Post by jonathansoko on May 21, 2015 11:32:36 GMT -5
Some of you may be tired of my mentioning this terrific run on the Flash. This is the first comic book run i ever collected. And if it wasn't for this book, i wouldn't be here typing today.
It all started with a random trip to a local comic shop years and years ago. I had never picked up a comic, well not since my childhood. I just got some weird itch, looked up a store and went. I dug through a couple boxes, and i came across the first 13 issues of Mike Baron and Jackson Guice's run. After finishing the first issue i knew i read something special. The first mission wally has is running a human heart across the country to save a child's life... this marks the first time a comic made me tear up a bit. The way these creators made Wally feel like someone i may know. The problems they introduced, they all felt very real to me. Wally being conflicted with what to do with his powers... use them to help is family, or to help others. Seeing his journey finding himself, helped me find myself in a way. Wally always seems to help those in need, even when he has nothing for himself. His relationship with his mother is bitter sweet. Shes been hurt by Wallys father, and the way they put her struggle on the page, is so perfect. You literally feel her pain, and wallys, and why they constantly bicker, but always end up together. Its powerful. This is also the first time i met Vandal savage, and he is TERRIFYING here. This is some of my favorite villain moments of all time. The way he not only wants to ruin things for wally, but his patience, and the enjyment he gets out of it, is pure evil. But it is gold for a fan such as myself.
But my absolute favorite issue is Flash Annual 2. This is my all time favorite writer William Messner-Loebs, early issue of flash and from here and issue 15, he is our man on the book. It has Wally's runaway father and ex manhunter dropping by to see his forgotten family. It is a simple issue, but a powerful one. Wally and his dad are guarding a building that has been having its bricks stolen. Long story short, the thieves steal the bricks from the bottom of the building and his father makes a comment about criminals not being smart, because they stole the bricks on the bottom which caused the building to collapse on them. Wally is in his regular clothes, then Wallys dad makes comment "they're brick thieves. It doesn't matter if they die" Wally's zooms back in his flash outfit, gives his pops a glaring stare and says simply "it matters" then digs them out brick by brick. Simple, yet as a flash fan, so impact-full.
Wally saving his dad, and a womans life by moving so fast that the worlds slows down. And hes able to pick the bullets out of the air one by one.
He pays respect to ALL of the flash's history. There are moments where Wally is talking about Barry, and if you don't fight some tears, you may be a robot. He humanizes Wally and the Flash, better than anyone before him (Not to knock any creators before, i mean this with the up-most respect). He took all of the threads Mike Baron left him, and goes DEEP into them without fear. And we end up with some of the greatest Flash comics of all time. If it wasn't for William Messner-Loebs and Mike Baron's work on Wally West the Flash, then writers like Mark Waid and Geoff Johns may not have had such an epic grand canvas to come back to years later.
I could talk all day about this series. But i will leave you with this. It comes from the letter pages of Flash vol 2, annual #2 by Mr. Loebs himself. This excerpt sums up his take on the flash very well. It speaks volumes and i hope it influences at least one of you to seek this stuff out. Enjoy....
"I had a conversation with a retailer last year and he opined with that no super-powered hero book could be written with truly adult concerns. He said that current adult superhero comics were just excuses for sex and violence.... indeed that superheroes by their very natures were either banal or perverse. Just recently, i spoke with a pretty successful artist who said much the same thing. Adding that superheroes were modern fairy tales, valid only as symbolic level, When you try to make them adult and realistic, they become either silly parodies or sadistic and fascistic. Wow. Pretty depressing stuff, for a guy whos just been offered a superhero book. And who has an interest in realism. Reality is a funny thing. Almost everyone who writes will tell you they are portraying realism. But that is harder than it seems. In order to see whats going on around you, you have to push your own inner demons aside... and those demons can be very seductive and reality has a nasty way you changing on you."
- William Messner-Loebs
