REVIEW: The Flash, #36

[CBR News]

Robert Venditti, Van Jensen, Brett Booth, Andre Coelho, and Norm Rapmund give us a tale of two Flashes in "The Flash" #36, as each iteration of Barry Allen struggles to orient himself to his surroundings.


Full review here.

[DemonRin]

Wait, what? There's a couple of things about this review that don't add up...

1: You state that he had a hard time remembering his day-to-day life from five years earlier? No. Blue Flash came from TWENTY Years in the future. He made several stops on the way back to the "Present", the most recent of which being at the 5 year mark, but in Flash 30, it clearly says he comes from Twenty Years in the future. This doesn't seem like a big deal at first, but it plays into the big other problem I have with this review.

2: This review is acting like Blue Flash killing criminals he has future knowledge of is a new/shocking thing. The "Darkening" of him as it calls it. Uh... no. He did nothing in this issue that was any more dark than the things he's been doing every time we've seen him since he first debuted in Flash 30. So far, His body count is: Killed Grodd, Killed Mirror Master, was willing to kill Trickster, Killed Reverse Flash, Tried to kill Present!Barry Allen, succeeded in killing Future!Wally. Killing Future!Wally may have been a mistake, but it was done while in the process of ACTUALLY trying to kill Present!Barry... The events of this issue isn't a further darkening of the character, just a reaffirmation that fixing the rift in the Speed Force didn't soften his stance on fixing things his future knowledge tells him he missed with deadly force.

I think #1 Caused #2. You got it in your head at one point that Blue Flash was from 5 years in the future, making this darkening seem off base, when in reality, he's from TWENTY years in the future. He's explained repeatedly, every time he killed someone thus far, that after the Rip in the Speed Force was formed, he started "Losing" time, meaning there were pockets of time he couldn't account for. Those pockets caused him to miss big events and people died as a result. Wally's death, Iris' Crippling, those people the Trickster Killed, the Trickster himself committing suicide over it, those people that died in the museum because of the Earthquake thanks to Mirror Master. In his first appearance, you see him at one point standing in front of a wall COVERED in newspaper clippings with various versions of "Major disaster, people dead, where was Flash?!".

He went this dark due to YEARS of missing time (Over 20 years he lost 2-3 years of time total) and each of those pockets of lost time potentially cost people their lives. The years of guilt due to that compounded onto losing and hurting the people close to him is what did it, not simply losing Wally.

[Radix]

One more person to add to the body count, 20 year Barry killed the future Barry from 5 years in the future, which is how 5 years Wally got his powers.