So far, I’ve found this volume of The Flash to be kind of a mixed bag. I thought it started off strong but eventually became meandering and, frankly, confusing. All-In injected a little life into the run, but Bad Moon Rising sucked the momentum out of it, and became, again, kind of confusing. The DC KO tie-in was a nice little course correction, but The Flash #31, the beginning of a new arc from a new team, feels like it’s back on track. What might be most exciting is you see so much of our world in it and you get to see how a superhero would tackle a problem that feels all too realistic.
Basically starting Fresh, The Flash #31 establishes the relationships and powers of Wally and his family – his wife Linda, his daughter, Iris, his son, Jay, and newborn, Wade. It isn’t long until He’s in costume fighting an unnatural disaster and the narration that Wally does here is excellent; Wally isn’t a scientist, that’s his mentor, Barry. So what Wally does is explain in plain fashion how his powers work and how it’s safe for him to do things that break physics.
DC
Usually Albert Einstein gets the credit for saying “If you can’t explain it to a six year old, you don’t know it yourself” but that’s exactly what Wally does here. This is nothing new to longtime Flash readers, but it’s hard to do something so complicated simply, and what Ryan North and Gavin Guidry have accomplished here is create a perfect jumping-on point for new readers 31 issues into a run. It’s genuinely impressive how smooth they make it all feel.
Part of that frictionless onboarding is the plot, which has people willingly put themselves in danger. Whoever can upload the best footage of themselves being saved by The Flash gets an instant $10,000 payout. This immediately puts Flash in a bind. He’s obviously going to save people in danger, but he doesn’t like that someone is exploiting his heroism for clicks… Or is it? The end of the book hints that this is all part of a bigger plan to sow chaos and disorder in Central City.
In addition to a clean entry point for new readers, the art is just phenomenal to look at, and has its own clean and smooth qualities as well. Penciller Gavin Guidry and colorist Adriano Lucas have created a playful tone that feels like Silver Age-inspired like a lot of other DC books, but still retain their own distinct flourishes that set Flash apart and make it feel like one of the prettier books from a line of very pretty books. With Wally’s eyes covered by his costume, the artists do wonderful, expressive mouth work that’s able to snap the book from something that feels light and fun one moment and deadly serious the next, in a flash.
DC
Writer Ryan North has crafted a fun, smart, and relatable story that introduces scientific elements but doesn’t get bogged down by them, instead letting the good heart of Wally, along with the weirdness and desperation of ordinary people, drive the story out of the starting line. Between his work on Fantastic Four and Hulk Smashes Everything, Ryan North clearly loves science and communicating about it clearly, but making social media the villain out the gate here feels like a different, more interesting side to their writing that we don’t get to see too often.
The Flash is back with a new creative team that sets up an exciting new and relevant tone for Wally West and his supporting characters, and in the process makes the perfect jumping-on point for new readers. With gorgeous art and fun characterization, The Flash seems to be in good hands for the foreseeable future.
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