Despite the abhorrent lack of the annual JLA/JSA Thanksgiving team ups to which I’ve grown accustomed over the years (check out: JLA/JSA Vice and Virtue), sitting in my parents new den in faraway Richmond, Ky, I had the pleasure of reading two books by Mark Waid starring the Flash that captured the spirit of Thanksgiving: Flash #234 and the Pick of the Week: Brave and the Bold #8. Ol’ Marky Mark’s Kingdom Come miniseries was the reason I got into DC Comics back in 8th grade and so I make a point of trying to read everything he puts out within reason. I have not been let down by his ongoing runs on the two aforementioned titles.

Waid’s run on the Flash back in the ’90s was well appreciated by many fans. He turned former Kid Flash Wally West into the definitive Flash for my generation and invented such important Flash concepts as the Speed Force–the extradimensional energy source from which all superspeedsters draw their power. However, in the world-shattering Infinite Crisis, Geoff Johns sent Wally into the Speed Force with Kid Flash, his wife and two kids. Only Kid Flash, Bart Allen returned and he had aged four years to pick up the mantle.

This is when DC made the horrible mistake of turning over the Flash to the untalented hacks who authored the god awful early ’90s Flash tv show of my youth and in the words of the guy at the comic book store back in Lexington, Ky: “The first issue was bad and they didn’t know anything about the characters. The second issue was worse and they were introducing characters from the tv show and it was like What the fuck? and they got rid of everything interesting about Bart. Then the third issue was so bad you couldn’t even read it.” So, the DC editors got wise, fired the hacks, killed Bart, and returned Wally and Mark Waid to the book.

However, when Wally West and his family returned from the Speed Force, his baby twins had aged at a sporadic rate and over the course of a year had aged to the late preteens. The Flash is now sort of a family superhero book–a kind of Flash meets the Incredibles. This is why it’s perfect for Thanksgiving!

However, not all is well with the West family in Keystone city. Combined the aura of emo left over from Bart’s death, Wally and his wife Linda have the added angst of not knowi ng when and how their kids will age or mutate next and are desirous to find a way to control their powers and help them enjoy what may be very short lives. In the team up book Brave and the Bold #8, Waid and artist George Pérez have the West family looking to the strange superheroes of the Doom Patrol for help. The superhero mad scientist Professor Caulder offers the West family help, but things don’t go as planned. In the heat of the moment, will Wally and Linda have to choose which child will live and which will die?! You’ll have to read yourself to find out the details. I will say that this is the single best rendering of the Doom Patrol I’ve ever read. Before this, I never understood why ElastiGirl was so creepy. Her smile now haunts me while I sleep.

Next week: finally more Sinestro Corps War and my continuing disillusionment with Messiah CompleX.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, November 25th, 2007 at 11:48 pm and is filed under Comics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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