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The Flash: #195-200 (DC Comics, 1987)

  • The Flash and friends process the fallout of Grodd’s attack as Wally’s own version of Zoom arrives on the scene.
  • Zoom decides to help Wally become as good as Barry by giving him the same kind of tragedy that both Zoom and Barry experienced.
  • Aaaaand that’s where the wheels fall off here for me:  little is more off-putting in a good comic run than sudden, fridgey tragedy for tragedy’s sake—which happens in “Blitz” and which hurt’s the book’s momentum.
  • That’s also on top of being pretty narration- and recap-heavy.
  • Kollins, Hazelwood, Sinclair, and company’s art is some of my favorite Flash art ever.

Make no mistake: Johns’s Flash run is tremendous.  This arc represents a couple of speed bumps in its arbitrary-feeling tragedy and in a couple of exposition-heavy issues.  But neither of those problems is enough to turn me off of the series, and I look forward to continuing to see where the new status quo the arc ends with goes.

Collected in

  • The Flash: Blitz (#192-200)
  • The Flash by Geoff Johns, Book Three (#189-200)

Credits

Writer: Geoff Johns | Pencillers: Scott Kolins (195, 197-200), Phil Winslade (196) | Inkers: Doug Hazelwood (195, 197-200), Al Gordon (195), Walden Wong (195), Phil Winslade (196) | Letterers: Kurt Hathaway (195-197), Bill Oakley (195), Ken Lopez (198-200) | Colorist: James Sinclair | Editor: Joey Cavalieri

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She-Hulk: Time Trials (Marvel Comics, 2005; #1-5)