Flash (vol.2) #0 (October, 1994)
"Flashing Back"
Story - Mark Waid
Pencils - Mike Wieringo
Inks - Jose Marzan, Jr.
Letterer - Gaspar
Colorist - Gina Going
Assistant Editor - Ruben Diaz
Editor - Brian Augustyn
Cover Price: $1.50
Here's a synergy post to coincide with the latest episode of The Cosmic Treadmill. That's Episode #27 for (fellow) time travelers. So feel free to give it a read... and a listen below! Though, be warned... to do both at the same time will open multiple rifts of entropy in and around your computer!
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Picking up from an early scene in Zero Hour: Crisis in Time #4, Wally has bolted into a rift of entropy in hopes of saving all of time. Well, we already know how that worked out! That's why we're here... After outrunning his very costume, Wally finds himself somewhere... familiar. Too familiar to be death... in fact, he's home in Keystone City! The year is (still) 1994, but it would seem that he's traveled back in time a few weeks.
He looks on, in a sort of incorporeal state, as the Flash tackles Team Turmoil. It's a quick and easy fight, after which Wally-from-the-past gives a statement to one very special news reporter, Linda Park.
From around the corner, a sniper takes aim at Wally's turbaned friend... and so, the Flash catches all of the bullets... and causes a shockwave to down the baddie. It is interesting that (current) Wally (we'll call him ZH-Wally... like Zero Hour Wally, for clarity's sake) is narrating the entire event. It gives a pretty neat perspective on the goings on.
He talks about how much he enjoys what he does... and flashes back (nyuk nyuk) to a day during his youth where he was visited by a mystery man, and a promise that man made... more on that in a bit. In the present, Wally leers on as the Flash, that is to say he... makes out with the lovely Ms. Park.
Out of the corner of his eye, ZH-Wally sees speedster Max Mercury acting creepy in an alley between two buildings. Being as though ZH-Wally is still quite incorporeal, Max cannot see him. Wally approaches anyway... though is whisked away back into the timestream pretty quick.
In the timestream, we find ourselves privy to a quick and dirty history of Wallace West. We see him holding Barry Allen's costume at the end of Crisis on Infinite Earths, as well as him hanging around with the Teen Titans.
After our trip, we arrive on a very fateful night. ZH-Wally appears in Barry Allen's back room... and there be a thunderstorm rumbling outside. Barry and (a very young) Wally West enter the room... and we get a front-row seat for the super-convenient origin of Kid Flash. For a brief but fleeting moment, ZH-Wally becomes tangible... and wonders if perhaps there might have been something more to that bolt of lightning. Hmm...
Next up is a montage of Barry and Wally running... which bleeds into another montage, this one is about how rough Wally's childhood was. I gotta say, I preferred Wally's pre-Crisis parents... the ones who supported him. These folks are the cliche dysfunctional mates who are constantly at each other's throats. Wally himself appears to be an afterthought, except for one bit where Mrs. West throws a Flash comic (vol.1 #163!) into the garbage. He continues to reflect on the promise the man made to him that day, as that was the only thing that kept him going.
We make our final (for now) stop in time... some ten years ago we check in on a West Family Reunion at Wally's childhood home in Blue Valley, Nebraska... sa-a-al-ute. We've got some good news too... ZH-Wally is now completely tangible! He swipes a pair'a dungarees and sets to "fitting in".
If it wasn't already clear, young Wally and his Pop didn't quite get along. We get a scene in which young Wally gets... distracted by a bunny while pouring soda. He gets a whomp on the butt for spilling. Never let it be said that the punishment doesn't fit the crime, right?
Young Wally runs crying back into the house. ZH-Wally decides to follow... your "mystery man" sense tingling yet? ZH-Wally enters his old bedroom, and sees his younger self laying on Flash bed sheets drawing pictures... of the Flash, natch. After ZH-Wally realizes that he is his own mystery man, the two have a bit of a heart to heart.
They talk about the future. Young Wally says when he grows up he might be able to work at the plant. When ZH-Wally asks if that's what he wants to do, the youngster kind of clams up. He says what he wants to do is "silly stuff", and hands the elder the picture he was drawing.
ZH-Wally starts doodling himself, and expresses to his younger self how important it is to dream. He promises the boy that if he sticks to it, all of his dreams will come true. He hands the drawing back to the boy... now with a sketch of Kid Flash on the page.
The pep talk appears to have worked... as now the ZH-Wally has the confidence to jump back into and control the Speedforce in order to return to the proper time.
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Not a bad little issue. I feel like perhaps I missed a bit of its poignancy, but definitely a good read.
I feel like the strength of this issue is that it answered a few questions about the past, however, introduced more for the future. We get ourselves a taste of resolution... however, we don't really get all that long to bask in it. There are too many questions still left unanswered. Why is Max Mercury leering like a creeper? Was Wally's bolt of lightning fated for him?
Let's start by discussing the bedroom chat. When we covered this on the show, I totally thought that young Wally's drawing was of the Flash. Reggie suggested that it was Wally himself as a Kid version of the Flash. That makes so much more sense to me... especially in light of the elder-Wally's Kid Flash mk.2 illustration.
We joked on the show about how weird it was for a kid to be totally okay with a strange man loitering in his bedroom. This feels like something right out of the Silver Age... mostly due to how much more innocent the times were. Today if we were to read a sentence that started with "The stranger entered the young boy's bedroom..." it would surely raise an eyebrow or two. Back then, however, maybe not so much.
Now the conversation they have is predicated on a situation that I don't really dig. Young Wally needs that push... that hope... because his parents are somewhere between absentee and abusive. That kinda bugs me... not only due to how cliche that is, but how different it is to Wally's pre-Crisis folks. I remember back last Summer when we covered The Life and Times of Tara Markov, we discussed a scene in which Wally was contemplating his future... should he remain a Teen Titan? Should he quit the hero biz and concentrate on college? That scene was quite special as it illustrated just how happy the West family was. If I'm remembering right, it ends with Wally's father telling him that he's proud of him either way, and he should trust his instincts. He even lets Wally do the ceremonial turkey carving during that nights dinner. Those are the Wests to me... not, these folks. I suppose that's neither here nor there, though.
The scene where Wally first gets his powers is interesting, as it... might (?) add a new wrinkle to Wally's all-too-convenient and all-too-deja-vuey origin. Older Wally gets a front row seat to his very own heroic coronation... and is able to see things he wasn't initially paying any mind to. Very nice story beat here.
Mark Waid is... ya know, pretty good at the dialogue, so this was pretty much a treat to read. Zero-Wally's narration throughout was all very well done. Mike Wieringo's art is great... but definitely not as great as he would become. His work is clean as ever, but missing the polish he would eventually get. But, ya know... even Ringo's worst page would be candy for the eyes.
Overall... yeah, check this one out. This little issue here opened us up to a whole bunch of research we hadn't otherwise planned. We've been about armpit deep in Zero Hour these past few weeks... and, I gotta tell ya... it's been a lot of fun. Such a strange and interesting time to be reading comics. If you're a fan of DC Comics history, it is most definitely worth your time.
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Letters Page:
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Convergence: Batman and the Outsiders #2 (July, 2015)
"The New Normal, Part 2"
Writer - Marc Andreyko
Artist - Carlos D'Anda
Colors - Gabe Eltaeb
Letters - Steve Wands
Assistant Editors - Brittany Holzherr & Michael Kraiger
Editor - Marie Javins
Cover Price: $3.99
I was quite high on the first issue of this two-parter... let's see if that holds true after this.
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Remember how last issue ended with OMAC (and a bunch of mutants) storming the newly-domeless Gotham? Well, let's take a moment to see how he got there. We open with Buddy Blank drifting through static-y space searching for OMAC until he runs into Godmother. She is from the Great Disaster Earth-AD DC stories... if my research is correct. I have precious little knowledge of this corner of the DCU... but for the purposes of this discussion, we'll just roll on. Just after "Dome Day", OMAC was mentally enslaved (?) by Godmother... and so, he fights for her... alongside the mutant horde. In Gotham, Geo-Force looks on as the mutants begin storming the streets of the city he called home for the past year. He doesn't take too kindly to this, and so... engages them in combat.
Elsewhere, Jefferson Pierce's powers have returned... Halo is back among the awake... and poor Rex has burned Sapphire's arm. Batman signals that they are all needed... and so, Outsiders Assemble!
We check in with Godmother, and it is made fairly plain that she is controlling OMAC... and having a heckuva lot of fun doing it. Geo-Force fights back the hordes for a bit, until the reinforcements arrive.
Godmother ain't too pleased to see Batman and Company... what's worse, it would appear that our man Buddy Blank is resisting her control. She decides to crank up the juice to keep her man in check.
And from here... well, we get several pages of fighting. Outsiders vs. mutants... Outsiders vs. OMAC... it's all very... fighty. We get some teases of characterization... Halo wonders how she was out for so long, Metamorpho is doing his part, but he's downtrodden being back to his elemental-self. What character bits there are, are very well done... it's just too bad they don't get nearly enough screen/panel time. Halo and Black Lightning team up and deliver one helluva blast to OMAC, causing him to reel a bit.
The Outsiders clearly have the edge at this point... and Batman calls upon Metamorpho to nail'em with liquid nitrogen. He does so, even though it causes him great pain. Rex is very "needs of the many" right now, which all things considered, is fitting.
Telos comes over the PA system to inform us that Batman and the his Outsiders have won. "His" Outsiders, harrumph! Well, THE Outsiders unceremoniously dump OMAC's body outside the city limits.
We catch up with Buddy Blank in static-y space... We've got a good news/bad news situation here. He's finally found OMAC, but... their time is over. It's been swell, pals.
We wrap up with the Outsiders assembling all dramatic pose like as they stare out into their unknown futures. I wish I had better news... but we know how this ends.
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Well... that was a fight issue. Can't be too upset, that's pretty much what every Convergence #2 was. Still though, after such a strong opening chapter, it's hard not to be a bit disappointed here. The strength of the Outsiders, at least to me, was in their characterization... this is just a moderately chatty fight. What's worse... there isn't even all that much for us to discuss here. It's a fight... it did look nice, and the dialogue was good... which only makes the fact that this was just a fight issue more irritating. I suppose if I were to detach myself a bit I'd say that, given what creative had to work with here... they did as good a job as could be expected.
Reattaching myself here... I think part of the problem with the #2's was that we got the feeling that this was the swan song for our beloved anachronistic properties... and for the most part, it kinda was. We've got OMAC returning to Brother Eye... and that's it. We've got Batman and HIS (ugh) Outsiders just standing in formation... and that's it. I know I've complained here and elsewhere about the abruptness of Flashpoint... we had zero closure on our old favorites, in August we had Action Comics #904, then in September Action Comics #1, bada-bing bada-boom, take it or leave it. This, even as an exercise in closure, isn't all that much better.
This wasn't an opportunity for us to "tie a bow" or for the heroes to "take a bow" (whoa!)... it was just another adventure... but this was an inorganic adventure. There is a difference between field experiments and controlled experiments... this is very much the latter. The parameters and limitations set by the event made it so Halo was comatose, powers were gone, and Rex was "normal". That's all fine, I gushed about how well that worked last issue... but for an Abyssinia Outsiders episode, it feels pretty forced and shallow. All of DC's classic characters deserved a far better send off than what they were given in the poor man's Contest of Champions that was Convergence.
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Variant Cover:
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DCYOU (remember that?):
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Convergence: Batman and the Outsiders #1 (June, 2015)
"The New Normal"
Writer - Marc Andreyko
Artist - Carlos D'anda
Colors - Gabe Elteab
Letters - Steve Wands
Assistant Editors - Brittany Holzherr & Michael Kraiger
Editor - Marie Javins
Cover Price: $3.99
I think I've mentioned before that what brought me back to DC Comics in a big way was, of all things, Convergence. Certainly not for the event in and of itself, but instead for the possibilities. I thought this would end with the return of what I consider to be my DC Universe.
I was hopeful that it wouldn't just be a time-filler while the "big guns" moved offices from one coast to the other. With the benefit of hindsight... it kinda feels like this was exactly what it was. I remember the way it was spun... and how dimmer my hope became with each leak. First it was "everything is open and on the table"... that changed to "letting fans say goodbye to old favorites". It was a confusing time for fans... and, I don't think anybody... pro or otherwise had any idea where it was going to lead.
As for Batman and the Outsiders... this was a team I'd, I don't wanna say "ignored", but never really paid much mind to. In writing this blog for the past little while, I was afforded several opportunities to remedy that... and, lemme tell ya... they're now one of my favorite teams (and favorite runs!).
A while back they discovered when you mix chocolate and peanut butter, the result it an almost sinful magic... now what happens when we mix a wonderful property from the 1980's with... whatever the hell a Convergence is?
*By the way, I bought the Convergence tie-ins in a bundle from Discount Comic Book Service... it was a killer deal. My only problem is that I accidentally chose the, rather lackluster, Chip Kidd variant bundle. That said, the cover posted above is not the version I own, though I'd rather it was. I will place my cover down below... get ready to be underwhelmed.
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Gotham City is under a dome... and has been for almost an entire year. If you're familiar with Convergence... you are almost certainly familiar with this concept. Batman watches over his city on "Dome Day" #364. He's feeling like a bit of a failure for his inability to crack the code. He heads off and is met by Commissioner Gordon who informs him that, guess what... the people of Gotham are counting on him! Way to kick a guy when he's down, Jim.
Elsewhere Jefferson Pierce, in full Black Lightning garb, is helping a construction crew set up solar panels. It is here where we learn that the super-powered characters are far less so under the watchful hexagoniness of the dome.
At the Gotham City Free Clinic, Dr. Leslie Thompkins is doing her thing. The place is absolutely mobbed, life under the dome appears to have caused up some stir-craziness within the otherwise completely level-headed Gothamites... heh. Katana enters and is escorted to a back room. Inside is a comatose Halo. Katana stands at her bedside and holds vigil.
We shift to another construction-type scene... this time with Geo-Force, who is busy moving Earth... but we all know he no longer has powers here, so the dude is actually just physically moving giant slabs of stone. Pretty bad-ass, GF. After quitting time, he and his work-peers head to a local bar to get sloshed. While there, Brion wins a round of drinks by besting a big fella at arm-wrestling.
Now things aren't all that bad for a certain Outsider. Of course, we're talking about our old friend Rex Mason... Metamorpho! Under the dome he has lost his powers... as well as his chemical burniness and off-putting appearance. He is with his lady love, Sapphire Stagg... who is preparing a meal of garlic ENcrusted steak. Encrusted... really? Gross. Remind me never to eat at the Mason-Stagg house.
At the Batcave that evening, Batman whiles away in front of the Bat-Computer... luckily the dome didn't affect that, right? He mentions that he had deduced the dome had been erected twelve hours after it had... I'd have to assume for the rest of Gotham, it only took looking at the sky one-time to realize there was a dome there. Anyhoo... Alfred arrives for high-tea, and tells him not to push himself so hard.
The next morning marks the one-year anniversary of the dome's arrival. Here we get a pretty great run of pages... it's very cinematic, and we get to see the entire team of Outsiders go about their morning routine. For many Convergence-veterans, you know what's about to happen... we're about to get... THE SPEECH.
I feel like Batman and the Outsiders side-steps the normal waste of pages that THE SPEECH usually takes up, with it's rather stellar storytelling. We hear from Telos, and he reactivates the powers of the super-set... it's really very well done. Black Lighning gets lit up, Halo wakes up from her coma, Brion starts really movin' Earth...
... and sadly, Metamopho reverts to his "normal" form... while in the shower with his wife (I think they're married by this point).
Telos informs them that champions must rise... and fight. We wrap up with an introduction to the Outsiders' opponent... the One Man Army Corps himself... OMAC!
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Now Convergence gets a lot of crap... I know I've given it my fair share as well. This issue, however, was pretty great for what it was. It was admittedly a bit on the shallow side... just a quick intro to the team living their "new normal" before yanking the carpet out from under them. That's pretty much how most of the Convergence tie-ins went. So, why am I okay with that here?
To be honest, I'm really not sure. In my recent Batman and the Outsider reads, what stuck with me the most is how Barr and Aparo (and later Davis) would let us see the characters at their most mundane. Like, we would go to class with Brion, watch Gaby get her hair cut... just every day things. When we saw them in costume it felt like a natural extension of their "normal" personalities... which, to me, made those stories and characters resonate so.
Here, it's much the same. The Outsiders, without their powers, are still trying to make a difference in the world... as different and shrunken as it may be. Black Lightning and Geo-Force helping in construction... just feels right. Rex Mason simply enjoying the ability to kiss Sapphire... not knowing if they're going to have a "tomorrow"... just works. Katana holding vigil over a comatose Gaby... and we know this is probably a daily occurrence... just works. Batman himself feeling as though he's failed his city... failed his teammates... I'm gonna say it again... it just works.
Everything here makes sense... and when Telos pull the rug, there is a true sense of loss... at least I felt one. The Outsiders made this new-Gotham a home... but that's no more. Now they're going to have to fight... because, I dunno... we don't want younger readers to become too attached to these characters maybe? Who knows... At least we for the most part side-stepped several static pages of THE SPEECH.
Overall, if you're going to read any Convergence tie-in mini... you can do far... far... FAR worse than Batman and the Outsiders. This is one of the few I thoroughly enjoyed... and one that I've actually made the conscious decision to revisit.
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(Not the) Letters Page:
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Variant Cover:
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