Reheated Spaghetti
Written By: Joshua Williamson
Art By: Rafa Sandoval, Jordi Tarragona, Hi-Fi
Letters By: Steve Wands
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: July 7, 2020
*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*
Much like the Batman book at this point, The Flash book is gearing up for a brand new story that holds a lot of promise. That said, while that is coming in the future we are instead stuck waiting around until the writer decides to start the story properly. Almost every comic has issues that serve solely to setup the overall story, however those issues aren’t usually known for being very exciting. The issues are important but it’s easy to get bored while reading them. However, we’ve just had one of these setup issues with the previous issue so we are hoping that things really pick up in this new issue. Let’s jump into the latest issue now and see where it takes us.
Our issue begins with an inner monologue from Barry surrounding the Reverse-Flash. The moment that is focused upon is when Barry killed Reverse-Flash. Since then, Eobard has returned and he is more dangerous than ever before. Barry is understandably anxious about the new threat as he rushes around the world looking for leads. He stops the occasional crime when he comes across it but his mind is always upon Thawne. This, of course, leads to Barry continue to miss every social engagement in his life which is pretty par for the course at this point. Why do people even make plans with Barry anymore? If someone kept missing gatherings this often in my life, I’d just stop inviting them. Iris West must seriously be the Goddess of Patience. After arriving several hours late, Barry arrives at Iris’ and she knows that he’s going through a lot so she isn’t mad at him at all. Despite his best effort to be quiet, eventually Wally and Avery wake up and the team shares a lovely family moment.
Barry decides that obsessing over Thawne won’t do any good so he decides it’s time to return to his normal life and the next day he arrives at the CCPD. While he’s been gone, the lab work has piled up but as he is going to his lab, he sees a small kid arguing with some police officers because his father is going to prison for the murder of his mother. This, of course, hits home for Barry because of his own backstory. However, for some reason the father confessed to the crime and was given a death sentence anyway. Because of the confession, the cops in charge of the investigation basically called it a day. Barry can’t let that go and immediately begins investigating the case. Barry travels to the crime scene and is able to use a device that allows him to see echoes of the Speed Force (and the Negative Speed Force) and he finds that Eobard was actually responsible for this death as well.
Barry dawns his costume and is once again filled with thoughts of Eobard, but this is where everything starts to go down. As he is on the phone with Director Singh, Turtle suddenly attacks the CCPD. At the same time, Trickster suddenly attacks the city at a location that Barry recognizes. He blows up Barry’s apartment. Simultaneously, S.T.A.R. Labs is attacked by Captain Cold and Golden Glider. To top it all off, Gorilla Grodd attacks the Flash Museum. One or two of these things happening would be a coincidence, but this many attacks means that things were planned. Barry immediately runs to his family an rushes them out of Central City because of all the attacks going on in his life. After hearing this, Iris tells him that he should run. This is where the issue leaves us.
This issue fills me with everything except faith in this story. The characters in this story don’t really feel legitimate. Barry is spiraling out of control after Thawne kills Godspeed. This part isn’t so bad, but everyone’s reaction to it is just not believable. Once again, Barry is in a downward spiral and all his family can do is give him a plate of cold spaghetti and eat ice cream with him. I actually don’t even hate this scene but it’s an example of halting the story suddenly to have a moment like this. Barry then, goes back to work and I guess the police has just been operating without evidence lately which has some serious implications. Also, I know it has probably taken place before, but why would a suspect give a confession for a crime he didn’t commit unless he knew he was avoiding the death penalty by doing so? Also, this isn’t even the first time a crime like this has happened in Central City. Why aren’t these cops looking deeper? Why did the CCPD suddenly become incompetent? I’m not saying that can’t come to the same conclusion, but they seriously are putting man to death and they didn’t even look at the evidence. What is going on?! Then all the attacks happen which is cool but they won’t be relevant until next issue so this issue kind of feels like we ran around, ate a plate of spaghetti and now we wait for another issue.
Bits and Pieces
The characters in this issue of Flash seem to have just accepted their roles in the Flash comic because they don’t really seem to care about what’s happening. A major villain is on the lose, Barry is unable to find him so everyone just goes on, business as usual. We see that the CCPD is plagued with gross incompetence without Barry in the evidence lab and it all leads to an inciting incident which will be what the rest of this story focuses on. This issue is pretty boring and doesn’t seem to do much other than continue to set up a storyline that we already set up in the previous issue.
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