The Flash #38

As if the story "Flash of Two Worlds" wasn't complicated enough! Barry, you're an asshole.

I wonder how long Brett Booth is going to make Barry's legs this issue? I think he has a bet with Norm Rapmund that he can add a little bit of height to Barry in every issue for a full year before editorial notices. He'll win that bet too! DC Editorial doesn't seem too concerned with the small details, especially since they've taken the attitude that mistakes can always be fixed in the trade. If anybody out there thinks the editors for The New 52 have been doing a terrific job, I submit as evidence Exhibit A: The Ravagers. That comic book was shit ink printed on shit paper out of shit ideas.

Christ, Patty. Give it a rest! We get it! You don't see enough of Barry because he's trying to fuck Iris on the side!

Future-Flash continues to ignore the case he's supposed to be working on because if he accidentally solves it, he'll have to arrest himself. So instead, he decided to identify all the dead bodies left over from Gorilla Grodd's invasion of Central City during Forever Evil. But fucking Patty had to tag along because she's a fucking cockblocker. How is Barry going to bang Iris on a mountain of body bags with Patty hanging around?

Oh, I know! He can bang Iris at super speed! Although I don't think Iris would appreciate that. It would probably chafe like hell. It would be unsatisfying too but I think even at normal speed, Barry isn't the guy to deliver the goods. The goods are orgasms!

Barry zips around determining the cause of death on all of the bodies but I thought he was supposed to be identifying them. Who cares how they died?! The families want closure! Match the fucking bodies to the list of missing citizens, asshole! Barry seems to be determining cause of death because he's looking for clues to the super villains he wants to kill while he's in the past. But Patty just sits back taking notes instead of saying, "Hey! Douchebag! We've got reporters breathing down our asses because we were ignoring all of these corpses and leaving families to wonder where their loved ones went to. Knowing how each unidentified corpse died is not going to get Iris West off of our jocks!" Oh, maybe that's another reason why Barry isn't doing his job properly. So Iris will stay on his jock.

Meanwhile, Alistair the Horse's Luddite friend begins to freak out about all the cell towers in the area. The wireless communications are hurting his head because he's a huge drama queen. I mean, I agree that heavy magnetic fields can cause migraines and irritability. But that doesn't mean I begin shooting lightning out of my eyes and moaning to my horse about how I'm going to make everybody pay. I moan to my cat about that.

Oh, I guess Future-Flash isn't interested in Iris! And Iris doesn't seem to give a shit what Barry thinks of her ambition.

Back in the Speed Force, Hairy Potter (aka Selkirk) tells his origin story to Barry. Just like every crackpot with a theory, in comic books as well as on the air on Coast to Coast AM, Selkirk focused on a subject and then set out across the world to find lots and lots of evidence on this subject. So he was interested in Speedsters, so he traveled the world finding evidence of Speedsters. Just like Crux, obsessed with aliens, traveled the world discovering evidence of aliens and alien technology. Just like Doctor Evans traveled the world searching for shapes and holes that matched those shapes and, surprise of all surprises, he found them everywhere! I guess if you write a thesis for your degree, you can immediately after travel the world to find evidence supporting that thesis, no matter how fucking stupid it is.

Anyway, Hairy Potter is an expert on the speed force because he believed enough and dreamed big. He knows so much about the speed force that he's going to get Barry's powers back and send Barry home where Patty will say, "Why are you back in your red costume?"

Enough with the freaky fucking legs, Booth!

Back in the present, Future-Flash heads over to the bank to stop Mirror Master and some guy named Napalm from robbing the place. Napalm flips the fuck out because he's crazy which makes him less of a Rogue and more of a Batman villain. Future-Flash, being the kind of hero who enjoys a kill every now and then, is about to kill Napalm when Iris West walks in. You know, like how reporters are allowed to do all the time at the scene of a crime. I suppose Iris beat the police to the bank but since she found out about the robbery over the police scanner, it seems unlikely. Future-Flash leaves Napalm to bleed out (having cut off his arm as he tried to enter one of Mirror Master's mirrors) and leaves Iris to call her Editor-in-Chief with a new headline: The Flash: Running From The Law?

Back at the precinct, Patty hears all about how The Flash cut off some guy's hand. Then she remembers how The Flash made her cry the other day when he declared the death of some kid was just. And Patty was all, "Boo hoo! You don't really think that, do you? Weep dramatically!" So obviously after that incident coupled with what could possibly have been an accident where a criminal robbing a bank was wounded while being apprehended, Patty now suspects Barry is a raging lunatic and major asshole and she's going to see him brought to justice! Also, he's been spending an awful lot of time with that Iris so fuck him.

The Flash #38 Rating: -1 Ranking. Boo! Hiss! Everybody's legs are so fucking long! Also, unless Patty suspects Barry has been replaced by some other sick and twisted future Barry, I don't buy how easily she's turning on him. No wait! Actually I do because I keep forgetting that she can't stand how much time Barry is spending with Iris. I think she wants to find him guilty for murder because that'll show him, the philandering asshole.