I’ll say this much: you won’t find a poorly drawn issue of The Flash. Francis Manapul never ceases to deliver impressive layouts to tell his and Brian Buccellato’s story. The page showing how Flash designed his costume looks incredible with the way the panels seem to spring from his costume-springing ring. It looks great, but the lack of a compelling narrative that matches the quality of the art continues to leave this series in the dust.
An origin story in every sense of the word, The Flash #0 details how Barry Allen got his powers and his motivation for becoming a hero. While the tender subject of Barry’s relationship to his parents and the life-changing impact of his mother’s murder attempts to form the heart of this story, the superhero aspect gets glazed over. The result winds up being a story that fails to connect on a deeper emotional level or infuse the reader with the same inspiration that Barry supposedly felt that made him put on the red and yellow duds.
The dialogue sounds generic, the character motivations are cookie cutter, and the mystery feels more confusing than compelling. The narrative structure features a lot of flashbacks put in at add points here and there, but they never amount to anything worth the effort it takes to read them in such a way. If you want a kick ass story told in fragmented flashbacks, then check out Matt Fraction and David Aja’s outstanding new Hawkeye series.
Joshua is a writer for IGN. Follow him on Twitter or IGN, but only if you are prepared to hear more about Darth Maul, Green Lantern, and Doop than you would ever care to know.
Source : ign[dot]com
