The Fractal Hall Journal

Ah, you say- but which Flash? Let’s leave that aside for the moment. Because if we’re talking about the mechanics of the character, it really doesn’t matter that much (and the Wally/Barry/Jay fanboys scream!).

You know, I think these posts are breaking my brain a little bit. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to define Robin’s core genre as “Horror”. No, seriously, I’m fucking certain it is. Although I’m not sure I’m making any sense any more.

Core Genre: Science Fiction (making this the Journal’s 100th post on SF. Woohoo!). And even though most superheroes tend to be science fictional ones, the Flash has always been the most sciencey. Pseudo-sciencey, maybe, but still the only comic I’m aware of to have a fetish for physics. C.f. Iron Man, the consummate Marvel science-hero. You’d expect his engineering background would leave the title awash with practical (if comic-book) physics. When what you tend to get is an increasingly embarrassing profile of a liquored-up sociopathic Republican.

Sorry, I think my subjectivety’s showing.

The Bad: Ahem. Back to the Flash.

Speed’s difficult in a static medium. In fact, aside from female characters in a permanent state of torso twist and organ enhancement, I doubt you’ll find a character with more examples of unfortunate artwork. Maybe I don’t mean artwork, actually; maybe I mean composition. Even the greats stumbled from time to time. Of course, this is more of a challenge than a problem.

Speed’s difficult because it’s just the one power. That’s why the Flash vibrates and time travels and in recent years absorbs and contributes momentum to other objects.

Speed’s difficult because how the fuck is Captain Boomerang ever going to be a problem when your protagonist moves faster than the Aussie can see?

Speed’s just plain difficult.

The Good: Speed’s difficult. It forces imaginative solutions, imaginitive situations, imaginative concepts. The stories have to be fast-paced and efficient because if they’re not, what the fuck’s the point? Go write Ultimate Moon Knight. The Flash is the shock of the new. So the book has to be new and exciting every single month. You think you should let up for an issue, have a breather where Wally/Barry/Jay has a heartfelt conversation with his aunt/fiance/wife? Fucking go write Ultimate Moon Knight. There’s a reason why the Flash has always been one of the most colourful, fantastical, silver-agey characters every written. It’s because the Flash is electric. He’s lightning. He’s the fastest man alive.

I’m not sure that the previous formulation of important factors is quite going to work here, because there’s only one factor that really matters.

A) He’s the fastest man alive.

Brian K. Vaughan once came to the Bristol Comics Expo, and mentioned the Superman vs. Flash conversation that his fellow writers on Lost wrote into the show as a good-natured dig at him and his comics career. He pointed out that of course the Flash is faster than Superman. If he isn’t, then he doesn’t have a reason to exist. It’s his single defining characteristic, and of course it’s how he interacts with all his villains. Whether vibrating through objects or time travelling is completely necessary is another matter, but the extra powers all derive (however tenuously) from his speed anyway.

But as a character who most obviously deals with crazy super-science and altered and alternate realities (ground zero for the multiverse, to boot), perhaps we can get a little metaphysical with his other attributes, and look at the surrounding mechanics of the Flash’s world in a way I haven’t with the previous characters. It’s possible to argue that Gotham in some way defines Batman, or Metropolis (or Krypton, or maybe the Fortress) defines Superman. I don’t agree, myself, which is why I didn’t bring up the setting previously. I think Gotham and Metropolis are shaped by their heroes. With the Flash, I believe his surroundings- his context- shapes him.

By this, I don’t mean Central City or Keystone; aside from the odd scene that accentuates a rural/blue-collar/midwestern vibe, they’re both rather generic. I don’t even really mean the DCU. I think I’m trying to define the space that the Flash exists in, a kind of bright, expansive supra-dimentional arena. Which makes sense (well, kind of), in that any creator with a character who’s defining characteristic is the rate by which he or she moves through space will, at some point, have to define what exactly that space is, what its limits are, and where anything that exists within it is in relation to everything else. I suppose what I’m getting at is this:

B) The Flash must always test the limits of the world created around him.

In essence, the limits of his fictional world become a villain for him to overcome. The speed of light, the arrow of time, the barriers between universes; they are the Flash’s sandbox. And also:

C) Fucking crazy science.

Other factors: The Flash is the legacy hero. Whether or not he’s the character most suited to this is a different argument, but the idea of a Flash dynasty, codified by Mark Waid, is a natural evolution of the character’s history. And yes, I’m going to have a dig at the death of Bart Allen, because this was a pointless development that deliberately works against the concept as it has become understood. It makes little sense in terms of the character of Flash stories; dramatic and dynamic, yes, but never, ever grim. But to be honest it’s pointless really complaining about it because he’s going to come back. So’s his grandfather. The Flash’s supporting cast is going to get very odd, very soon. Which might work out ok, actually, because as plok mentioned some months ago, the Flash should really be a team book.

Conclusion: Despite DC’s best efforts in recent years, everytime I think about the Flash in any kind of depth I remember how much I fucking love the character. Fastest. Man. Alive. Flash fact.

Click here for the Delineation Archive.

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And you can expect a lot more cowboy metaphors over the coming weeks, because I’ve just watched A Fistful Of Dollars and I’ve got a whole Eastwood DVD set to get through that’s been on the backburner since Christmas due to the Great X-Files Project. And yes, I have now seen Chris Carter’s big screen debut. The verdict? All in good time. Still got S9 to write up, after all.

Looks like Geoff Johns is coming back on The Flash. Perhaps if this doesn’t work, they’ll give Baron or Messner-Loebs another spin.

Joking aside, I’m cautiously optimistic about this. After all, I loved GL: Rebirth. On the other hand, that’s because Hal Jordan is my Favouritest Character Ever n’Ever n’Ever, and, as I’ve mentioned here before, I’m brimming with indifference toward Barry Allen. Also, I always felt that Johns had more to say about the Rogues than Wally West, although I’ll concede that’s more to do with Mark Waid closing off the character’s arc and leaving not much left for another writer to say, at least with that particular iteration of the character. Barry Allen is, for all intents and purposes, a brand new character, insofar as the standard techniques of superhero storytelling have fundamentally changed since they killed him off, and God knows they’ve done wonders for the Lanterns. Ultimately, all I really want is for Wally West to still be knocking round.

Of course, the absolute victory condition would be an ongoing Jay Garrick title. But I’ve probably used up my lifetime allocation of unexpected wish-fulfillment with this Summer’s cape flicks.

The latest Batman film has really brought it home how much I’ve enjoyed the recent film adaptations more than the actual comics. And this strikes me as a little odd. Firstly, The Incredible Hulk. Planet Hulk was awesome, and I enjoyed it way more than I was expecting to. But it’s not what you’d call the “classic” incarnation of the character, which is something I think the film managed to capture really well. As for Iron Man and the crazy rich guy, both comic titles have never had writing teams as good as they’ve had over the past couple of years. Ellis and the Knaufs have written some really great Iron Man stuff, ditto Morrison and Dini at the competition, but I’ve found my enjoyment seriously marred by the unending crossover bollocks I really couldn’t care less about. I guess that once again I have to conclude that I just prefer it when writers are allowed to get on with doing their jobs without interference.

That said, I’m really looking forward to seeing more of the shared universe the Marvel movies take place in. Sometimes I can’t even keep my own continuity straight.

I would be completely happy if they never made a sequel to The Dark Knight. There is just too much scope for a cock-up. But there’s going to be one, of course, because it’s now made more than eleventy-squillion Euros across the globe. The Riddler gets my vote for a grim reimagining, but absolutely not Johnny Depp. When he’s on form, he’s brilliant, but isn’t he just going to treat the role like Captain Jack II? Or, Heavens forefend, another crack at Willy Wonka?

Speaking of which, I fucking loathe Tim Burton’s Chocolate Factory, more and more with the passing years. What an irredeemable load of self indulgent wank. Comic geeks think they’ve had the shitty end of the stick over the years with disrespectful versions of beloved franchises. No one’s ever had the balls to follow through with a really nasty adaptation of Roald Dahl’s stuff.

In fact, I’ll leave you with this idea: Christopher Nolan’s BFG. Live action, with Henson’s Creature Shop doing the giants.

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Following on from Wednesday, and good Lord do the post tags get long when I write about comic characters and creators.

Geoff Johns on X-Men: One: Johns has a solid history with team/squad titles. Two: He’s really good at delving into a character’s backstory, and not only coming up with a different spin on things but also in streamlining and simplifying what can sometimes be pretty confusing and contradictory stuff. Three: Isn’t this exactly what the X titles need?

John Romita, Jr on Wonder Woman: One of the best, most consistant pencillers of the last twenty-five (if not more) years, yet never worked on a mainstream DC title. While he’s be an awesome fit on damn near anything, I suspect the title that would benefit the most would be Wonder Woman.

Grant Morrison on Daredevil: And everyone just starts looking at me funny. No, honestly, I’m serious. The fact that it’s not the kind of thing anyone would expect would work in its favour, because any way the coin falls would benefit the reader. Either Morrison would channel the best of his Batman work into a crime title (it’s not all sci-fi closet flying saucers; think Gothic), or he’d get odd (as it were) with Daredevil, and give us a fresh take. I mean, how much grim and gritty crime drama can the character really bear? Well, loads more. But you get my point.

Mike Mignola on Aquaman: Widening the net to outside the Big Two, and I reckon a Lovecraft-style horror spin on Arthur Curry/Orin/Whomever would be a great direction to take the character in. Not as a permanent status-quo change, but just for a year or so. Because we never really get a feeling of how cold and dark it is in the deep sea, or of all the squiddy-headed nasties that are down there. Half the time it looks like the Little Fucking Mermaid in Poseidonis. The Dweller in the Deep was practically Cthulhu in an orange shirt, after all.

James Robinson and Marcos Martin on Silver Surfer: He proved he could do cosmic stuff with Starman, and I think a long term 60-odd issue run in that kind of vein would be the perfect way to explore a great (but famously tricky) character. As for Marcos Martin, the last work of his I saw was for Marvel, on the excellent Doctor Strange: The Oath, although the first place I saw his extraordinary art was on DC’s Breach. He’d fit the Surfer book perfectly.

Matt Fraction on The Flash: Another writer who, as far as I know, hasn’t done any work for DC. As per the other posts about the Flash this month, the title should be (a) about big, crazy ideas, (b) have a lot of heart, (c) be electrifying and/or hyperkinetic, and (d) always seems to benefit from fresh perspectives and very individual writers. Fraction’s one of the few comic writers working today that ticks all those boxes.

Michael Alan Nelson on Doctor Strange: Great on BOOM! Studios’ Fall of Cthulhu, can’t imagine he’d do a bad job on the sorceror.

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You know, I was staring at the front page of the Journal this morning and I couldn’t figure out what was missing. Turns out it was the post below. So apologies for the slight Slight Technical Problem that caused the delay, by which I mean inability to post-date.

A couple of things prompted this post. Firstly, J. Michael Straczynski coming to DC has prompted speculation as to what he’ll be working on. The Flash has been a big topic round here recently, and JMS has mentioned his preference for the Barry Allen version, so that’s got be a possibility. There’s Aquaman: a big name is about the only thing that will save the character at the moment, and if you think the New Avengers turnaround was big, imagine the craziness of an Aqua-title selling over 100,000. How about JLA? Is Dwayne McDuffie a permanent addition, or there for just 12 months? Is James Robinson going to be on Superman for the forseeable future, or just as long as he was on the Bat titles?

Secondly, I mentioned in comments not long ago that I’d like to see an Ed Brubaker Green Arrow title. Which has led to this question: given the chance, who should switch companies and work on a different title?

Brian Michael Bendis and Leinil Yu on Blue Beetle: Nope, not Batman. I’m not sure why Bendis seems to be a lot of fans’ choice to take on Gotham based stories. I can kind of see Miller’s 80s Daredevil being a good fit for 80s Batman, but not Bendis’ take. Good grief, can you imagine what the dialogue would be like? But he wrote the book on 00s era teen superheroes with Ultimate Spider-Man, and this kind of star power on the title would save what is probably my favourite current DCU ongoing. Even if it meant the main character inexplicably swearing in Hebrew. Second choice: Joss Whedon and Michael Ryan. Would be choice #1, but it would never ever come out.

John Rogers and Rafael Albuquerque on Runaways: Whedon’s run has been brilliant, of course, but oh so very delayed. His run was always meant to be short, so why not replace him with the team behind the other awesome teen-hero title? Just a damn shame Rogers is likely to be tied up with TV work for the foreseeable future (and also a damn shame he won’t be getting a crack at the Flash. He may very well be the perfect match for the title with his science background).

Brian K. Vaughan and Mark Bagley on Batman: I really like the current writing team on both Batman titles. It’s just a shame about all the bloody fill-ins. So the only guy I’d like to see take over would be Vaughan, who’s probably my choice for best current comic writer behind Morrison. And I know that Bagley’s already at DC for the new weekly; I’d just rather not have awesome and consistant on a Bat-title (something that they currently have a little trouble with) than burned out on Trinity.

Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch on Superman: Oh, come on, they’ve been begging to have a crack at it for years. Let’s see what they’ve got. Millar’s not going to screw up the chance by Ultimatising Superman. Sure, his last Superman run was uninspiring (way back during Loeb’s tenure on Superman, Millar either plotted or dialogued one of the other titles- Adventures?) but he was hardly left off the leash to do his thing. Besides: (a) his Swamp Thing run was brilliant, (b) Aztek and the Flash with Morrison were also brilliant, and (c) he’s already proven he knows what makes Superman tick by deconstructing then reconstructing the character’s conceits so brilliantly in Red Son.

This is fun. I’ve got something queued up already for tomorrow, but I think I’ll carry on with this on Friday.

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Writing about the Flash and the developments in DC and Marvel’s comics that I haven’t been too keen on last week got me thinking about what work I actually liked. I mean, there’s a reason I’m still buying some titles, right?

At the moment, the number of monthly issues I buy is dropping as the titles hit obvious trade collection points. The Superman titles have already been dropped, and I’ve promised dear friend Paul C that I’ll pick up Geoff Johns’ Legion story in trade, and I suspect the Morrison Batman run will be another one. Blue Beetle’s gone after #26 until John Rogers comes back on, and I may do the same with Daredevil. Eventually, the only stuff I’ll be getting month after month will be the two GL titles.

I don’t really want to drop Daredevil for, and believe me it sounds odd just thinking about a product this way, sentimental reasons. It was the first American-sized comic my Dad got me when I was a kid, for a start, and I kind of regret the last time I dropped the title. I loved the Kevin Smith/Marvel Knights reboot and kept on getting it up until I’d overdosed on Bendisism around the “Golden Age” story arc and dropped it. Problem is that on re-reading the issues were so much better when put together (probably the worst written-for-trade offender I’ve ever come across) that I ended up picking up the gap issues as paperbacks when I started picking up Brubaker’s run. And speaking of Brubaker, even though I only have a casual interest in the X-Men, his recent writing has been so good I’m tempted to get his Deadly Genesis/Shi’ar collections, and the Captain America hardcover.

Superman’s a good example of why trades make more sense to me, actually. As much as I loved the One Year Later story, my enjoyment was seriously impaired by delays, crap Countdown tie-ins and rushed fill-ins dropped on poor old Kurt Busiek (same complaints with both Batman titles, actually). Trades would have at least given me a whole story in one.

The other big one to get the boot is Ultimate Spider-Man. With the exception of the Flash (now that they’ve gone back to the Waid-run numbering) it’s the title that’s got the most big number momentum, by which I mean I’ve been getting it from the first issue right up to #118, making it a hell of a habit to break. But like I’ve repeated many times, habit ain’t a good enough reason to carry on shelling out the dough. Besides, I think the title’s lost a lot of its mojo recently, and not only due to Mark Bagley’s exit. There just doesn’t seem to be much forward going on with it.

Of course, that’s the thing with Bendis. Occasionally, it’s not clear what he’s getting at until you read everything together, so I’d be surprised if I don’t start getting this in a shelf-friendly format. Which is yet another significant advantage to trade paperbacks. I’m damn near out of longbox room, but there’s always space for another bookshelf.

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So, I’ve still got the Flash on my mind. It’s just such an odd feeling dropping a title I’ve been getting for so long.

It was too much to expect the Waid stuff to be amazing, in particular considering his last year on the title being fairly underwhelming. The Flash-as-team-book idea is one way of dealing with the fact that Wally West is a grown-up now and we need to find a different character arc for him, and that Flash-Family-as-The-Incredibles doesn’t quite work.

So here’s the question: Why doesn’t it work? And how does it get fixed without (a) killing off the kids or (b) having Mephisto make them not happened?

First assertion: We have no reason to care about the junior Wests. Wally and Linda do (duh), but as their parents they kind of have too. Just because they’re kids doesn’t mean the old chestnut “show me why they’re cool/important/I should give a shit, don’t tell me” doesn’t apply. In short, we haven’t had time to get to know who the characters are.

Second assertion: The above disconnects us from Wally West. We’ve been following his life for twenty years. Like all good long-term narratives, we relate to the Flash in a way we don’t in almost any other medium. But suddenly we’re missing a huge chunk of his life, and not just in real-time; I mean, is there a time in anyone’s life that’s more life changing than their children’s early years? Wally West is not who we remember him to be, and that’s incredibly jarring after such a long stretch.

Two other examples, while I’m on this point. Firstly, Linda has become an important part of the Flash’s supporting cast. Yet her character’s motives remain inconsistent. What does she want? How does that play off the Flash’s character? First she’s a reporter, suddenly she always wanted to be a doctor, now she’s a super-scientist? How do we reconcile this?

Actually, sudden revelation. Use this as a story. Either subplot, or Geoff Johns-style single issue profile. Take her shaky character arc and tell a plausable, human story of a conflicted woman who always wanted to be one thing but was forced into being something else, yet eventually is able to choose her own destiny. Not only would you fix the character, you’d likely make her more engaging than she’s ever been, and also silence the legion of fans who never really liked her in the first place.

Secondly, and I know I keep bashing Fastest Man Alive but it’s not like the title doesn’t deserve it, Bart Allen was also taken away from the reader, changed and aged, and then returned (with a confusingly inconsistant explanation, to boot). He wasn’t the character we remembered, he made choices readers couldn’t understand or didn’t jibe with what went before. The disconnection was inevitable.

Third assertion: The Flash keeps getting new supporting players, every time a new team climbs on board. This needs to stop happening.

If we put these points together, what’s the fix? To start with, fill in all the gaps. Even if it takes twelve issues of flashback, we need to bridge the old stories and characters we remember to the new status quo. We need to see the Wests bring their children up, to understand why we as readers need to care about them. At the same time, if we bring Bart Allen back (and how isn’t that inevitable?) we need to do the same to him, to clarify how we got from Impulse to here.

Then we need to separate the Flash from the rest of the DCU for a while. He needs to be re-established in his own world, and not sharing enemies and crossover events that muddy the new direction or the theme of the work. And for God’s sake, bring Jay Garrick in. Of all the Golden Age characters he’s the most likeable and relatable. I doubt there’s a better everyman character to use as a reader stand-in, not least because he’s so visible in JSA, one of DC’s best selling titles.

And while we’re at at, let’s build a solid supporting cast from the large supply we already have, and use them to define and bring out the characteristics of Wally West and his family. Characters are the best theme- and world-building tools available. Just look at Starman, or the first hundred-odd issues of Amazing Spider-Man.

Also, and this may be the most counter-intuitive thing considering what I’ve just been saying about the supporting cast, keep the Rogues out for a while. They’ve been thoroughly analysed, explored and over-exposed between Johns’ run and Countdown, and like Wally West we’ve probably run out of decent stories to tell for the moment. Let’s get inventive and crazy science-fictional with our scenarios, real Grant Morrison level concepts, and leave the classic bad-guys for a couple of years down the road, when they can be reintroduced with a bang.

Finally, the most important thing, employ a writer with a cutting edge view of future tech. Doctorow/Ellis type shit. The Flash shouldn’t just be on-par with the rest of the DCU. He should be several steps ahead. He should be lapping every other title. Bleeding edge advanced stuff, taking the Silver Age legacy and making something absolutely nuts and ultra-modern.

The Flash shouldn’t be a pedestrian title. It should hit you like a bolt of lightning.

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I still quite can’t get my head round the monumental error DC made in the late Nineties not to give Grant Morrison, Tom Peyer, Mark Waid and Mark Millar the four core Superman titles. But more than that, even if they had I suspect that editorial interference would likely have squished the really good stuff.

I’ve got no idea what went on behind closed doors, but I remember what it was like being a reader at the time, and bits and pieces that have been reported in various places since then. But that said, is there really any doubt that companies like Marvel and DC prefer to keep a tight rein on their intellectual properties? Except, of course, for a brief period at Marvel when they let the writers do whatever they wanted…

After Waid’s Flash, Morrison’s JLA is probably what I’d say is the best example of the kind of superhero stuff I like. The first story arc is just about the best JLA story of all time, and there’s plenty to like in the rest of the run. But after the Rock of Ages, some things crept in that I wasn’t so keen on. Like why the fuck Huntress was on the team, or the New Gods. I remember me and dear friend Paul C assuming that editorial had told Morrison who he should be using, because we couldn’t believe anyone would pass over use of the Magnificent Seven for a pack of D-listers.

After a while, both Waid and Morrison left DC, and in an interview for Mark Salisbury’s Writers on Comics Scriptwriting the former said he almost quit writing comics because DC had refused to let him or Morrison write Superman, going as far to say that he’d never get the character because he was too “high profile”. It’s the kind of thing that I just cannot believe, and perhaps one of the clearest signs that some of these companies are not being run by business people. There’s no doubt that stories like this coupled with the odd behaviour of some professionals when they get on the internet suggest that the comics “industry” is deeply, deeply weird if not outright unpleasant.

I’m not one hundred percent sure of the timeline, but from what I recall this was happening around the same time as Marvel’s bankruptcy, or certainly in the lead-up to it. What I do remember is Joe Kelly moving from an amazing run on Deadpool to one of the main X-Men titles, with Steve Seagle on the other. I was really looking forward to this even though I’ve never followed the X-Men, but again it went to shit thanks to editorial interference despite showing occasional promise. It was the same kind of interference that led to Mark Waid leaving Captain America and demanding his name be taken off the later collections.

This is the background to what I honestly believe to be the decisions that have shaped the two companies’ superhero universes today. If Morrison and the others had been left to write Superman without editorial interference, All-Star Superman could have been the norm rather than the non-continuity exception. And bear in mind that Millar and Morrison were just about to hit the big time with their Marvel work. All that energy could have been directed into DC’s flagship titles.

Because it didn’t what we got were more lacklustre editorially-driven storylines (and once again poor old Joe Kelly went from the frying pan to, well, another frying pan). Jeph Loeb’s Superman set the foundations for President Lex, Superman/Batman, and through them the current Crises. In short, everything that the DCU is today. And regardless of my dislike of Marvel’s recent storylines, there’s no doubt they are far more popular than their rivals.

More tomorrow.

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I grew up reading The Flash. The comic is the only one I’ve bought consistantly for, what, fifteen years? It even edges Green Lantern out as being the title I’ve got the most issues of. There’s little in comics that would excite me more than for the Flash to undergo a spectacular return.

Of course, the Flash I’m writing about is Wally West.

West’s been the Flash for twenty-odd years. Long enough that he’s the Flash to a whole generation (and let’s face it, probably the last generation) of comic book readers. And I understand why people like J. Michael Straczynski want to see Barry Allen return, really I do. Hal Jordan’s return was brilliant, and I’d like Tony Stark back too. But again, like the Legion of Super-heroes, I’ve got no sentimental connection to poor old Barry.

From recent hints, I wouldn’t bet against JMS being the one to bring him back, presumably in yet another relaunch. Regardless of anyone’s opinion of his writing (and even though I dropped the title around Civil War his run on Amazing is the longest I’ve ever bought a Spider-Man title for because as much as I like Spider-Man, I’ve rarely found the comics to be any good), the man is high-profile enough to shift a heck of a lot of comics, which is something the Flash really needs at the minute from looking at the sales figures.

The question is where did DC go wrong with what used to be one of the most consistantly good titles of all time? I think part of the problem may actually be down to the very thing that made the comic so good for so long: Mark Waid.

If it wasn’t for Waid, I doubt I’d still be reading comics. His and Mike Wieringo’s run was so far above what anyone else at the Big Two were doing in the 90s it wasn’t funny. He foreshadowed Grant Morrison’s legendary JLA run, and it was a shitty, shitty decision on DC editorial’s part that the four Superman titles weren’t passed to him, Morrison, Mark Millar and Tom Peyer to do whatever the hell they wanted to do. In fact, I’d go as far to say that the ramifications of that decision are without doubt the foundation of DC’s current troubles. Grant Morrison’s New X-Men and Millar’s Ultimates fundamentally altered Marvel’s approach to their comics (for better or worse), inspiring the current Big Events that are making the company so much money.

Going back to Waid, what made his Flash so engaging was the long-form story that he told over a hundred issues or so, of how Wally West grew up. He took the work started by Mike Barron in the very first issue of the series and progressed it to it’s logical conclusion. And that was the problem: West’s story arc was essentially complete. There was nowhere really for the next writer to go.

Geoff Johns, after a seriously poor first arc, solved the problem by making his story arc all about the Flash’s Rogues Gallery. He extrapolated on events and themes Waid had explored, at first addressing the Rogues individually and then as a group in the Rogues War. It’s in these issues we see the blueprints of greater plans for DC’s current Crises (once again, for better or worse). Sure, the magical recreation of West’s secret ID and his wife’s pregnancy moved his story forward, but ultimately incrementally, and not on the scale of Waid’s work or indeed the focus Johns’ reserved for the villains.

It all went to crap after Infinite Crisis and the elevation of Bart Allen to main character. Despite the promise of Issue 1’s awesome cover, the Fastest Man Alive was just rubbish. The plot didn’t make a huge amount of sense, and Allen’s character was both boring and at odds with what had gone before. Twelve issues later and it all ground to a halt with his death, the only tragedy that the event was so inconsequential.

Impulse was always a bit of a wasted character. Oh, he was good enough in his own title and in Young Justice, and I’m sure Johns did a decent job with him in Teen Titans (though I’ve never read it). But he was never Wally West’s sidekick, and that really should have been his purpose. Instead of shuffling him off into a different book after his introduction, Waid really should have made him an integral part of the parent title. In fact, I suspect that some of the less effective later Waid issues would have been improved by using Bart as a dramatic device: Wally West’s next challenge should have been as a father.

Which is exactly what Waid tried to do on his return to the title after Fastest Man Alive got the boot. Unfortunately the damage has already been done momentum-wise, and besides, I get the feeling that Waid didn’t really want to come back. The first six issues have been lacklustre and have finally convinced me to drop the title. Like I’ve said before, buying things just because I always have isn’t a good enough reason anymore.

But not to end on a down note, you know what I think would work? The Flash as a team book. If we have to have Barry Allen back, let’s bring his grandson back too. Let’s do a Green Lantern: if there’s no reason to get rid of Kyle, there’s no reason to boot Wally. And depite my ambivalence about JSAers, Jay Garrick’s awesome, so get him in too (in fact, I still believe the best solution following Infinite Crisis wasn’t giving the teenager his own series, but rather the old guy). If the conclusion of one character arc ultimately crippled the old series, let’s start again with many.

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Many fans of the JSA are drawn to the team’s ‘legacy’ aspect, i.e. the idea of heroic powers/mantles being handed down from one generation to the next. An odd thing, I would have thought, for Americans to be attracted to, at least conceptually, as my understanding is that one of the fundemental foundations of US society is an outright rejection of the concept of aristocracy.

I notice some of you sniggering at the back.

As is obvious to all but the most blinkered observers, human societies tend towards the accumulation of power and resources to a limited few who then pass it along family lines. Regardless of what any given Constitution may intend, we all seem to end up with Kennedys and Bushes and Windsors and Murdochs and all the rest. You may have guessed that I’m no royalist, and it seems to me that the JSA is very much a royal family.

I’m not particularly compelled by the characters, or their children, having never read much of the seventies Earth-2 iteration, or any of the original Infinity, Inc. And in wider terms, I’ve always felt that the JSA’s existence undermines the importance of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman as the DCU’s original heroes. Also, it always annoys me that the Society’s co-opted Superman’s original super-powered villain, the Ultra-Humanite.

I think the title relies too much on nostalgia and good-will that I really don’t have towards the line-up. I don’t care for the concept of power inherited rather than earned, to say nothing of a concept of an earlier, more innocent “Golden Age”. Does the title ever cop to the fact that these characters actually come from a time of rampant racism, homophobia, widespread ill-health and financial depression, where child and spouse abuse was routinely dismissed if not enabled? To be honest, I’ll willingly withdraw this point if necessary as it may be that I’ve just not read the stories where these issues are addressed.

Anyway, after saying all of that, I’ll admit this: I may not care much about the other characters, but I do think the modern age Mister Terrific is brilliant, and that Jay Garrick is one of my favourite characters. I know, I know, I was just banging on about disliking superhero families, but I’m a huge Flash fan, and the Flashes have the most comprehensive ‘family’ of any set of heroes. I don’t think I’ve got any particularly good defence for this; I may just have to put it down to my own hypocrisy. I expect it’s because I find Mark Waid’s Flash run more engaging that Geoff Johns’ JSA work (as a quick aside, I actually really like Geoff Johns’ stuff. It’s only his JSA work that I don’t really enjoy), or that I find it easier to put aside political interpretations when it comes to a character I really like (Batman, after all, is hardly a Marxist) rather than a group of characters I could take or leave.

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