Category: Flash
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I think Bates must have just learned the word “erg” before writing this issue because he uses it ostentatiously. He also seemingly anticipates Tron–maybe the previews were already out–and puts Flash inside a really lame video game. The coolest part of the issue is how Bates doesn’t worry about resolution, just telling the best story…
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It’s a good issue for Bates and Infantino. Bates comes up with a lot of set pieces, but doesn’t hurry them. Infantino actually has time to make them visually interesting. This issue has the big reveal with Barry’s evil dad and it’s only about six issues too late. Maybe five. It would have been better…
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I was hoping Bates would keep Flash running smoothly after the previous issue, but this one doesn’t bode well for the series keeping up. Even more than usual, Barry–and the Flash–are less characters in the comic than they are movable pieces for Bates’s plot. There’s not even the attempt at showing the Flash’s fantastic powers.…
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Bates seems a lot more comfortable and assured this issue–maybe assured isn’t the right word. He’s ambitious again, both in plotting the feature story and how he gets through it. The only weak part is when the Flash has to beg for Barry Allen’s job back. It reveals how little work Bates does on either…
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About eighty-five percent of the issue is spent on flashbacks. Apparently Barry is in a mental institution, covered in bandages, and he’s been imagining the Flash side of his life for years. As he remembers things to keep himself sane, Bates and Infantino visualize them. These little stories tend to be short, sometimes just a…
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It’s too bad, but not even the Infantino art can make this issue particularly worthwhile. There’s a real lack of personality to all of it; Bates is just building towards the big event with Barry’s evil father (I wonder if he’s secretly Reverse Flash, could he be) in the next issue. Not even a scene…
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I’m not sure how to phrase it exactly, because Bates hasn’t exactly dumbed down The Flash for Infantino’s return to the book, but he’s definitely dulled the characters down. It’s like he’s changing the audience, aiming younger. There’s no character development anymore and the character details are lame. One colleague of Barry’s wonders if he’s…
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There’s something a little off about this issue. While Infantino is (hopefully) the new regular artist and he definitely has some good work in the issue–he can turn the smallest panel into the fullest one with all the movement and action–Bates is a little tone deaf. The problem might be the two-fold nature of the…
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What’s strange about the feature is how much better Bates writes Elongated Man and Sue Dibney than he does Barry and the Flash. There’s a lot of charm to his characterizations of the Dibneys and it breathes a lot of life into the story. Of course, the story also has Carmine Infantino artwork and every…
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Heck gets lazy on the strangest stuff for the feature in this issue. It’s not the super gorillas or all the different locations in Bates’s script… no, it’s the people. Whenever Heck is drawing a person, it just doesn’t work out. It’s like he spent all his time on everything else and rushed through the…
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The super gorillas. I forgot about the super gorillas. If Bates likes writing anything more than strange applications of Flash’s powers, it’s got to be these super gorillas. But the super gorillas aren’t interesting to talk about, because it’s just the overdone dialogue and the gorillas talking about their intelligence. The Flash’s powers and their…
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Conway fills in on both stories–one where the Pied Piper comes up with a new plan to get rich, with Heck on art, and then the Firestorm team-up, with art from Perez and Rodin Rodriguez. The Firestorm team-up is goofy, with Conway not giving Perez much to draw, though I suppose there’s an interesting deep…
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Bates sure does try hard to get the reader to pay attention. He has another sequence this issue where the Flash discovers some clue and Bates calls out the reader to try to figure it out too. There’s only one problem with it… Bates still writes the revelation scene like the reader didn’t figure it…
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Even though Bates comes up with a lot of excitement for the Flash this issue–and the reader too–there’s something off about the feature story. Bates and Heck (inking himself to questionable success) put Barry through a bunch of different types of action. There’s a couple regular fights, a supervillain fight, a mid-town disaster sequence with…
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The way Cary Bates writes The Flash, there’s nothing super-speed can’t accomplish. But it’s so darn likable, it’s hard to get stopped up by the severe gaps in logic. Maybe not gaps… canyons. Canyons in logic. This issue has the incredible story of a young woman believing Barry Allen is out to kill her. The…
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Cary Bates sure does like exposition. It’s practically endless in the Flash feature, with Bates writing really long paragraphs of thought balloons explaining why The Flash can do what he can do. None of it makes any sense, but it sounds scientific. The story has The Flash trying to sort of two villains who are…
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Once again, neither Flash story is particularly impressive, though Infantino (inked both stories by Frank Giacoia) creates some neat-looking space ships in the first one. The second has some great art for maybe three pages, then the quality falls off a lot. The stories themselves read fast and don’t have much personality or thought. For…
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What a bad issue for Flash. Joe Giella’s inks on Infantino don’t have any perspective. Faces are flat, even with features implying depth. Then, on the second story, Frank Giacoia’s inks give everything a sketchy look. Neither story looks like each other, much less the standard Infantino. Robert Kanigher writes the first story, with Barry…
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