It’s all come down to this: Flash vs. Thawne. It’s a tale as old as time. But things are different than what we’ve been accustomed to – here, Thawne is more akin to Brian Michael Bendis’ Ultimate Green Goblin, as this villain is a giant monstrosity of a beast that seems like something out of a Resident Evil game. However, Absolute Flash isn’t alone, he’s got The Rogues on his side. Jeff Lemire and Nick Robles close out their first year on Absolute Flash in a very similar way to how they started this series.
DC
I wasn’t sure what direction this series would take the Thawnes, and I’m still surprised with how they were used. Eleanor Thawne seemed to serve a huge purpose for the first ten issues and seemingly fell off near the end, leaving both her fate and purpose uncertain. Meanwhile, I felt that Eobard Thawne felt like nothing but a vessel for delivering a stereotypical third act with a big showdown. However, I was appreciative for their overall purpose in delivering Wally with his first tragedy as a hero. If you thought the death of Barry Allen was Wally’s devastating loss, think again. While the Thawnes themselves didn’t seem to accomplish much worthwhile in the story, I think their direct impact on Wally West will be very important for the character moving forward. It will be interesting to see what direction Wally places himself as a hero moving forward after the way things wrap up with him being just as alone as he was at the start of this series.
DC
I absolutely love the way Nick Robles draws speedsters. This issue is full of big action sequences that benefit from Robles’ sharp linework to illustrate these scenes on the grand scale they’re worthy of. While I didn’t like how many double spread pages this issue had as it made the story feel more rushed than it should have, I appreciate the level of detail that Robles put into this issue. Additionally, Adriano Lucas did a spectacular job bringing this story to another level by adding sharp and intense colors to it. While this story wasn’t a ‘Crisis’ event, the utilization of red hues in the sky didn’t go unnoticed and helped emphasize how critical of a threat Wally was up against. I found this issue to be well drawn but accelerated the pacing of the story more than it should have.
As a whole, I wasn’t the biggest fan of Absolute Flash #12 and feel it’s a disappointing continuation of the series feeling directionless. It’s been a year since the series took off, and we still don’t exactly know why Wally should be considered a superhero, if he even is one at all. We don’t know what role he has in the greater Absolute Universe. And we don’t know what defines him at his core aside from an overarching feeling of loneliness and angst. That doesn’t make for a compelling story. Nor does the underutilization of both Thawnes. While it was interesting to see them be used in the shadows and what their role was in the making of the Still Force, it doesn’t seem to matter much as of yet. This is a rather lackluster conclusion of the series’ second arc, but is still worth picking up if you’ve been consistently reading Absolute Flash.
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