Friday 10 August 2012

The Flash: The Human Race (2009)


And none of these adults were sincere enough to take off their play suits to say goodbye.

I have not read many stories involving the Flash apart from when he appears as part of the Justice League. I picked this one up because it was written by the normally excellent Scottish writers Grant Morrison and Mark Millar.

The book consists of 3 stories. In the first, The Human Race (Flash 136 - 138) written by Morrison and Millar, the Flash finds himself in a race against his (so he thought) imaginary childhood friend for the survival of Earth. In the second, The Black Flash (Flash 139 - 141) written by Millar, Wally West has decided to propose to Linda Park but before he can she is killed in his place. The Flash must overcome guilt, grief, the loss of his powers and death twice if he is to have a happy ending. The final story is from Secret Origins #50. It is called Flash of Two Worlds and was written by Morrison to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Flash. It is a short (16 page) story and consists of boy's recollection of the day he met the Flash.

I went into this one hoping for great things from Morrison and Millar but came away disappointed - the stories certainly are not going to rank amongst my favourites by this pair. Of the two main stories the Black Flash one is probably the best as Wally examines his attitudes to the superhero community when mourning the death of Linda. But my favourite is the short, charming Secret Origins story by Morrison where he plays it straight and keeps the weirdness to a minimum. The art in this volume is by a variety of pencillers and inkers (8 in all) and is pretty standard comic book fare without ever being brilliant.

First published on RevolutionSF on Thursday Oct 20, 2011

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