thinking, how the hell does that work when at least two guys standing next to him were tapping into the speed force to fight Nazis in WORLD WAR FRIGGING TWO? Y'see, the speed force, upon creation, extended across time, so I guess as soon as it was created it had always existed. Barry Allen is the "engine" of the speed force; as he runs, it generates the power that all other speedsters tap into (luckily he produced enough excess that speedsters still had powers for a good 35 years after his death). Y'see, when Barry died, the theories were that he either joined with the speed force or ran so fast he turned into energy, went back in time, and became the speed force. This explanation tries to kind of fit both in there, and I find it a bit unsatisfying. It's like one of those test questions where the professor let's you give a strict definition or your own example, and you can't quite think of the definition or articulate a really good example, so you write your hazy definition, semicolon, then your halfhearted example in order to try to grunge up double partial credit.

See, the problem is that A. this isn't fun to read about at all and B. the nature and definition of the speed force has changed roughly three or four times in the last decade and it's never had any kind of interesting, lasting effect on anything. Somehow, it's become less of a background explanation and more something that every Flash comic has to devote 2 or 3 pages to discussing every goddamned issue. I would be happy to see future Flash stories just never mention it at all.

Now, let's move on to the villain's horrible plan. I sincerely say that the man is worse than Dr. Evil, because while he'll force you to endure an overly elaborate and exotic death, at least he doesn't bring you back to life and do it again. That's step one of Professor Zoom's plan here: bring Barry Allen back to life. Why would he do this? He's dead! You're alive! You won! Go kill his family or something, but bringing him back to life so you can continue to torment him? WHAT CAN GO WRONG WITH THIS PLANNNNNN???

So he brings him back to life and creates his evil speed force, which he uses to poison the Flash's good speed force and turn him into a speed leper. His idea is that Barry will kill a few of his family and friends and go down in history as a monster instead of a selfless martyr. However, it's clear to everyone that this is some kind of weird disease, like a side-effect of coming back to life or something. The Reverse Flash isn't turning Barry into a serial killer. When his buddies look back they're going to say "Barry was the greatest guy. What was up with his powers at the end there, that was weird, huh?"

So, after Barry uncovers his monumentally stupid plan (and it is super easy to uncover), Zoom has a sudden rush of oxygen to the brain and goes to kill his family. He starts with Wally West's defenseless, awesome, adorable children. In the notes I took when I was "serious" about doing this in issue-by-issue summary format, here I write "Just kill the kids! JUST KILL THEM!" Instead of doing that, he takes the liberty of fixing their misfiring powers first (oh, the speed force can heal weird speed diseases I guess). That was polite of him. Then all the Flashes have a big, mildly entertaining fight scene with him. Professor Zoom is faster than they are, but I suppose this fight's equivalent would be six dock workers fistfighting with an olympic sprinter, so they're pretty much winning.

That's when Zoom reveals the final part of his multilayered and college-educated plan: go back in time and generally be a prick to Barry. He reveals he's gone back and pushed him down the stairs as a child, or let his dog out so he'd run away, dick stuff like that. Now, I'm no temporal physicist, but... remember all those times Barry only saved the universe by a split-second? Aren't you kind of worried that if you mess with his past, even a little, he'll be a second too late to save the universe? Villains in general don't think that through. Sure, you killed Superman, but what happens when aliens invade tomorrow? You gonna pick up the slack, Lex? Anyhow, he tries to go back in time and kill Barry's loving wife Iris before they get married. This is not a good revenge strategy; if you succeed, he forgets she existed, so he won't really be sad. Hell, maybe he'll meet someone else and be happier? If you want to mess with him, say you already killed his one true soul mate.

In the first issue, it's revealed that Barry's father was convicted of murdering his mother. I know what you're thinking: I'm not the biggest Barry Allen fan, but I think I would have remembered that tidbit coming up somewhere.

"So Barry, how was your childhood?"

"Well, it was going okay until my father murdered my mother."

Y'know? You can't really just slot that in there. But there's an explanation: it was Professor Zoom! He murdered Barry's mother and framed his father, and since he "just now" did it 25 years ago, I guess that means that no PREVIOUS Flash comic would mention it? Hold on, I need to make some flow charts.

I haven't bought a ton of Geoff Johns Flash comics beyond "Rebirth," mostly because the new series is tying into Brightest Day and knowing Johns you'll have to read both to understand what's going on and to HELL with that, but from "Blackest Night: Flash," it seems his family tragedy has become a key part of his history and motivation, because he mentioned it every issue. This is because Barry Allen is a boring character. He's just a standard 60s stoic kinda guy, and apparently the only way to make him an interesting character is to go back in time and change him into a different character. His other defining "personality quirk" throughout the series is a "guilty/not guilty" schtick. Y'see, the Flash doesn't compromise or get into moral gray areas, you are either guilty or you are not guilty. Like, if you commit a murder? You're guilty. So the Flash's motivation is that he protects not guilty people and tries to catch guilty ones. What a stunning new twist on his boring, stoic, standard good guy persona! It also leads to hilarious lines like "You mean the GUILTY have gotten GUILTIER?" The hell does that mean?

Finally, if you love lots of speed, flash, and running puns, then this is the story for you! I could make a whole wall of them, but let me just typify: in one of the issues he says his life FLASHES before his eyes, and in my notes I wrote that this was the worst pun ever. In the flashback, one of his friends jokingly refers to him as (and this is before he got his powers or the Flash, in his modern form, even existed) the SLOWEST MAN ALIVE. Here, in my notes, I wrote "topped it in one page!"

So, that's the "Flash: Rebirth." Y'know, it may be a testament to Geoff Johns' writing that I come out of a story with that many problems thinking that it was just mediocre instead of the worst thing I have ever read.

Let us never speak of it again.