Millennium #1 - "Over"

Writer: Steve Englehart
Art: Joe Staton, Ian Gibson, and Carl Gafford

After Legends, you'd think I'd want to avoid these DC crossovers, but I was actually looking forward to checking this out. Millennium has a pretty awful reputation, but I have fond memories of it for some reason.

Right off the bat, this is a lot weirder than Legends. Legends was botched in its execution, but at the concept level it had a respectable thesis and seemed to be trying to respond thematically* to the "important" super-hero comics of its era (The Dark Knight Returns, Watchmen, The Squadron Supreme). Millennium, on a concept level, is much farther out: the Guardians - a race of super-powerful little nerdy men - and the Zamorans - a race of super-powerful Amazonian warrior women - have decided to use the energy created by them having lots of sex to propel humanity's evolution along . But the Guardians' former servants - the mutinous Manhunter androids - want to stop them.

The series' big gimmick, of course, is that the Manhunters have infiltrated the lives of all of Earth's heroes, so, like, we find out that Flash's father and Superman's girlfriend are really Manhunters in disguise. This element of the series really seemed to piss people off. Personally, I don't mind so much, especially since it turns out that Pan (you know, this Pan) is also a Manhunter. That, to me, encapsulates the way that the super-hero genre can thrive on mixing and melding incommensurate elements.

However, I can see why the seemingly drastic revelations might have turned off long time fans.

Joe Staton's work here is very nice: he can handle all the different characters and does a good job putting them in interesting poses for the big standinging-around-in-a-room-talking scenes.

*I.e., "swiped a number of plot point from".

Legends #5 and Legends #6

Writers: John Ostrander & Len Wein
Artists: John Byrne & Karl Kesel

I think there's something at least theoretically compelling about pitting Darkseid against the Phantom Stranger. Darkseid isn't just a bad guy: he's a philosopher-tyrant. The Stranger - an otherworldly, occult observer of mankind - should make a decent foil. But there's nothing actually compelling about the way they're used here, partly because there's a major disconnect between what they're saying is happening and the action itself.

So, the Phantom Stranger is telling us - I mean, telling Darkseid - that the heroes will win because the children believe in them (or some kind of garbage along those lines and, come to think of it, "because of the children" is a pretty out-of-character thing for the Phantom Stranger to say - even acknowledging that he doesn't have much character beyond "creepy occult guy" to begin with), but what we see is "the children" being used as a plot device/excuse.

(Oh yeah - Darkseid's plan turns out to have a huge hole in it: if your goal is to turn the people of Earth against its heroes then invading Earth with a super-powered army that only the heroes can defeat is not a good idea because it proves to the people of Earth exactly why they need their heroes.)

There's nothing wrong with these issues that isn't wrong with all of the previous ones: some decent top level thinking but fumbled execution. And, while I'm reluctant to place too much value on "goofiness", this series just doesn't even have that kind of spark to bring it to life. It reads like an assignment that none of the creators particularly wanted.

I started reading this as part of my ongoing attempt to work my way through the entire second volume of the Flash series and, I have to admit, these comics were the first time I really felt bogged down. Baron's work on Flash has its flaws and I think that he never really takes advantage of the benefits of continuity in the way that later writers will, but at least it's a consistent vision for the character and he supports this vision with lots of little details. Baron's Flash isn't as good as Baron's work on his own characters, but nothing about it feels like he doesn't care or didn't have time to get it right.

Quick comics reading auto-biographical note: picking up Legends must have been what got me into reading DC comics, because all of the DC comics I ended up following for any lentgh of time - Flash, Justice League, Suicide Squad - were Legends spin-offs.

Legends #4 - "Cry Havoc..."

Writers: John Ostrander & Len Wein
Artists: John Byrne & Karl Kesel

It seems to me that one of the points of DC's big crossover events is to throw together a number of disparate and even incommensurate elements and then try to make them work. When they do work (as with, IMO, the original Crisis, Infinite Crisis, and 52), it isn't because all the different elements get smoothly mixed in together but because the disparities and differences themselves are used evocatively - they become thematically compelling.

Legends is almost there, but it's a case where falling short by inches feels like falling short by miles. On a big picture level, Ostrander and Wein have come up with a thematic reason for their story, but scene-by-scene the comic doesn't earn that theme. It feels like a failed attempt at reverse engineering a meaningful story: they know what it should be about, but they rushed the part where they were trying to figure out how it should be about that.

The best scenes in Legends - like the one at the beginning of this issue, Black Canary, violating the President's order and still playing super-hero, is framed for murder after a police officer who is trying to arrest her accidentally shoots and kill his own partner - offer an interesting set-up that ends up going nowhere. My guess this is partly because of (a) the top down approach and (b) the requirement to hit all of the line-wide "marketing"* needs.

Speaking of marketing, Darkseid is shown playing with what looks like action figure versions of Earth's super-heroes (again, actually: the first issue had a scene like this, too). This is a pretty blatant attempt to tie Legends to the Super Powers cartoons and toys and probably explains some of the choices for why certain characters show up in the series.

Hey - another problem with this series is that even from a marketing p.o.v. the details don't make sense. You have the appeal to fans of Super Powers right next to the attempt to launch an "edgy" book like Suicide Squad.

And there seems to be little thought into which characters are thrown into this crossover. Warlord shows up for a panel or two, I guess to set up a crossover story in that comic. And all of a sudden Dr. Fate seems to be a very important character in all of this.

*Using marketing very loosely here.

Flash v. 2 #7 - "Red Trinity"

Writer: Mike Baron
Artists: Jackson Guice & Larry Mahlstedt

So - seven issues in, and Baron and Guice have found a way to make their take on Flash really work. Continuing the longstanding Flash tradition of facing Flash off against rival speedsters, the opposition here is Red Trinity, superfast Soviet super soldiers. There's a great double-page all-in-one which shows the Trinity working as a team to prevent Flash's escape: he's faster than any one of them, but by coordinating their efforts he can't get by them. This is the best piece of super-heroic action in the series, so far.

This is a solid, straight-forward action/adventure story with super-hero trimmings. But there's nothing especially compelling about it: no spark that gives it its own personality.

And, unfortunately for Baron I'd guess, the DCU is lurking right around the corner: we're told on the last page that we need to read Millennium #1 before coming back for Flash #8. In an earlier post, I suggested that DC's Bronze Age gave us super-hero comics where the Mythos was in unresolved opposition to the World. In DC's "Modern" Age, I suggested that the creators tried out various ways of resolving the tension, but that the resolution wouldn't "keep" (for very long, at least). Here, the resolution Baron has come up with is to imbue the series with a certain amount of cynicism and to tone down the super-heroics, to give the feel of a late-1980s action movie's brand of realism. Not a bad idea (although not as good an idea for a character like Flash than it would be for a character like, say, the Punisher), but not an idea that is likely to hold up after forced integration with a Mythos-spanning cosmic Steve Englehart-penned event.

But, as always, we'll see...

Legends #3 - "Send for... the Suicide Squad"

Writers: John Ostrander & Len Wein
Artists: John Byrne & Karl Kesel

In a comment on my post on the previous issue, Nik brought up the series' seemingly endless exposition scenes. In this issue, the exposition is cross-cut with the main action: at the bottom of every page we have a panel of Darkseid and the Phantom Stranger recapping everything that happened in previous issues. Then they finish recapping previous issues and start recapping this issue! Laying it out this way is a kind of half-smart idea that backfires: in some ways it's more interesting than a two or three page info-dump. I can even imagine that you could play the exposition to counterpoint the current action, which would be more than interesting and actually thematically compelling. But that doesn't happen here.

From a historical perspective, I can't help wondering about DC's editorial policy regarding this kind of recapping. I thought it was strange that the first issue of Flash didn't really give any background for a completely new reader - something I would assume you'd want to do in a first issue. But three issues into Legends - a comic book that will make no sense unless you've already read the first two issues of the series; a series that will make no sense unless you're already a fairly hardcore DC reader - all this recapping seems like a waste of space.

Anyway...

From a nostalgic fanboy perspective, I was glad to see the introduction of the Suicide Squad. Suicide Squad was one of the DC titles I collected religiously. In fact, looking back, most of the DC titles I got into - Suicide Squad, Flash, the Giffen/DeMatteis Justice League - were Legends spin-offs. So, some anecdotal market research showing that these events can bring in new readers.

The stuff with the Squad is handled fairly well, even if they have to stretch it a bit to make Captain Boomerang's inclusion on the mission make sense. (Interesting also to see how many of these characters would end up playing some part in all the Countdowns and Crises of the last few years).

The big problem with this issue has to do with Darkseid's running commentary. Blockbuster dies in the Squad's attempt to take on Brimstone. Cool enough - it's the Suicide Squad after all. The problem is that Darkseid refers to Blockbuster's death as another "Legend" falling. That is, to put it mildly, stretching things. It would be one thing is a fourth string super-hero had bitten the dust, but Blockbuster is a fourth string Batman villain. Not a "Legend". I see this as another case where the writers' "Big Ideas" are just fine, but the execution is hobbled. I don't think this is because of editorial constraints in themselves, but rather because the writers did not (or did not have time) to work out the details of their plot (and the dialogue) with those constraints in mind.

In terms of making use of the DC Mythos, the Big Picture Good/Details Bad thing carries over to a comparison with Baron's Flash:

Ostrander and Wein have a better sense of how to use the DC Mythos to generate some thematic oomph through how they position the various characters. However, they flub a lot of the little narrative details, so the theme feels layered on and unearned.

Baron does not seem to be interested in using the Mythos in this way. IMO, he misses out on getting the most thematic oomph out of the Mythos. (The DCU-related aspects of his Flash series are the ones it inherited from Legends). However, his Flash series works pretty well on a detail level. Without that connection to the larger DC Mythos, though, there's not much point to writing about Wally West.

Legends #2

Writers: John Ostrander & Len Wein
Artists: John Byrne & Karl Kesel

So - what's the point of Legends?

From a market perspective, Legends was supposed to help reintroduce some characters into the post-Crisis Mythos: Captain Marvel, Wonder Woman, a new incarnation of the Justice League, the Wally West version of the Flash, the new Suicide Squad, and probably a few more I am forgetting.

From a theme/aesthetic perspective, the idea seems to be call into question our need for heroic storytelling. Well, not really call it into question, since, as opposed to things like Squadron Supreme or Watchmen, we already really know what the answer will be, but you know what I mean.

The writers put what could be words from a "serious" comics critics in G. Gordon Godfrey's mouth: "I feel the very concept of the hero has become trite and outmoded! Today's high-powered world is too sophisticated, too complicated, simply too dangerous for such an outdated notion as the heroic ideal! It's time we put all such childish notions behind us!" (In fact, I'm pretty sure that you can find these exact sentiments on this recent thread from the TCJ message board).

Of course, this is all part of Darkseid's plot.

Which reminds me...

The first issue ended with what I felt was a very effective moment: Billy Batson vowing to never again become Captain Marvel because he had accidentally electrocuted a giant Kirby-esque villain. That had some teeth to it, but here we find out that, no, Cap wasn't responsible at all. It was all part of Darkseid's plan: Darkseid had Macro-Man rigged with dynamite that would explode when Cap had his lightning bolt strike, which Cap was psychically induced by Darkseid's minions to call down.

This is a big problem with these kinds of "event" comics (at least until recently - I'm not completely up to date): the creators want to change things up and introduce new ideas, but, whoops, they can't really be too new and the can't challenge any of the givens of the "property".

But the bait-and-switch here feels a little like editorial weaseling. They want Cap to face a moral choice, but they want to make sure that the moral choice has no teeth to it.

Actually, after a little more reflection, I think the problem here is that Ostrander and Wein are fumbling the details. Darkseid's overall plan - destroy Earth's heroes by having the public turn against them - is solid enough. But writer's scene-to-scene execution of this plan is spotty at best. Darkseid should be able to come up with gambits that are a lot less clumsy than these. This gets back to the Fault Line Question: Kirby's Darkseid deserves to be much more than merely the Big Bad of the Week/Month/Year.

The rest of the issue features scenes of regular folks buying into Godfrey's message and turning on various heroes. Some of these scenes work, but most of them feel a little "off" in some way - somehow not true to the characters involved. For instance, an angry crowd turns against Batman and Robin. Not a bad idea in itself, but it isn't handled very well. For one thing, it just doesn't feel right to have Batman out in broad daylight in a mall. For another, it is almost a complete deal-breaker that Batman would abandon Robin to the mob, as he does here - leaving Robin to get beaten!

The similar scene with the Blue Beetle works much better.

The highlight scene might be the one between Reagan and Superman, where the Pres explains that he needs to call on all heroes to cease their activities in order to quell the growing tide of public distrust. It's interesting to see Ostrander and Wein try to bring elements of TDKR and Watchmen into a mainstream DCU title.

I should also note that the Phantom Stranger shows up hanging out with Darkseid and I have no idea where he came from. Was he introduced in one of the tie-in issues that I don't have? I'm not sure and there's no indication given here about where I should look for an answer.

Legends #1 - "Once Upon a Time...!"

Writers: John Ostrander & Len Wein
Artists: John Byrne & Karl Kesel

Since the second Flash series "spun out" of Legends, I thought it would be interesting to take a closer look at it. I'm glad I did! A lot of my recent theoretical/critical musings on DC comics have been based on half-remembered comics read long ago, so I'm never quite sure how well they'll stand up when tested against the thing itself. For example, I was looking for evidence of the benefits of writing Mythos-centric super-hero comics, but, so far, the Baron/Guice run on Flash has mostly shown the costs of this kind of writing.

So, on an admittedly self-centered level, I find Legends interesting because it confirms some of my ideas about the way DC's different "ages" break down in terms of (a) the relationship of the Mythos to the World and (b) the amount of self-reflexivity in the writing.

We open on Apokolips, with some pitch-perfect caption writing from Len Wein:

"Here, where even miles-high columns of flame spewed ceaselessly by awesome energy-pits fail to penetrate the eternal darkness, joy is unknown and hope is a capital offense..."

Hey - here's another theory:

There are a couple of what I'd call "Fault Line Questions" that creators (meaning writers, artists, and editorial) need to deal with when they're mucking around with the DC Mythos. These are questions that cry out to be answered, but attempts to answer them definitively usually end up creating some kind of rupture in the Mythos, which then needs to be addressed in turn, leading to a cycle of Perpetual Crises.

Maybe the biggest Fault Line Questions is "What do we do with Superman?" But coming in second is probably "What do we do with the Fourth World?"

I don't want to characterize the Fourth World as "Kirby's Last Gasp" (I think his work throughout the 9170s was pretty strong), but it was his last (or, arguably, only) chance of creating an entire "Universe" of his own. Unlike the DCU proper, which was made up of bits and pieces foraged from various Golden Age comics, the Fourth World was a coherent creation of a singular artistic vision - one of the strongest, and most singular in all of comics (and not just super-hero comics). And it also represents one of the last major "explosions" of creativity in mainstream super-hero comics (in order: the initial Golden Age boom, Julie Schwartz's Silver Age refurbishments, the Stan Lee et al.'s Marvel Age, and, finally, the Fourth World).

So, on the one hand, you've got this incredibly rich and evocative cast of characters and series of storylines. So rich and so evocative that they form the core of one of the major pop culture events of the last forty years. On the other hand, the Fourth World is palpably its own thing, or rather, Kirby's own thing. It is not quite compatible with the DCU, even though Kirby's attempt to make it so are among his most interesting comics.

With Legends, DC was trying to set up some overarching storylines and themes for a post-Crisis DCU and, following The Great Darkness Saga, they pick Darkseid to be the new Big Bad. Early into the first issue, he gives us a Title for the series and its Argument. Ranting about those accursed super-heroes of Earth, he says:

"To some these puny creatures are legends, the stories of their greatness inspiring others to greatness as well! Perhaps the time has come to strike at the core of the problem -- to destroy the very concept of such legends!"

So begins Operation Humiliation!

A quick comics-in-the-good-old-days note: Ostrander, Wein, and Byrne pull off some economical storytelling here. We get a quick set-up and then jump right into the action.

From a Flash-project p.o.v., it's interesting to see that a lot of the themes Baron has to work with are set up here. (How does that bear on the issues being discussed in these comments?)

We're also introduced to Glorious Godfrey, who has come to Earth in the disguise of media pundit G. Gordon Godfrey, speaking out against super-heroes. Anti-super hero punditry isn't a new development (see J. Jonah Jameson), but I get the sense that this particular incarnation is very much inspired by Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns, which finished up a few months before Legends began.

The first issue ends with something that I had forgotten, but was like "Oh, yeah - I remember that!" after I re-read it. Captain Marvel is caught in the grip of a giant Kirby-lite villain called Macro-Man (John Byrne has drawn him so he looks like a midget Galactus). To escape, Cap yells "Shazam!", thinking that as Billy Batson he'll be able to wriggle free. But, alas, the magic lightning bolt fries Macro-Man to death! Guilt stricken, Billy vows never to become Captain Marvel again.

Though this sounds grim, surprisingly enough it's a pretty effective moment. Unfortunately, just around the corner in Legends, we'll get some narrative weaseling that will completely undermine any impact this had. (On second thought, James, maybe you're right!)

Flash v. 2 #5 and Flash v. 2 #6

Writer: Mike Baron
Artists: Jackson Guice, Larry Mahlstedt, & Jack Torrance

I use "On the one hand/On the other" formulations a lot in my writing not so much because I'm trying to see all sides of a work of art, but because I want my writing to convey the sense I have of working through art instead of passing judgment on it. If that makes me seem wishy-washy, well, then, so be it.

Anyway, the "On the one hand" operating here: it's in these two issues that everything Baron and Guice have been trying to do finally clicks into place. Wally goes up against Speeds McGee - a ragin', 'roid abusin' bad guy who seems like he could have come out of the darkest issues of Mark Gruenwald's Squadron Supreme. There are quite a few good "spectacle" scenes that revolve around Speeds' lack of control of his super powers. Baron and Guice don't play this as slapstick, but rather as more sci-fi-ish detail.

The "On the other hand" is that the whole thing is kicked off by having Speeds beat up his wife, who is also Flash's girlfriend. That kind of thing usually strikes me as a bit of a cheap trick: an artificial way to ramp up the emotional stakes and an easy way to come off as serious.

Baron is on much firmer footing with his throwaway realistic details, like the idea that the town Wally just moved to can no longer afford liability insurance because of the fear that a super-hero's presence will attract attacks from super-villains.

And, though Speeds McGee isn't that original of an idea - he's another "Rival" Flash - Baron uses him pretty effectively. His 'roid rage and his lack of control make him a good foil for Wally.

It all leads to the best fight scene we've had yet, but, interestingly enough, it is, once again, somewhat anticlimactic: Flash doesn't defeat Speeds - Speeds just wears himself out through 'roid abuse.

These two issues definitely fit into the wave of "realistic" leaning super-hero stories from that time - Watchmen, the New Universe, the Wild Card stories, the Mike Grell's Longbow Hunters version of Green Arrow, and probably a bunch more. (I'll also mention Squadron Supreme, because even though it came out a year or two earlier, it's my favorite). Though Baron's work on Nexus and Badger probably helped to originate this trend, here he seems to be just riding the wave.

One of the reasons I started going back through my old issues of Flash is that I wanted to see what specific benefits creators have when working within the DC Mythos, especially since there are a lot of costs involved. However, so far, I don't get the sense that Baron is able to actualize much of that potential benefit. He obviously knows how to write super-hero comics, but, based on this series, it doesn't seem that he has a particular affinity for writing DC super-hero comics.

Flash v. 2 #4 - "Kill the Kilg%re"

Writer: Mike Baron
Artists: Jackson Guice & Larry Mahlstedt

I love this issue's cover - the best so far - which strikes the right pulpy sci-fi-ish feel for this incarnation of the character.

What's interesting from a contemporary perspective is the way that Cold War paranoia has seeped into the storyline: they come up with a plan to stop Kilg%re - turn off all the power in the world - but the US government flacks balk because they're afraid the Soviets might use that as an opportunity to make a sneak attack.

The first action sequence in this issue is the first in the series that really flat out works, but there's still not much in the way of interesting use of Flash's super-powers.

I've also been going through the B&W first volume of Showcase Presents The Flash, as a kind of supplement to this exercise, and I can't help but note how inventive John Broome and Carmine Infantino are when it comes to figuring out different ways to show Flash using his powers. One of the premises of Baron/Guice's run is that while Flash is still really fast, he has lost a lot of his super-speed. He's not longer able to reach light speed or travel around the world eight times in one second. This is part of the overall move towards a more down-to-earth version of superheroics, but it also seems to have cut off opportunities for spectacular, flashy action.

The final fight is better, though: it's more of a chase and it emphasizes speed and motion.

I've been hard on Guice's work, but I should point out he's not at all a bad comics artist. He has a good sense of space and pacing. His figure drawing and characterizations are fairly expressive. However, four issues in, he hasn't yet shown that he's particularly comfortable as a super-hero comics artist and he hasn't been able to turn his discomfort into a virtue (a la Don Heck).

Overall, though, the book has recovered from the second issue's misstep.

Flash v. 2 #3 - "The Kilg%re"

"His finger."

Writer: Mike Baron
Artists: Jackson Guice & Larry Mahlstedt

Baron opens with Wally getting a speeding ticket while driving his new sports car (remember the lotto win). The irony is a bit too thick for me, but the tone is back on track after the confusion of last issue.

After that, Wally finds out that Frances has moved out on him. Did all DC comics of the late 80s go for this quasi-PG-13 feel?

Guice continues to have problems - IMO - drawing Flash in costume. He still always seems too posed, especially when he's in the same panel as "normal" characters. Looking at the GCD, it seems that at this point Guice had some experience drawing super-heroes, but not tons of it. He is unable to successfully integrate Flash into the rest of the action: he's always popping out, as if he were a cut-out figure.

I'd also point out that the fight with Vandal Savage from the last issue was a pretty standard super-hero fight. There's no reason it couldn't have been Daredevil versus some Man Mountain goon. That is: neither Guice nor Baron have done much with Flash's superspeed.

That's always a danger with the day-in-the-life approach to a fantastic subject. The spectacle - superpowers in action - is part of the draw of the premise. But day-in-the-life works partly by muting the spectacle.

So far, the best visuals were in the first issue's cross country trek, which was also had an effective matter-of-fact, all-in-a-day's-work feel to it. But it's hard to hit this balance: Kurt Busiek managed it only some of the time in the early Astro City stories.

The bad guy in this issue fits in much better to Baron's overall take on the character: Kilg%re is a giant other-dimensional robot, trapped just outside of "now". There's some neat background commentary on our reliance on technology: Kilg%re praises the humanoids for terraforming their planet to fit his needs.

Why I like Kilg%re more than Vandal Savage as a villain in this series: Kilg%re is a neat, contempo sci-fi idea (he anticipates some of the monsters from Grant Morrison-era JLA) that fits in well with Baron's contempo sci-fi-ish approach. There are many super-hero comics where Vandal Savage would fit right in, but (so far) this is not one of them.

I should also note the introduction of Tina McGee and the possibility of some more PG-13-ish stuff in the form of an affair between Flash and a married woman!

Flash v. 2 #2

Writer: Mike Baron
Artists: Jackson Guice & Larry Mahlstedt

Vandal Savage made his appearance last issue, but here he's the main attraction. I'm not sure, but I think this might have been Savage's post-Crisis reintroduction. The problem is that Baron can't quite seem to make Savage - or at least this version of Savage - fit into what he's trying to do.

I think that super-hero comics are always full of elements that "don't fit". One of the jobs of the super-hero auteur is to make it seem like they fit, whether through sheer force of artistic personality (the Jack Kirby-Frank Miller approach) or some kind of narrative sleight-of-hand (the approach taken by John Broome or Grant Morrison or Roy Thomas). What's a little strange about Baron struggling with this here is that he had licked this problem in Nexus and, it seems (I say seems because I'm just starting to read it for the first time), Badger. I'd like to know whether or not using Vandal Savage was something editorial forced on him or if Baron thought he could work some of that Badger/Ham magic.

But it never really comes together. Savage is a major villain, but he comes off here as a two-bit operator. That was often part of the charm of Bronze and Silver Age comics, but the gestures Baron has been making towards day-in-the-life-of realism aren't compatible with it. Baron lays on the mumbo jumbo and he seems to almost give up on trying to write evocative dialogue. Here's an exchange between Savange and Flash:

Savage: "I cannot die, therefore I kill."
Flash: "I don't understand."
Savage: "You do not live long enough to understand."

I don't like to pick on dialogue, especially out-of-context like this. Comics are a visual medium and the important question is always whether or not it works visually. But this little snippet sticks out because it is so much worse than any of the other writing in the series up to this point. I take it as more evidence that Baron just didn't know what to do with Savage.

I did like the final fight though, which features Frances Kane using her magnetic powers to TK a fork into Savage's face. You go girl! The fight and the issue end somewhat anti-climatically. Savage isn't really defeated: it's more like he had enough and decided to split.

Baron keeps up some of the motifs from the first issue: there's still a focus on Flash's health/biology/metabolism - he keeps going back to the hospital.

But in other areas, realism is completely hand waved. Like: Flash is supposed to be an ace hacker. I can't recall that this little element ever popped up again. (But I guess we'll see).

No commentary on this issue would be complete without mentioning that Wally wears the most Godawful ugly purple suit when he goes out dancing.

Flash v. 2 #1 - "Happy Birthday Wally"

"I can feel the heart sloshing around on my back. What am I doing?!"

Writer: Mike Baron
Artists: Jackson Guice & Larry Mahlstedt

There's something very stilted about the way Jackson Guice draws Flash when he's in his costume. He does just fine with Wall West in civvies and he doesn't do a bad job with the other costumed characters, but his Flash always looks uncomfortably posed.

Mike Baron sets up his central idea pretty quickly: Wally struggles at being a hero and is living in Barry Allen's shadow.

Interesting in that this is a first issue, but there's very little in the way of an origin story or a synopsis for new readers. It seems to assume you know who Barry Allen is, that he died, that Wally West used to be his sidekick, that until recently Wally was still going by the name Kid Flash, and that he's a member of the Teen Titans. All of this comes out in passing, but none of it is laid out for the reader.

I'm not sure that this assumption is a bad thing in and of itself, although it suggests to me that bringing in new readers either wasn't a priority or, if it was a priority, it wasn't something that was being carried out in any kind of methodical manner.

Baron adds a number of light science-fictional touches. Wally's superspeed is tied into his super metabolism, so him having to eat and sleep a lot becomes a recurring motif. The idea is: having superpowers has a real world cost.

Baron comes up with another neat idea related to Flash's powers: Wally is sometimes moving too fast to fully take things in. His double-take at Vandal Savange is pretty neatly staged.

More bits of "reality": Flash doesn't have an income, so he can't afford to be a complete altruist. He offers his services to a hospital trying to deliver a heart for transplant in exchange for health coverage.

Baron is explicit with this theme. He has Wally tell us that Barry "died owing thousands of dollars in legal bills... He left me his costumes. And a picture of what a hero should be."

What a hero should be and what Wally is actually able to do is the conflict here. While delivering the heart, he passes by an accident, leaves a man to die in the snow, and leaves Vandal Savage to the police. Baron is focusing on the idea that Wally has to make choices, has to sacrifice: he only has a certain amount of energy and choosing to spend it one way rather than another has consequences.

But Baron's approach isn't operatic: there's much more of an "all in a day's work" feel to the action here.

Finally, this ends on an interesting note: Wally wins the lottery. It isn't unprecedented for a super-hero comic to deal with economics in this way (there's that Fantastic Four story where the team goes bankrupt), but the lottery is a pretty bizarre touch. It's like a wish fulfillment fantasy put on top of another wish fulfillment fantasy that Baron has been poking with a stick.

We'll see how it goes.