Comics! Flash #2

Flash #2

Story by Francis Manapul & Brian Buccellato

Art by Francis Manapul

Ok, and this is coming from a Flash fan, but this comic needs to slow down. That's kinda hard for even me to wrap my brain around saying that for a Flash comic, but it is true.

We get a lot of information in this comic. A. Lot. Talk about an info dump. Flash can handle it though, but as a reader it is hard to store all this information in your short term memory enough to follow the steps that you are trying to take in telling the story.

Take the Speed Force situation. We go from Barry running on the treadmill, to being told to harness an energy that the scientist knows nothing about on one page, but is explaining how to master the skills that you can use from that energy on the next page, to having Flash become an expert on it two pages later. I understand that there is more to the Flash than "a guy who runs fast," but you are diving on the deep end of the pool into the details. Slow down a bit. Ease the reader into this concept. The art that tried to explain how the Flash views the world was slightly disorienting and made some decent sense. The concept is a big one, and I do see it as something fun to show the reader, but it just seemed like too much, too fast.

Maybe that is how the Flash is going to be, which is just fine. But in the category of best way to describe the Flash in an issue number two, I would have to say that Teen Titans portrayed more about Kid Flash than how the Flash was portrayed in his own book. We get the sense of Barry either being arrogant, or altruistic, or just out of touch with everything.

I never got a sense of where the action was taking place. For example, when Barry was in the lab, I had no idea where this lab was at. But then at the end of the issue, I got a text box telling where everything was taking place. It would have worked better at the beginning as well.

This all seems to be building up to have a lot of action happen next issue. But right now it seems like an overwhelming amount of story. It seems like there is little time left to characterization, which is going to be key in helping me understand why I should care about some of these characters and what will happen to them.

I really think this may be one comic that will benefit when I read all three of the issues together. At least, I hope so.

Words: 6/10

Pictures: 6/10 - they looked good, but I couldn't get squat of story telling from it. The one saving grace was the "Speed Thought" pages.

Recommend: Not really. Not even for seasoned pros to the Flash books.

Buy Next Issue: Yes, hoping that some of what was in this issue will make sense in the overall picture.