By: Geoff Johns (writer), Doug Mahnke (artist), Keith Champagne, Christian Alamy, Doug Mahnke and Shawn Moll (inker)
The Story: Parallax has possessed the Flash. That’s a crappy combination for Hal: Fear plus speed force. But then some of his other color-friends show up, as well as that creepy, rag-dressed guardian who’s been hunting then entities! Finally!
What’s Good: Johns has stuffed lots of cool stuff in here. The Green Lantern-Parallax struggle is entertaining, especially when Hal gets Parallax’s number. Check it out on page 8. It was one of my moments for this book. When the raggedy little man shows up, I’m riveted. I’ve been waiting for the details on this guy out for…what…7 months? And I was not disappointed with the reveal either. And can anyone say color squad? Well, there’s no reason to. I just made that up, but the color squad arrives (everyone except for Sinestro, Atrocitus and Carol) and it is extra fun watching the cosmic slap down and the reversals. Geoff Johns was in top form.
Artwise, Mahnke and company delivered the goods. The Flash stomp-down on Hal was pretty impressive, although it did make me wonder why Hal didn’t die from the punishment he bought. Hal reasoning with Barry in the rain was evocative and felt real. The action and the poses were dynamic (pick out pretty much any panel at random and the dynamism leaps out (no pun intended)). And Atrocitus and Sinestro look brilliant. Mahnke draws a mean Sinestro (again, no pun intended, but it’s true) and the one page with him and Atrocitus took me a while to go over before I felt I’d absorbed all the detail on offer. And, I love the final splash page and its reveal.
What’s Not So Good: Pretty much nothing.
Conclusion: Johns and company have delivered an issue chock-full of important stuff on a cosmic scale. Literally, these are some of the most important things/concepts/people in existence and they’re all in these 22 pages. And stuff is really happening. And knowing Johns, we don’t even know the half of it yet. I’m very happy with my $2.99 investment. You will be too, whether you’re an old GL reader or new. Johns even put in a nifty catch-up-all-the-new-readers page at the beginning, so this is the issue to start with if you aren’t a loyal reader yet.
Grade: A
-DS Arsenault
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