The Flash Family’s fightback against would-be world conquerors The Fraction continues. The heroes launched an assault on the aliens’ Earth HQ last issue and it was all going pretty swimmingly until Wally West was killed along the way.
The surviving heroes aren’t giving up but having lost the element of surprise, the forces of The Fraction are targeting them. And the scariest of all the alien attackers?
Miss Murder. And while tween speedster Irey West is surrounded by superheroes, they’re not moving at the super-accelerated rate of the speedsters and Speed Force thieves The Fraction. In the One-Minute War, Superman, Captain Atom and co are tin soldiers. Then again, whether they’re moving or not, invulnerable people still have their uses. People like Irey’s brother Jai.
Just brilliant. And Irey doesn’t stop there, proving the MVP of this chapter, boldly announcing her arrival as a fully fledged Flash.
Writer Jeremy Adams has been promising a fresh codename for Irey for awhile – Jai recently landed on Surge for himself – and, well, Thunderheart does sound like something a sweet little girl, even one as tough as Irey, might pick. Very My Little Speedster. I was expecting Miss Motion or Flash Lass or something, but if Irey likes it, great.
As well as Jai – seeing him flung around like a brick throughout the issue is hilarious – Irey teams up with Superman. It’s not going to make an issue of DC Comics Presents, but it’s a very clever moment.
Senior speedsters Jay Garrick and Barry Allen also have a good showing, with Jay getting very creative when it comes to escaping a trap, and Barry overcoming the fug he’s been in since love-of-his-life Iris West died in the first flush of the Fraction incursion.
All of which leads to the final page hero shot of one of our speedsters looking beyond formidable, ready to show The Fraction what’s what.
No, it’s not Max Mercury. He’s the hero least well served by this storyline so far, with very little to do and few words spoken. But Adams seems to be working his way through everyone, so perhaps the Zen Master of Speed’s time will come next issue. Whatever path the story takes, I’ve no doubt it’ll be hugely entertaining as Adams continues his instant classic run. No one at DC is doing a better, more consistent job of balancing personalities, plot, suspense and surprises. Surprises like the result of an alien’s would-be vivisection of Jay, which made me smile madly.
Roger Cruz continues to do a bang-up job with the visuals, helping the story move at a million miles an hour without short-changing the character moments. Irey’s determination, Linda’s sadness at the loss of Wally, Barry’s return to form – it’s all good. Very good, with the inks of Wellington Dias and colours of Luis Guerrero adding the finishing touches. As for the letters of Rob Leigh, he earns his bonus points this time for giving Barry an internal monologue box nodding to his Silver Age heyday.
Throw in a stellar cover by Taurin Clarke previewing Irey’s coming costume – it’s beyond past time she dumped the Impulse look – and you have a fantastic package. So far as I know The Flash is DC’s only twice-monthly superhero book; issues like this show why it deserves the honour.
Too Dangerous For a Girl 2 
” So far as I know The Flash is DC’s only twice-monthly superhero book; issues like this show why it deserves the honour.”
It does. . .but I think it’s more because issue #800 is coming and bi-weekly issues tend to happen when approaching big anniversary numbers.
“. . .make it so that it never happened in the first place!”
Huh? Sounds like Flashpoint II!
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It’ll be Flashpoint The Sequel only if going back in time two seconds causes things to change that happened years earlier.
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I’ve never heard/noticed that we get comics fortnightly when a big number is coming up. Is Wonder Woman biweekly right now?
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Wonder Woman got the “fortnite” (Ha!) treatment for #750. Flash didn’t, so I guess they’re making it up to him? Batman was bi-weekly from Detective Comics #1000 and #1027. I expect they’ll do the same for Superman as he gets closer to #900; he’s currently at #844 or #845.
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Miss Murder is ringing a couple of bells, apart from the unfortunate resemblence to BWL. A green skinned, super fast, strong, flying telepath? Didn’t know it a method was needed but wondering if this isn’t going to reintroduce Miss Martian to the new DC reality.
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Yeah, pretty clear that this is a Dark Multiverse version of Miss Martian. There was a even a line at some point that she was once a hero…
Also, man, the bit with Superman was just awesome. He can likely sort of see and hear everything happening but still can’t quite catch up…and then he does just enough.. 🙂
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‘Is it a very slow bird…’
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That never crossed my tiny mind. Interesting!
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I’d hate Thunderheart if it was likely to be permanent. Wallace will be Flash first so Irey can graduate to Kid Flash before dropping the kid part.
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That makes sense. Thunderheart feels like a Kitty Pryde-style deliberately poor name.
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I think it is fitting that The Flash comes out more often than other comics. Faster, if you will.
I don’t really care for Thunderheart. I was hoping for something more like Bolt or Whiz Kid (Get it?) or maybe something simple like Glimmer or Glint (How she appears to normals when running)
This has been a fantastic run. I am sorry to hear it is coming to an end as it seems all good things must, but I am hoping DC takes this talent seriously as well as his apparent love for these characters and comes upon with another Flash title for him to write. Whiz Comics, maybe, as I have mentioned on Twitter
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Oh, Whiz Kid is fantastic! I hope that happened.
You may have seen how totally down I am that Jeremy Adams is being from the book. I like Si Spurrier on certain books eg Hellblazer… maybe he has an affinity for Flash. I do remember not enjoying the last time Flash went ‘cosmic’.
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I like some Spurrier a lot, more of it just a little, and some repels me. The man’s writing is determinedly weird and I loathe the rest. He never seems to ask himself ‘is this going too far’ or ‘should I explain this a little better’.
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Glimmer is very good, you are better at naming characters than actual DC writers! “Thunderheart” sounds like something from an old Western comic book and it’s too close to Marvel’s Ironheart (another crap name, what exactly has RiRi’s supposed heart got to do with anything. There’s a lot of dumdum thinking around now, apparently it is okay for a character to be Iron MAN still but for a female character to be “Woman” or “Girl” et cetera is sexist… Um, only if you think being female is a bad thing ya morons. Boy, what a tangential parenthetical rant!).
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I still don’t get how, or why, Jane Foster in a helmet would call herself. Thor.
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True. Jason Aaron put words in the mouths of villains to head off the stupidity of Jane – whose name is not Thor – calling herself Thor while Thor didn’t because he considered himself unworthy of the enchanted Uru mallet Mjolnir (a.k.a. his Big Hammer), even though in flashbacks we see the young Thor – whose name IS Thor – calling himself Thor. I had absolutely NO problem with Jane wielding the hammer or having the power of Thor unlike the many sexist ratfinks who DID but thought having her call herself Thor was stupid…because it was stupid. Beta Ray Bill didn’t say “No, it’s Thor now actually.” so why would Jane. Yes, it was because of the mystery of who was now empowered originally but it was still dumb and worse was the notion that finding that particular aspect goofy was sexist or, worse, misogynist while there were real sexists and misogynists losing their ever-loving minds over their being a woman with the power of Thor. Illogical.
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Thanks George, that makes sense. Your words, I mean, not the ‘Jane IS Thor’ bit. I always liked Jane and hated the way she was dumped and immediately replaced by Sif when she almost became a god a million years ago. And mindwiped, and thrown into another dimension… Now she’s a Valkyrie… she was so much more interesting as a ‘mere’ mortal, I liked that she went from nurse to doctor, and had a family, before everything went a bit Terry Long. If she must be a superheroine, Marvel might at least let her have her own identity.
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Even after she stepped down from Thorring they made her Valkyrie another already extent character. I know it’s difficult (and Dani from the Not-So New Mutants had been a Valkyrie – with a flying horse and everything! – for decades) but surely they could do something *new*? It’s similar to how Miles Morales made sense as Spider-Man in the Ultimate Universe after Ultimate Peter Parker died/”died” (which was dubious in itself) but little in the primary Marvel Universe. I enjoyed the Bendis version -when in the Ultimate Marvel Universe – even when he was occasionally Mary Sueing it but in the primary Marvel Universe it appears everyone IN-UNIVERSE thinks he’s great while outside of it *some* people seem to appreciate him as a symbol rather than as a character/person even as they applaud him. He’s got his own Clone Saga, a Prowler, and an alternative universe knock-off Gwen Stacy, one of his villains is Ultimate Norman Osborn… Can you see the problem? I know you can! They. Must. Try. Harder.
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Spot on! Marvel needs to clear out the ‘clone’ characters.
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…and then DC cancels The Flash, shuffles Jeremy Adams off to a new Hal Jordan Green Lantern series, and relaunches The Flash with a new #1 with a highly inappropriate writer Si Spurrier (never trust anyone who calls themselves So, it’s like anyone named Stephen/Steven who calls themselves “Ste”, more of a grunt than a name… Ha!) and an ill-advised new direction… Who is running DC, chimpanzees?! Honestly, Martin, seek out the description for the new Flash premise: look on DC’s works ye mighty and despair. Or laugh hysterically.
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I read it and despaired.
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“So”?! That should be *Si* obvs. GAH!
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I’ve read the next issue, 795, and when I got to that last page, and realized the connection between all the characters, I was over the moon! I’m so glad I was away from the internet for two weeks and didn’t have that spoiled.
As for Si Spurrier taking over Flash… well, I’m not crazy about it. I want much, MUCH more Jeremy Adams Flash than we’re getting. (Though I suspect Adams will also give us some of the best Green Lantern comics in quite some time, too.) But Spurrier is a good writer, and delivered one of the best runs of Hellblazer in ages — basically the equivalent of the restoration Adams did for Wally, albeit on a book with a very different tone. So I admire his talent, and know he can tell a great story. But will the story he tells be right for the Flash? I’m willing to be convinced, but I can’t say I’m onboard from the jump.
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