After some quite lengthy delays, Flash: Rebirth issue 5 finally came out this week.
I’ll say it now, I think this is the best issue of Rebirth so far. The pace finally felt right to me, and it built on the Zoom stuff from issue 4 well, and resolved some of the lingering subplots.
Most of the issue is taken up with the fight against Zoom and the subsequent revelations. Professor Zoom takes great pleasure in telling Barry how he’s been time travelling back and changing the past, affecting Barry’s personal history, and explaining things like Barry’s mother’s death (prior to Rebirth, Barry’s parents had both been alive). It also explains why Barry’s mood has been so affected since the start of the series, as its explained as nothing to do with Barry struggling to adapt to being back, but infact his mood was a side affect of Zoom’s continual changing of Barry’s history (which was presumably happening off panel during the first few issues).
We also get the Flash family re-established for the franchise going forward. Max, of course, returned last issue but this issue also brought the much-heralded revamp to Wally’s outfit (to solve the issue of Wally and Barry’s outfits being so similar visually).
I must admit, I was slightly dreading the revamp, half-expecting it to be some modification of his old Kid Flash outfit that a lot of fans have such affection for. Thankfully though, this wasn’t the case, with the costume only receiving slight tweaks, and still recognisably being a “Flash” costume. The changes work well, and it reminds me of the Return of Barry Allen storyline, which never ran into the issue of the characters looking similar, due to the dark red used in Wally’s “shiney” outfit he was wearing at the time. Its also interesting to note the lifts from Wally’s outfit as seen in the JLU cartoon, with his belt and chest logo (possibly the only part of the update I’m not sure on. I prefer the normal lightning bolt) being from that variation of the costume. I’m definitely pleased with this updated look for Wally.
The other development I was very pleased with, was Iris West’s transformation into the new Impulse. Its a move that had been signposted throughout the series, with her hero-worship of Bart and Zoom’s comments about the twins’ connection to the speedforce last issue, and I for one am really pleased to see not only Iris turned into a proper speedster, but also that she’s adopted Bart’s old identity. It adds another nice link to the chain of the Flash legacy.
It also nicely places the characters for the upcoming monthlies. Presumably Iris will be in Wally’s co-feature, but also sets her up for appearances in Bart’s Kid Flash book. I think it’ll be quite interesting to see how Bart deals with her following in his footsteps and it could be quite amusing 🙂 And you have to assume it’ll not be long before Jai starts to resent the fact that he’s been left powerless by Iris taking on their previously-shared Speedforce connection.
Speaking of Bart, it was interesting watching his interactions with Max. Bart’s grown a lot since Max was trapped in the Speedforce, and it was interesting to see how sometimes he was ahead of what Max was telling him, with Max attempting to guide him as he did when he was Impulse. It was a nice way of showing that not only has Max been out of the loop for a while, but also how much Bart’s developed as a hero. It does promise that their relationship in the upcoming Kid Flash monthly will have evolved beyond their relationship in Bart’s original Impulse book, and it’ll be interesting to see what direction the writer takes there.
Overall, this was a great issue. I’m glad to see that the second half of this series has improved a lot over the first. I’m still not entirely sure this series has been a success for me overall, but these later issues are at least ticking the right boxes. I look forward to the last issue, and I really hope it doesn’t suffer the crippling delays this issue did. Interestingly, the solicit mentions some new threat to the Speedsters, which I’d really expected to get some hint of here. Throwing in a new villain in the last issue seems a little Final Crisis to me, which suddenly had Mandrak turn up and felt a bit forced (even if you had read Superman: Beyond), so I’m intrigued to see what this actually means.
Reilly2040's Blog 
Sorry if this is off-topic, but I couldn’t find an email address on your page. I run several comic book blogs, and occasionally am involved in crossovers with other bloggers to promote one another. You blog spotlights both Captain Comet and Adam Strange, who are little represented on the internet (though I’ve threatened to start one for Comet once or twice.) If you’d be interested in participating in a cross-promotion to take place in December, please read on. If not, thanks anyway. Please excuse the tongue-in-cheek tone…
Greetings fellow blogger! I’m Frank Lee Delano, and you may know me from such information superhighway personal interweb electronic log journals as Justice League Detroit: The Blog, …nurgh…, and The Idol-Head of Diabolu, a blog for J’Onn J’Onzz, the Manhunter from Mars! What you may not know is that you and I are not the only isolated, obsessive-compulsive comic book enthusiasts with virtual presences, but merely part of a sort of virtual community of same. In fact, emulating actual comic book universes, some such bloggers occasionally have themed “events,” a perfect opportunity to exploit the desire for still-mostly-introverted camaraderie and hijack the readership of others. I can speak to its virtues through my personal experiences with canny promotions enriching experiences like Crisis on Earth-Blog and Crisis On Earth-Blog: Super Powers Collection 25th Anniversary! It’s splendtafulous!
Alright, enough with the Troy McClure shtick. I personally haven’t run one of these shindigs before, but I thought it might be nice to give it a try. Most people receiving this email have already participated, and have at least one DC-centric blog. I’m going to try to expand our circle some more though, and there are enough characters to go around that non-specific blogs can “adopt” to join in. There will also be different MPAA-style “rated” blogs (my Idol-Head is pretty PG, while …nurgh… is a soft “R,”) but I can work to make sure all-ages blogs aren’t contaminated with more mature links. My take is to be a bit more interactive by running a “scavenger hunt” where readers can bounce from blog to blog, advancing by answering trivia questions related to a DC Comics character your blog would represent. Right answers would bring readers closer to “a lush scan from an obscure George Pérez pin-up featuring every major character involved in this event,” hosted by a site I don’t run TBA. For the longest time, I considered giving away stuff, like a complete set of the DC Challenge mini-series, but realized too much trouble and personal information trafficking would be involved. Instead, we’ll keep it neat, fun, and coast on the high end of our average daily hit counts.
I’ve got an example post up at http://nurgh.blogspot.com/2009/11/crisis-on-earth-blog-dc-challenge.html I’ll be happy to provide all the necessary art, text and html, making this a free “day off” for the daily blogger. Folks can contribute as much as they’d like, though, preferably at least the trivia questions and correct answer. Also, you’ll not the “E” answer of “I don’t know/Error Message.” This exists to offer confused readers a correct answer should they be uninformed or unable to access a page for some reason. It’s also an opportunity to direct readers deeper into your blog for choice material from your archive, so you can strut your stuff. Questions can be as difficult as you want, but please be sure the answers name check a DC character in some way, to adhere to the format. Also, for the love of God, please be sure both your question and answer are verifiably correct.
The plan is to run the event sometime around the second week of December. All I ask is that everyone try to post around the same time, but there should be enough participants that the only problem would be if the “winner” site failed to publish. As I said, everyone will receive a 400 pixel wide detail from the piece, and everyone would be free to post the full image (which I’ll host on Photobucket) on their blog after observing a respectable waiting period for the sake of the “winning” blog.
Anyway, thanks for reading this far, and I hope you consider joining in.
“Frank Lee Delano”
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That sounds pretty cool. I’ll send you an email reply and we can sort it out 🙂
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