Flash Comics #3 Preview: P-R-I-D-E

It occurs to me that every issue of Manapul and Buccellato's The Flash now has a mind blowing title page with the intro line:

DC COMICS PROUDLY PRESENTS...

I'm pretty sure it was there before the relaunch. But it's only since they took over that I want to get out of my seat and yell, "DAMN STRAIGHT!" every time I read that.

Is Kaine the Poor Man's Ben Reilly?

So as of ASM 673, it's all but confirmed that Kaine will be the new Scarlet Spider.

It's still possible that Marvel could pull something out of left field, seeing as how the Jackal is running around again. But it's doubtful that they'd go to such great efforts to establish Kaine as a major player in Spider-Island only to sideline him with a last minute reveal.

The Scarlet Spider Returns in January 2012

I'm not sure how I feel about this.

One the one hand, it feels like Kaine has been shoe-horned into the role. He's no longer degenerating, his scars are gone, and he can't see the future. Which begs the question, why not Ben? Marvel has said repeatedly that Ben's story is over, but that's a harder case to make when Kaine has just been stripped of everything recognizably Kaine to essentially become Ben Reilly 2.0.

It occurs to me that I'm being unfair, but Kaine's airport encounter with Peter leaves me concerned. Kaine claims he's there to see Aunt May off one last time before he goes on the run. Peter reminds him, "I have an Aunt May. You have a test tube." Regrettably, Kaine lets the comment pass without throwing Peter through a wall.

"You talkin' 'bout my Test Tube Mama?!!"

Well, let me amend that. A Kaine throwdown would have derailed an otherwise excellent issue that isn't really about him. So perhaps it's regrettable from a characterization standpoint, but the issue itself probably benefits from Kaine's self-restraint.

And maybe--just maybe--he does, too. On a spiritual level, it's important for even the most tortured heroes and villains to reflect our capacity for change, however small. From a storytelling perspective, it's critical to mix things up to keep readers interested. Readers invest a lot of time and money into these characters. We want to feel as though we're going on a journey with them, not walking around in circles (even when we are).

Inevitably, what works for some doesn't for others. Controversy is better than apathy. I actually bought ASM 673 off of comixology as soon as it was available based solely on my interest in the Scarlet Spider. Sure, I could have just read spoilers online, but that seems unfair to the creators who work hard to generate interest in these stories. If you're intrigued enough to look it up, you generally ought to be willing to pay. But I digress. The upshot is that I came away very skeptical about Kaine filling the Reilly vacuum, but very impressed with ASM 673. So even if I drop Scarlet Spider after a few issues, you can put this in the win column for Marvel.

But back to my skepticism. To make a transition like this work, you have to sell the change as something organic. It's getting harder (not impossible, mind you) to pass off personality makeovers with off the wall explanations. Seasoned readers expect something more organic than a brain transplant or a yellow fear monster. Actually, scratch that last one. Geoff Johns totally pimped Hal Jordan's ride from insanity to heroism (with a nice assist from DeMatteis' Spectre run).

Johns' Green Lantern: Rebirth goes a long way toward illustrating that even the most awkward transition can work, while his Flash: Rebirth shows that even the most sensible one can fall a little flat. (For the record, Manapaul and Buccellato's The Flash is one of the best reads out there right now). I won't apologize for going into a gamechanging Kaine story with expectations, but it's fair to say that there's really no way to tell how successful Christopher Yost's take will be until it's on the page. I enjoy his animated work enough to say that if Scarlet Spider fails it won't be for lack of talent.

So why should Ben Reilly fans give the title a shot? Well, for one thing, I think our common question is a hauntingly familiar one. Because it's basically the flipside of the biggie that gets thrown my way every time I make a case for bringing Reilly back.

Isn't Ben Reilly just the poor man's Peter Parker?

When someone asks the inevitable question, I resist the urge to shout "Hell No!" and refer them to this quote from J.M. DeMatteis (the definitive Ben Reilly and Kaine writer):

"The minute I stepped inside Ben's head, it was clear that he was a very different character than Peter. A very different man. They had, at their core, the same values, the same inherent decency; but Ben's life experience had changed him drastically. He was tougher, I think; far more troubled. Quicker to anger. Less respectful of the law. His heart had been wounded so much that he had a hard shell around it. Yet, beneath that shell, aspects of the Peter Parker we knew and loved remained. That was the fun of Ben Reilly: he was Peter Parker and, at the same time he wasn't. Working on The Lost Years...was, for me, the highlight of the Clone Saga. Digging deeper into Ben's past, deepening the character of Kaine, working with the great John Romita, Jr.: what a wonderful experience. To be perfectly honest, I think Ben was, in many ways, a better character than Peter. Certainly more layered and interesting. And that's coming from a guy who thinks that Peter Parker is one of the most layered and interesting characters in the history of comics."


'Nuff Said on that. :)

Now I don't think we can apply this logic to the specifics of Kaine's new arc, because we have yet to see where Yost is going with him. Like I said, I'm still skeptical. But viewing that skepticism through the lens of Ben Reilly critics puts my doubts in perspective. It's worth remembering that fans who wouldn't give Ben Reilly a fair shot contributed to his untimely death.

Fans like me.

I enjoyed Ben Reilly during the Clone Saga but I HATED him as Peter's replacement. I was right there with the "He's not my Spider-Man!" crowd back in the day. I never wrote an angry letter or quit reading, but I practically cheered when Marvel rolled out the return of "the one, true Spider-Man." it took me years to come around to the genius of the concept, but Ben Reilly means a lot to me now.

So I'll be giving Christopher Yost a chance to sell me and I hope you will, too. It wouldn't be the first time I've been won over to an edgy character softening just a bit. Fans who didn't give Ben Reilly a shot as Spider-Man missed out on something special, and that could just as easily be true of fans who won't cut Kaine any slack as the Scarlet Spider. That's all I say for now, but check back in with me when Scarlet Spider hits stands.

And remember Marvel, Scarlet Spider's success or failure will only reinforce the necessity of Ben Reilly's return! :)

He'll be back!



Flash #2: The Whirlwind Adventures of the Fastest Thinker Alive!

The Flash is about speed, but we often forget it's really about motion.


Luckily, Manapul and Buccellato are there to remind us. When I read their first issue of The Flash, I said it was the Barry Allen we'd been promised since his return. I wasn't quite sure what that meant until this month. I had an idea, but it was hard to pin down. I kept returning to vague platitudes that meant little more than, "I love this comic." You know, things like, "A return to Silver Age glory." What does that even mean, right? Especially for a guy who wasn't even around during the Silver Age.

It means a lot, actually.

The first Flash story I ever read was Mark Waid's The Return of Barry Allen saga. So in a fun twist, my first exposure to Barry Allen wasn't him at all! The story was really about Wally shedding the dead weight of his uncle's legacy before he could fully embrace it. "Barry" was none other than Professor Zoom, the hopeless nostalgic destined to die at his idol's hands years before Wally took up the mantle. Waid, the ultimate Silver Age enthusiast, was sending a clear message:

It's time to move forward.



REMEMBER, KIDS: NOSTALGIA KILLS!



Well, message received. From that moment on, Wally was "my" Flash. I knew who Wally was and how he was connected to the Flash legacy. His story was about being your own man. In the coming years, he'd learn to do things his uncle never dreamed of. When Waid returned for a second run, he'd even become a father. Things had come full circle. 

Perhaps it's that sense of completion that did Wally in. I still think there was more to be done--he was, after all, "my" Flash. But it's undeniable that some people viewed Wally's status as a family man in the same way they'd look at Peter Parker waking up one day and not feeling guilty anymore:

The End.

Fini.

So I was excited about Barry Allen's return when DC teased the possibility of a Flash Family backup feature. It felt like the logical place for Barry and Wally's journeys to meet. Maybe their new dynamic would be mutually beneficial. They had a lot of catching up to do, after all, and the idea of flipping their relationship so that Barry had as much to learn from Wally as vice versa was exciting. Geoff Johns had put Hal Jordan front and center without neglecting Kyle Rayner, so there was precedent. But thenWally pretty much dropped off the radar after Flash: Rebirth, never to return.




Equals at Last!

 Looking back at Geoff Johns' post-Rebirth Flash, I can see why DC felt the need to take Wally off the table. There was nothing especially bad about Johns' take. But when you compare the way he re-integrated Hal Jordan and Barry Allen into the DCU, I think it's fair to say that lightning didn't strike twice. It makes sense that DC wasn't in any hurry to pile on competitors for the Flash mantle, because Barry Allen was already in a race with himself that he couldn't win.

That's why I think Geoff Johns' Barry Allen never quite gelled for me. I had all these preconceptions going in about what Barry Allen's return would mean, and the reality didn't line up. I expected we'd get a gentle, smiling hero of the old school variety, the kind who's not motivated by guilt or greed and loves what he does. Instead, Johns locked Barry's return into a new arc where Zoom changed history and killed his mother. Barry suddenly seemed like oh-so-many other obssessive superheroes who can't let go of the past.

It was The Return of Barry Allen all over again, only this time I was playing the role of Wally West. I kept falling back on Will Rogers' adage, "Things ain't what they used to be, and probably never was." Maybe I had unrealistic expectations about what the Silver Age would look like filtered through a modern consciousness. But I couldn't shake this feeling that Barry Allen came across like a poor man's Bruce Wayne. In spite of the fact that I had a paid subscription to the Flash, I left several issues unread and never picked up Flashpoint. I moved from excitment to disappointment to apathy.

Enter the DC relaunch. I picked up more comics in the month of October than I have in years, and was pretty impressed. So I entered Manapul and Baccullato's Flash #1 with cautious optimism. I went in thinking maybe--just maybe-- they'd tap into something the character had lacking, which makes it sound kind of like a vitamin deficiency. Barry had struck me as a character who could use an extra cup of coffee, at any rate.

So no one was more surprised than me when I came away feeling like I'd plugged into everything the industry has been missing.

If that sounds like hyperbole, well maybe. But I tend to think that every comic should make you feel that way. When I put down $3 for an issue, you owe me something I can't get anywhere else. A voice, if you will. So now get back to that vague platitude: a return to Silver Age glory. Only now it doesn't seem so empty.

If there's one character who embodies the Silver Age more than any other, it's Barry Allen. He is, after all, the guy who kicked the whole thing off in Showcase #4. And we're talking about more than a template, an aesthetic or a sensibility. Barry Allen very well might have saved the mainstream superhero from extinction. So what exactly made Barry so special?

Motion.

BUY MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

That iconic image of the Flash bursting out of a film reel is about so much more than a guy who runs fast. Only you or I would even call it running. Barry would see that description as crude, like telling the Buddha he's just sitting under a tree. This is a man whose entire world is defined by motion. This is the hero who's living life in 4D.

When we talk about getting back to Silver Age basics, I think we mean that you have to constantly sell this idea that the Flash doesn't look at the world the same way we do. It's more than throwing out some wavy motion lines and calling it a day. You need to convince readers the Flash is different at the celluar level.

That's why I think The Flash benefits so much from having the artist and colorist as co-writers. They seem less likely to draw crude distinctions between word and art, right down to the lettering. Manapul and Buccellato know it's all connected, and that puts them more in tune with Barry's worldview.






Is this what it was like to be a kid when SHOWCASE #4 hit stands?

The costume change and title sequence from issue #1 have that same POP! factor as Barry's debut. THIS is a guy I want to read about....if I can keep up with him, that is. Manapul and Buccellato sell a man who pushes the limits of physics by doing the same with the comic book format. And they take it to the next level in the their second issue, when Dr. Elias points out that Barry Allen can think as quickly as he can run. Check out what happens when Barry taps into the power of probability:



   

So what makes this something comparable to Barry's Silver Age debut? I guess if I had to sum it up, I'd just say this:

It's more about what heroes (and the medium) can do than what they can't.