REVIEW: The Flash #45

Written by Robert Venditti & Van Jenson, ArtÂ Brett Booth, Vicente Cifuentes, Ale Garza, Norm Rapmund

Love the TV show. Thought after Martian Manhunter I’d try another DC this made sense.

It’s a massive disappointment. Flash has to find a way out of a force field and the police chief hates him.

It took two writers to make a story this dull about a character who can run through time. I fully appreciate that this wasn’t going to be the TV show but no one watching that would read this and go “here’s something I need to keep buying”.

It falls into many nineties tropes, delivering whole speeches in the blink of an eye, by people who aren’t the Flash. If the exposition was crack this comic would be twitching its last foamy breath on a dirty mattress and the villain of the book would be twirling his mustache over the slowly cooling body. Barry Allen doesn’t feel like a competent CSI guy either, he acts a lot more like I remember Wally West acting.

The art is by three people, which is why it looks like it was done by one Liefeld. What the hell is wrong with Flashes hands on the first page of the story? It’s so hectic and everything is fast paced which may sound like a good thing for “the worlds fastest man” but there’s no sense he’s running at speed if everything around him is moving at the same pace.

Headache inducing layouts, clumsy dialogue and utterly naff characterization has pretty much shown me why no one seems to talk about this book. Which is a shame as the TV show is soooo good!

[yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]