The Flash #34 review

If you’ve developed a new super power but can’t understand it, who you gonna call? Mr Terrific, the smartest man in the world his opinion. That’s Flash Wally West’s answer, it helps that he works for him… well, takes a salary, he’s rarely at the TerrificTech complex. There’s a lot of superheroing to be done.

Wally decides to attempt to hone the ability by gathering more and more information, flexing and seeing what he can see.

Oh dear. But he’s the fastest man alive, surely he has a good chance of stopping the gorilla invasion before it starts. Off he goes to Africa, and Gorilla City, where he tells the locals he just wants to talk.

Scratch that. And Wally’s ‘flashes of insight’ show only that whatever he tries, he gets thumped. So back to the US he pops, to do a little research.

And when he gets back to Africa, Wally tries something different.

That’s around a quarter of a two-page spread, and it’s clever stuff from writer Ryan North and artist Gavin Guidry.

I do appreciate it when creative teams give us something a little different from the norm, and this ‘choose your own adventure’ affair certainly qualifies. And it arises from a story beat we’ve had for the last few issues.

I did not enjoy it.

Maybe it’s because I never got into the ‘choose…’ books. I don’t remember exactly why, but it’s probably because, as here, they are incredibly tedious. The idea is that you get extra value for the material because the options lead to different mini-stories.

They just did my head in. Here I tried six times to get something out of the sequence but it felt like banging my head against a brick wall.

I expect that’s just me and everyone else loved it.

This wasn’t my favourite issue of the new creative team’s run. Mr Terrific’s theory about the ‘flashes of insight’ is as good as any, but it doesn’t half remind me of that weird ‘seeing around corners’ ability Barry Allen had in the early days of the New 52.

After a while, it stopped being a thing, being a bit of a story killer, and hopefully Wally’s new gimmick, a result of the DC KO event, will be gone soon too – super-speed is impressive enough, we don’t need ‘future vision’.

The Grodd business isn’t the whole issue, there also Mr Terrific testing Wally’s new trick by… weather forecasting. It’s not compelling, but does lead to a last-page encounter with a classic Rogue which will blossom next month.

This is another good-looking, well-written issue. Wally is on fine form and Mr Terrific is, as ever, benignly smug. Grodd, though, is out of character, coming across less as a brutal human hater than a rival down the local pub. It’s no wonder Wally treats the whole adventure not as a threat but a diversion from the day job.

I did enjoy the gorilla books. I’d buy them.

Guidry really does deserve huge credit for the work he puts into the ‘Choose…’ sequence, and colourist Adriano Lucas does a flipping great job bringing a board game energy to proceedings. The whole issue is toned nicely, with the ‘flashes of insight’ effects doing the job nicely.

As for letterer Buddy Beaudoin, a strangely soppy Gorilla Grodd logo apart, the font work is precise and perfect.

The cover illo by Guidry and Lucas is striking, it should bring in a few sales.

I’d be fascinated to hear what you thought of this issue if you’ve read it. And if not, does it sound your cup of tea?