Duking it out is a spoiler laden page-by-page review of THE FLASH #205, heavy on tangential comments, obscure references, and fanboy rantings...
But first, to benefit those lacking the testicular fortitude for spoilers, let’s get a few non-spoilerish bits ‘o review business out of the way. If you’re still reading when I get to Page One, you have nobody to blame but yourself. Spoilers abound!
THE FLASH #205
Publisher: DC Comics.
Cover Date: February 2004
On sale date: 2 January 2004
Cover Price: $2.25
“Ignition Part V Secrets” (22 pages)
Grade: 4.5 super-hero clubhouses (out of 10)
Creative Team (followed by individual grades on their efforts)
Writer: Geoff Johns (5)
Artist: Alberto Dose (7)
Guest Artists: Howard Porter & Livesay (3)
Colors: James Sinclair (5)
Letters: Comic Craft (7)
Asst Editor: Harvey Richards (no grade)
Editor: Joey Cavalieri (4)
CAPSULE COMMENT:
Batman shows up for no particular reason, busting a little Bat-plot movement out of his utility belt, and convinces Wally that he is really the Flash. With his memories restored, does Wally go after the villain? Heck, no! Not when there’s an angst-ridden subplot born of a multi-title company-wide crossover from several years ago around to get bogged down in. Oh, and we close with a supposed cliff-hanger ending as the villain is revealed to be the only person the fan who has read all the previous issues of this story would suspect. Of course, if you have been so inconsiderate as to have not read all the previous issues of the arc, you are likely to walk away with a “Who?” to not only the alter ego, but even the villain.
RECOMMENDATION:
Mildly recommended. The art, in some places, is interesting, but the story depends so entirely on having read previous issues, not only of this title but of almost all titles in the DC Universe, to elicit any emotional reaction, that it ultimately falls flat.
TREND:
Down from the previous issue, as the story, like most in the industry these days, drags on for way more issues than necessary. Also, WAY down from a year ago and, judging from the preview of Porter’s work, easing its way off my pull list.
And now, with no further ado…. Let’s DUKE IT OUT!!
COVER:
Batman recoils backwards through the air in horror as the Flash squats out a silent but deadly one. No, really.
Well, I suppose that even in this over saturated age someone picked up this issue because it featured Batman.
PAGE ONE:
Picking up from last issue’s cliffhanger, Batman accuses Wally of being more than a Keystone PD mechanic. No, he is in fact the Flash. This of course, prompts the Flash’s to draw a classic Batman-is-grim-and-has-no-sense-oh-humor reaction when he asks, “Who are you?”
The joke fails however, as it defies the internal logic of the story thus far… for those who have been following it anyway. See, Wally may not remember that he was the Flash, but he still is cognizant of the fact that, whoever it may have been, there was a Flash. This being the case, there is no reason why Wally would not have been cognizant enough of there also being a Batman to not know a Batman when he sees a Batman.
So then Batman, whose reflexes are apparently faster than the Flash’s, activates Wally’s so-enormous-one-might-actually-believe-there-is-a-super-hero-costume-packed-within-it ring.
PAGE TWO:
So naturally Wally, who does not believe he is the Flash and thus far in the story has only used his speed as a reflex action, wooshes Batman off to Keystone Park for a little midnight tete-a-tete. Sure, if one read the last issue they know that Wally has used his super-speed. However, anyone picking up this issue is likely to think that Wally is pretty easily convinced of being the Flash, thus sort of negating the need for the conversation with Bats that follows. I mean, Wally put on the costume himself, right? Bats didn’t dress him, did he?
This page, and the one that follows, is actually very nice looking. Dose does a great job, complimented by the color palette, of evoking a dark, mysterious mood. It almost makes me sad that titles like House of Mystery no longer exist as Dose would be quite at home there.
My only quibbles are with Flash’s enormous ring, and Batman’s even more enormous veins. The seemingly random spot highlighting on Flash’s costume also distracted me. It looked like the sort of amateur Photoshop effect I might employ.
I also tend to think the excuse that, unlike everyone in Keystone, the Justice League, while not able to remember who the Flash is, still remembered that they knew his identity at one time, is pretty lame. Why would the deletion of the Flash’s secret identity from everyone’s memory affect the League differently from every other person on the planet? Why, to lure Batman, and his fan base, into this title of course.
Oh well, if one can accept that Batman knew he knew Flash’s identity, his methodology for finding Wally through Barry and Bart is acceptable I suppose.
PAGE THREE:
More of the same…
PAGE FOUR:
Batman goes more into detail, still, as to how he tracked Wally down. Reading through the page a second time, with it’s references to Oracle, Bart Allen, Jay Garrick, Barry Allen, Iris Allen, Professor Zoom, the Rogue’s Gallery, Flash’s lost twins, the JLA, the past, the future, and so on, I can’t imagine how anyone but a middle aged fanboy like me who has been reading comics for over 30-years could make heads nor tails about what Batman & Wally are talking about.
Along these lines of in-references, Batman mentions witnessing an accident last issue, without giving any clue as to what happened or why it was important. Again, it’s a case of comics being way, way too self-referential for the casual reader. No one could hope to pick up this issue and have a earthly as to what’s going on.
PAGE FIVE:
Batman unmasks to Wally. And as soon as Wally realizes that Bruce Wayne is Batman, memories of the secret identities for seemingly every other hero in the DC Universe come flooding back to him.
If I were editor, I would have forced Johns to condense the preceding five pages into two or three.
PAGE SIX & PAGE SEVEN:
A double page spread by Porter as the Flash’s entire career races before his eyes in four panels. I am not a fan of Porter’s art. I am less a fan of wasting two entire pages on pin-ups. Things like this are the reason why, while once I could read an entire comic on the toilet in the time it took me to crap, now I can read one in the time it takes me to piss. Not a lot of story, or dollar value here.
PAGE EIGHT:
Flash remembers, and reveals to Batman, that it was the Spectre who erased the knowledge of Flash’s secret identity from everyone’s memories.
So long as Batman must be shoehorned into this story however, it was a nice touch to reference his own origin in order to have him empathize with Wally’s loss of his children. Of course, the reader absolutely has to be familiar with the Batman’s origin in order to get the reference. Nice use of duo-tone shading though.
PAGE NINE:
More of Flash and Batman walking around the park talking. More references to other DC Universe heroes.
I’d just like to mention that we are nine pages into this story, nearly halfway through the book, and so far all we have gotten is Flash and Batman talking. Thank goodness Dose is able to make talking heads visually interesting. He really would be good on a mystery-based series, say Elongated Man, or the newer Challengers of the Unknown.
PAGE TEN:
An entire page of Batman realizing that the Flash has deposited him back in Gotham City.
My biggest problem with this Batman crossover, more so than that it is an unnecessary contrivance designed to bump up sales, is that it completely neuters Wally as a hero. Batman showing up and reminding Wally of his identity is a contrived device for advancing the plot. It also give the reader the impression, no matter how subliminal, that Wally would have been completely helpless in figuring his own way out of this problem. Apparently, but for Batman’s intervention, the Flash would be no more. Thank god we can count on cross-overs every few issues these days, eh?
I recall a time when Batman stayed in his own book and Barry solved his own problems. I rooted for Barry. I admired him. Heck, I idolized him. Back in the day the creators would have allowed Barry to be a hero and solve his own problems. Of course, they also would have let him do it in a single issue.
PAGE ELEVEN:
Cut to a sexy sashaying, but so, so sad Linda leaving the Wild West home of Dale Evans. Oops, must be the coloring, or the excessive wood graining effect, or both. That’s Iris, not Dale. Nice full third page silhouette of Jay on the other end of the phone from Iris though. I am sure that we could not have elicited the exact same emotional effect in a panel about a quarter that size.
PAGE TWELVE:
Wally is back at work as a wrecked KCPD cruiser is brought in on the flatbed.
PAGE THIRTEEN:
Enter Detectives Chyre and Morillo looking for a replacement vehicle. And might I say how awfully convenient if is for Chyre to just leave his files lying on the garage counter.
PAGE FOURTEEN:
Wally picks up the file and thumbs through it. However, we do not get any hint as to what he finds as Linda strolls in and announces that the two of them have to talk.
PAGE FIFTEEN:
Cut to an entire page of Rogue Profiler Ashley Zolomon sitting at her desk looking at pictures of villains. If I were editor, I would have had this page cut down to just an establishing shot for the next page.
PAGE SIXTEEN:
Ashley has a brief interview with Mr. Petrov. They make references to the story to date. I am amazed at how little of it I remember.
PAGE SEVENTEEN:
Wally and Linda talking at a local diner. Apparently Wally can just leave work whenever he feels like it. Linda announces that she is quitting school. I do not recall if Linda’s parents have ever been mentioned before, but her whole explanation of having lied to Wally about their occupations and whereabouts read so much like a retcon to me, that I completely lost the emotional weight of whatever it was Linda was babbling about.
It does make me wonder however, how a girl who can’t stand to be in school because her classmates know she had a miscarriage could ever have been strong enough to have been a television reporter and a super-hero’s girlfriend.
PAGE EIGHTEEN:
An entire page of Wally comforting Linda with a hug. Yes, another page that could just as easily have been a couple of panels. Sadly, by this time I am so not in touch with the story that all I can think about is how distracting the oversized, poorly drawn raindrops in the last panel are.
PAGE NINETEEN:
More big raindrops. Then a repeated panel that I imagine is meant to convey that Wally and Linda have been at the diner for a while. How long is his lunch break anyway, I wonder? And Wally reassures Linda. How nice.
PAGE TWENTY:
A waitress comes up (until now I had almost thought that Wally & Linda were the only people in this darkened diner) and announces that their meal in on Len. This, thanks to Batman having jogged his memory, causes Wally to recall that Len is Captain Cold. Naturally, Wally concludes that it is Cold who is responsible for all of the crimes that have been occurring lately, none of which we have witnessed this issue.
PAGE TWENTY-ONE:
Ashley stops dead in the parking lot, having left her office for there in her last scene. So, however long Wally and Linda’s meal appeared to take, it apparently really only lasted as long as it took Ashley to walk to her car.
Anyway, because her last scene with Petrov was a tad oblique, Ashley realizes out loud that, in coming to her office and prattling on about his problems he was, shocker, trying to reach out to her. So, guilty over having walked away from Hunter (who? Read previous issues- ed) she decides to go back to Petrov and be a strong shoulder for him to lean on.
PAGE TWENTY-TWO:
Ah, but she walks in on Petrov getting dressed in a variation of the classic Mr. Element costume. He finishes putting on his helmet, levels his gun at her, and prepares to fire.
Of course, I know it is Mr. Element because I have been reading comics forever. Acute newer readers might have guessed the name of Petrov’s costumed identity from the headshot Ashley had been looking at in her office, with the different headgear and the partially obscured name of “…lement.” Okay, VERY acute readers.
For anyone else, given that absolutely nothing was said this issue about someone other than Cold possibly being responsible for the crimes being committed using his M.O., or the possibility of Mr. Element being at large, they might possibly have responded to this last page with a jaundiced, “Now who the FUCK could you possibly be?!”
Well, there you go, assuming you made it this far: the end of another Duking It Out session. I imagine I am the only person in the world who writes reviews that take longer to read than the comic being reviewed….
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