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Jun. 28th, 2004 06:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
greenygalSo I read FLASH #350. Last issue of the Barry Allen run. And they wrap up the plot (and I could just hear all the people who were reading it at the time shrieking "FINALLY!") and touch base with some supporting characters, and the Rogues are actually kind of cute the way they keep proclaiming they hate each other and yet end up hanging out together at the end of the book, and the ending is touching and very bittersweet. Oh...and then there's the genderbender bodystealing romance.
Oh yes. Long story short, Barry's wife Iris, who was supposed to have been murdered, was revealed to have actually had her essence transplanted into a new body at the moment of her death, but when Barry was put on trial for murder she decided to help him by possessing one of the jurors. (Without the juror's permission, by the way. Bad Iris. Bad!)
But what this translates to is that Iris spends virtually the whole of this, the final Barry Allen FLASH, in the body of a fat, balding middle-aged man. They dance around the revelation of who she really is, so there's no kissing or anything, but watching Barry and "Nathan Newbury" dealing with each other is...a little brain-warping. Especially when "he" starts to sniffle with emotion, and then an observer comments on their "tender reunion."
But, really, what else would you expect? This is pre-Crisis FLASH, after all.
It's not Barry so much. Barry is Captain Whitebread. No noticeable skeletons in his closet except for the running around dressed in spandex. (Well, okay, plus he's a comics collector. The freak. ;) Everything else in the book, however... I mean, poor Barry has been turned into a puppet, a puddle, and a piece of pavement. He's been made to weigh a thousand pounds, had his head blown up like a balloon and, my personal favorite, been made unable to see any color but green. Two of his major bad guys are a stage magician named Abra Kadabra and a talking gorilla, and some of his other recurring villains use boomerangs, tops, and ice skates as their weapons of choice--never mind the guy who's willing to be addressed in public as "Rainbow Raider." His wife found out that he was the Flash because he talks in his sleep. And speaking of his wife, she turned out to unknowingly be a refugee from the 30th century. (This would eventually be used to explain that whole resurrection-and-possession plot I mentioned above, but it was introduced years before that. Just...because, I guess.) He acquires a sidekick via one of the most unbelievable coincidences I've ever heard--literally lightning striking twice--and did I mention how he gives that sidekick a new costume just by thinking about it real hard? His favorite comic book character turns out to be real. He's met his own editor. He travels in time by means of a piece of exercise equipment. His costume has been known to talk to him.
And this is just the stuff I know about, based on my limited collection of stories and study of useful websites (in particular, again, Dark Mark's Indexes). God only knows what else is lurking in those back issues...
Oh yes. Long story short, Barry's wife Iris, who was supposed to have been murdered, was revealed to have actually had her essence transplanted into a new body at the moment of her death, but when Barry was put on trial for murder she decided to help him by possessing one of the jurors. (Without the juror's permission, by the way. Bad Iris. Bad!)
But what this translates to is that Iris spends virtually the whole of this, the final Barry Allen FLASH, in the body of a fat, balding middle-aged man. They dance around the revelation of who she really is, so there's no kissing or anything, but watching Barry and "Nathan Newbury" dealing with each other is...a little brain-warping. Especially when "he" starts to sniffle with emotion, and then an observer comments on their "tender reunion."
But, really, what else would you expect? This is pre-Crisis FLASH, after all.
It's not Barry so much. Barry is Captain Whitebread. No noticeable skeletons in his closet except for the running around dressed in spandex. (Well, okay, plus he's a comics collector. The freak. ;) Everything else in the book, however... I mean, poor Barry has been turned into a puppet, a puddle, and a piece of pavement. He's been made to weigh a thousand pounds, had his head blown up like a balloon and, my personal favorite, been made unable to see any color but green. Two of his major bad guys are a stage magician named Abra Kadabra and a talking gorilla, and some of his other recurring villains use boomerangs, tops, and ice skates as their weapons of choice--never mind the guy who's willing to be addressed in public as "Rainbow Raider." His wife found out that he was the Flash because he talks in his sleep. And speaking of his wife, she turned out to unknowingly be a refugee from the 30th century. (This would eventually be used to explain that whole resurrection-and-possession plot I mentioned above, but it was introduced years before that. Just...because, I guess.) He acquires a sidekick via one of the most unbelievable coincidences I've ever heard--literally lightning striking twice--and did I mention how he gives that sidekick a new costume just by thinking about it real hard? His favorite comic book character turns out to be real. He's met his own editor. He travels in time by means of a piece of exercise equipment. His costume has been known to talk to him.
And this is just the stuff I know about, based on my limited collection of stories and study of useful websites (in particular, again, Dark Mark's Indexes). God only knows what else is lurking in those back issues...
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Date: 2004-06-28 04:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-06-29 03:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-06-29 04:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-06-29 07:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-06-29 03:17 pm (UTC)Well, here we come up against the limits of my collection; I've only got one issue with the place. Which features, uh, the Trickster using a toy soldier to commit technical espionage. So it's not as though I don't see your point.
(Looking at that issue again, I see that it features yet another weird Flash Fact: he operates in real time. I suppose being the Fastest Man Alive helps counteract the effects of comics time...)
you cracked me up badly with your description of the Cosmic Treadmill.
I think the Cosmic Treadmill is one of those things that long comics experience inures one to, like the Silver Surfer. When I actually try to think about it, it sounds incredibly goofy.
I didn't know the costume talked, though.
Only once (at least that I'm aware of), but I just couldn't leave it out of a list of Flash weirdness. More details, such as they are, can be found here (http://members.fortunecity.com/toywonder/SlowFlash.htm)).