In Fastest Day, In Slowest Night...
Well, we start things off with a very bland cover, Grodd's new armor makes him feel too compact, too stiff and formal to be the beast he is. And then The Flash is too still, there's just no energy to this cover, the effect is very 'flat.'
I was hoping for something good from this issue. It's no secret that I've been one of the harsher critics of this series while still enjoying it. I don't care HOW nice the artwork is, this series has not yet deserved a single 5/5 score. Most issues have had some awful pacing. But Manapul's begun to turn that around. The previous issue was a definite improvement, and this issue finally has solid pacing from beginning to end. No longer distracted by the frustrating flow, and can now focus on the fact that I can't stand this current story.
Right off the bat, Manapul loses major points for using the tired old 'amnesia' story, and not making it work for a damn. There is barely any given reason for him to have this amnesia within the story, and there's ZERO reason for him to have it from a literary perspective. The amnesia subplot does literally NOTHING for the story. It makes for one or two jokes, but other than that it's just a cheap stunt to keep things tense or something. The whole amnesia thing is solved before it comes of any use to the story or character.
But that's just the mud on the cake, the real meat of the problem is something others might not find as much fault with, but the amnesia thing is undeniably dumb in this case.
I understand that The New 52 is about change, but there's limits and there's guidelines. Skinny Amanda Waller broke the limits. TDK's Bane broke the limits. This issue of Flash broke the guidelines. Because the changes made aren't 'radically too far,' they're just kind of 'wrong' for the entire mood of the character in my opinion, but then again I haven't read a whole ton of Flash. But it feels like Manapul is trying to turn Flash into Green Lantern. Green Lantern's origin came from wild science fiction. A controlled creation by aliens with guidelines and intentions. Yet the mythos has evolved into more of a fantasy angle with the prophecies and the emotional spectrum and whatnot. And that works for Green Lantern. The Flash seemed to be the counterpart to this, with an origin that was seemingly random that developed into a more hard scientific 'Speed Force' as a controlled concept. But now we've got Gorilla City looking at prophecies about The Light and which would be chosen to be the Messenger and the rise and fall of civilizations... They're all more tribal, more fantasy. Grodd is more of a ritualistic mad priest, and frankly he's written very dulled down here. He's got none of his smarts, none of his mind control, none of his pride; just arrogance and berserker rage. He was pretty much no threat once The Flash recovered from his amnesia right as they were about to fight. And this whole tone extends to all of Gorilla City. Now they're more like Disney's Atlantis. Magic civilization locked away. No longer are they technologically advanced, they're just a more civilized mystical tribe.
The developments back in Central City are mostly nice, Patty proves to be a really strong supporting female character, but there's some other things that hint they're planning to switch her and Iris back around to the way it was for the sake of nostalgia. Of course the one change that DOES work feels like the one they're planning to overturn. But really interesting is the reveal about Director Singh as Pied Piper attempts to become the new Central City Headlining Vigilante.
In Conclusion: 3/5
The pacing was really smooth for once, and that made for an enjoyable issue overall. But I can't stand the direction the story is taking. Ok, yes, The New 52 is about taking chances and changing things, but unless you have a really smart idea of a new direction or something to streamline a confusing continuity, don't change things to the opposite way just for the sake of change. If something works, just let it be. This feels like it's just done because it can be, not because this was a really cool idea Manapul had or it made sense or anything. It's just so flip-flopped.
