by Geoff Johns (writer), Francis Manapul (art), Brian Buccellato (colors), and Sal Cipriano (letters)
The Story: The Flash and Top try to stop the Rogues from unleashing the Mirror Lords while the Rogues and Renegades to battle.
What’s Good: Despite my feelings to the contrary during the first couple of issues, I’m really starting to warm up to this whole Rogues/Renegades plot. The involvement of Captain Boomerang, Top, and the Mirror Lords have imbued the story with a needed life.
Top in particular continues to be an asset this month. He gives the otherwise bland Renegades personality, giving us an individual character to latch onto. There’s also something rather cool about seeing Barry Allen team up with a Rogue lookalike. While I can’t go into things too much for fear of spoiling the issue, Top is most definitely a star this month and is just as much fun to read as he is to see in action.
And really, between the giant Mirror, the Rogues, the Renegades, and Captain Boomerang, there’s a lot of action this month. There’s a feeling of total mayhem that lends the issue quite a bit of excitement, truly making it feel like the penultimate issue of a story arc. There are explosions and desperation aplenty, and as a result, this ends up being a pretty fun ride.
Of course, Francis Manapul again deserves his due on this end, as his art really defines this new volume of the Flash and is a good chunk of why it’s as much fun as it is. Manapul’s action scenes and his depictions of speed are fantastic, and his illustrations of the Rogues’ powers in action are no different. Seeing the Weather Wizard conjure a cyclone is magnificent and when it combats a spinning Top, it’s all the better.
Speaking of Weather Wizard, I liked how Johns gave him a moment to shine this month. It’s these little moments that show how great Johns is when it comes to dealing with the Rogues. While the rest of them don’t have big moments like Weather Wizard does, each of them maintains a distinct and uniquely villainous voice.
The biggest selling point this month though is the big twist at the end. It’s a fairly basic twist, but still got a “whoa” out of me, if only because a major plot element ends up being total fabrication. There’s a genuine surprise regarding Mirror Monarch’s murder this month that was delightful and devious, particularly given the events of the last couple of issues, and it left me anxious for next month.
What’s Not So Good: Ugh. Brightest Day.
There’s an absolutely painful couple of pages in here in which Johns just has to shoehorn Brightest Day into this issue and it is agonizingly horrid. Johns just has to remind us that Captain Boomerang is around thanks to Brightest Day and that there’s a Brightest Day banner at the top of this book. He does so by needlessly injecting an isolated element of the Brightest Day series’ convoluted plot into this book.
It’s completely pointless and brutally jars with the rest of the issue. Furthermore, it will make absolutely no sense whatsoever unless you’re actually reading Brightest Day. It’s as though someone just tore a scene out of Brightest Day and jammed it in the middle of my Flash comic. There’s nothing quite like pointless bleedover that makes me hate events. At best, it’s unnecessary and sticks out in the issue like a sore thumb, at worst it’s advertising, and poor advertising at that.
Conclusion: Brightest Day crap aside, this was a fast, fun read.
Grade: B
-Alex Evans
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Conclusion