The Flash #42

When The Flash catches a bullet, where does all the excess energy go?! Oh right. "The Speed Force." Never mind.

Apparently you can't have philosophical discussions about The Flash's power because of the addition of the enigmatic speed force to his abilities. The Speed Force explains away anything that doesn't make sense. And the idea that the Speed Force can be turned off and on so Barry can live in a normal speed world without going absolutely mental explains everything else. I would think playing with all of these grand ideas about physics and time and velocity and space would be the most interesting things about writing a Flash story but in reality they just get in the way when you want to have The Flash say something funny at superspeed and have everybody around him laugh at what he said instead of going, "What is that weird buzzing sound?!"

I just bought tickets to the Alice Cooper concert here in Portland in December and holy fuck concerts have gotten expensive! I remember when you had to line up at a Ticketmaster location in the hopes of the best seat you could get for exactly the same twenty buck ticket as the chumps who got the shittiest seats. Now you pay according to where you sit? We need another punk rock to kick pop culture in the teeth. Also playing is Mötley Crüe but fuck them. If I were a member of Mötley Crüe, I'd do a concert where I play covers of all the other hair metal bands of the eighties instead of our own garbage we wrote. And not the good shit from the era! No, I'm talking "Cherry Pie" and "More Than Words" and "Carrie" and "Love Bites."

I wanted to jog my memory of bands from the eighties so that my brain would go, "Holy shit, remember that song by them!", so I asked Lord Google to tell me who were the worst hair bands of the eighties. Lord Google decided that the top article would be by probable literal idiot (so I probably shouldn't be making fun of him, right? he can't help it if he doesn't understand anything) Corey Deiterman of the Village Voice. His article listed "The 10 Worst Metal Bands of the 80s." I'll let him slide on calling the bands in his list "metal" because in the eighties, we thought an awful lot of music was hardcore. If you look back now, you'd realize that Prog Rock groups had more edge than most "heavy metal" bands of the time. But that's because prog rock groups were actually interested in music and most "heavy metal" bands (now more properly referred to as "hair bands") were just into getting laid. Anyway, this Corey guy's list merely reveals that Corey most likely didn't live through the eighties and is more than likely just naming ten bands that had one song which he remembered hearing and thought was stupid. And I'm not just saying this because I disagree with his list. I think he got a few right. But he put Def Leppard on the list, for God's sake. And while I hate just about everything from Def Leppard after their drummer lost his arm, they are in no way one of the ten worst hair bands of the eighties. If Def Leppard made a worst bands of the eighties list, there should be at least fifty to sixty more bands on it. And then it would basically just list the eighties as an awful time for rock and roll. Also nobody could sincerely argue with that list. He also has Tesla at #10 which makes me think he never actually listened to a Tesla album and only knows them for whatever song that was that they had a video for. I can't even fucking remember and I really liked Tesla! I saw them with Mötley Crüe back in 1989. That was another concert I went to where I didn't give a fuck about Mötley Crüe!

The bands on his list I agree with are Winger and Warrant and maybe WASP. Poison and Twisted Sister are on the list but they had strong presence and were pretty fucking entertaining. I never gave Stryper a chance so I have no idea how they compare to other bands of the time. Corey puts them on the list because they dressed in black and yellow. I suppose after that spectacular bit of hard hitting journalism, I should realize that Corey doesn't even fucking care about the real merits of his list. This is just another one of those lists by people who have decided they're writers and are writing the easiest fucking thing they can on the internet: a list that doesn't matter just so they can make jokes that aren't funny (like calling Stryper "bumblebees"). This is also the kind of list that's sure to get people talking although this was from two years ago and only has two comments on it. One from a WASP fan who has no room to speak because he's a WASP fan, and the other from somebody who was so boring I don't even remember what they said at this point. But now I'm talking about it! And if I'm talking about something, it must suck!

One last thing about that and I'll get to The Flash: Corey has Anthrax on the list. ANTHRAX!? The only part of the list he got right was putting Anthrax on a list of metal bands. But worst? Please. He's basing the entire "worst" part on the fact they released a jokey punk rap song.

One last, last thing about the list: the guy puts a band I don't remember on the list at #2 for being "too proficient." I rest my case!

Somebody put a stop to Brett Booth. There is no reason for this kind of stupid panel layout. Two people are just speaking! It adds nothing! Also, you are not Kenneth Rocafort! Knock it off, Brett!

Even though Director Singh and Captain Frye don't want Barry around to investigate the scene of his dad's prison escape, they somehow don't mention it to any of the guards at any of the entrances to any of the secure locations from the front gate of the prison to the entry into the cell block. Instead Captain Frye is on the scene to stop Barry at the cell door which he does a horrible job of anyway. This allows Barry to run around the cell at superspeed on his too long legs which are now also too thick (see picture below) and investigate anyway.

It's taken me far too long to come to this conclusion but I think Brett Booth is DC's current Rob Liefeld. He even has the horrible grimaces down pat (not shown here!).

Iris meets Barry in the prison because they have a revolving door policy for anybody with a badge that doesn't look like it was made in Microsoft Paint. She gets to inform Barry that the comic book is now even closer to just reworking the scripts from the television show because she's now on The Flash Beat at her paper. She informs him that DC Comics has really been sucking at handling super heroes lately.

Haven't you heard, Barry? Super heroes are evil rotten jerks and nobody likes them! Ptui!

Boo fucking hoo, Barry. Nobody likes you. Although that's no surprise when you're drawn by Brett Booth. I can barely stand to look at you and your freakishly long (and now thick!) legs.

I don't even know why I'm reading most of DC's super hero comic books anymore! What happened to super heroes being beacons of hope and shining examples of triumph over the worst of humanity's evils?! Why the fuck do I care about a world that hates heroes who are trying to help keep the world safe?! Here's an idea! How about writers forget about how the lazy writers turn heroes into magnets for trouble because they don't know how to write a villain with any motivation except to get revenge against the hero? Just shove those garbage fucking stories out of your mind and stop trying to write the reaction of that world where heroes are the cause of all the trouble? Knock it the fuck off and write some super heroes I can rally behind and cheer for! Enough with the heroes trying to do good and then pouting their fucking faces off because nobody fucking appreciates them anymore. When I want to read about an emo super hero, I'll ask Robert Smith to write a comic book.

One...two...three...four...okay! I'm calm again!

So Iris tells Barry that she had to lie to Wally about where she was because he's so freaked out about his Uncle Daniel being incarcerated in Iron Heights. Now wait a second. Who the fuck are Wally's parents?! Iris is his aunt, right? So that means Iris and Daniel have another sibling? I thought they were the only two kids? Although that's only based on the flashback stories where Daniel was trying to go back in time to kill his dad. It's not like I've done any genealogical research on the West family.

Anyway, Iris mentions lying to Wally so she can say this, "That's how it goes with family...sometimes you have to compromise your morals to protect the ones you love." Oh fuck you. I suppose that was said to set up this theme of Barry's father compromising his morals to break out of prison to protect his son. But all she fucking did was tell Wally she was going out for pancakes or something instead of going to the prison for a news story. Holy shit! Somebody call the Pope! I've never seen morals compromised so fucking hard! I'd probably kill myself if I ever did something this horribly against my own set of ethics.

Meanwhile, more lazy writing and stupid story ideas (sorry Rob and Van! But I can't compromise my morals by holding my tongue when y'all obviously don't give a shit about your jobs) take place at the distribution center for Medi-Barn Supplies, Inc. That's where Barry's dad and his cellmates are currently stealing a bunch of shit to help stop Professor Zoom. But Professor Zoom is onto them! And he knows just how to stop them: pull the fire alarm!

This must be the stupidest security guard in Central City. Did the think he was going to stop a fire with his gun?

My school must have been doing fire drills wrong because I was never taught to run into a building when the fire alarm goes off. Maybe that's part of gun safety because I've never had gun safety either. Or perhaps it's all explained away by the incompetent security guard who is obviously incompetent because he stutters and he's fat and he's a security guard. Don't you dare say I'm being offensive and insensitive simply because I'm pointing out what the comic book creators are doing through their pictures and words!

Professor Zoom rushes in, puts a gun in Henry's hand, and forces Father Allen to pull the trigger before zipping out of the room. Forgive me if I'm wrong but at that speed, I'd think Henry's trigger finger would probably be crushed. It should at least be sore! Which would be a clue as to what happened! And remember from last issue how exciting clues are?! I'm already beginning to chub up!

Professor Zoom says a lot of shit in the nanosecond he forces Henry to murder the security guard. One of those things is that Henry used to work with Eobard Thawne. That's probably important to the story somehow.

I'm not even halfway through this issue and my brain hurts. The real problem for my brain is how I'm going to read the The Flash Annual immediately after this! Ha ha! Take that, stupid brain! That'll punish you for making me pop inappropriate boners throughout middle school!

Girder heads to his grandma's house after the disastrous robbery. But The Flash also thinks of Girder's grandmother so they have to destroy Girder's Nan's house in a big tussle. The tussle reveals that The Flash sucks at using his super powers because Girder smashes him through a wall. You'd think that with super speed, you'd be able to get out of the way of any attack that was coming at you at normal speed. Except I keep forgetting about that turning the Speed Force off and on thing so I guess it makes sense or whatever.

So if you're not going to believe a convict, don't ask him any fucking questions. Asshole.

The Flash doesn't get anything out of Girder so he goes to the prison guard who was in on the escape (which is probably where he should have gone first if he wasn't going to believe a convict). The guard helped them escape because Henry Allen promised to find a cure for the guard's wife's cancer. The Flash remembers how Iris told him about people compromising their morals to protect family and he lets the guard off the hook. But the guard has to help him find Henry Allen! He won't abide the guard not doing that!

On his way home, The Flash encounters Professor Zoom. But this time Eobard allows Barry to see and speak with him.

Oh, Barry Allen is angry? I never noticed that! Has that been a part of his character? Have I not been paying attention?! I thought he was the kind, boring guy who constantly had to talk Hal Jordan out of a fistfight!

The issue ends with The Flash finding himself in front of his childhood home where his mother was killed. Then it doesn't say that it's continued in the annual so I guess the annual will just be an addendum to this story in much the same way the Deathstroke annual was a crusty footnote to that story. But I guess I might as well read it now and get it out of the way!

The Flash #42 Rating: -2 Ranking. My biggest problem with this comic book is actually my own distorted suspension of disbelief. I'm all in on believing in super heroes! Sure, I'll point out egregious math errors and stupid science but I'm on board with super powers. So when The Flash can't defeat all crime all over the planet in just a few hours which he should totally be able to do (although the caloric intake he'd need to accomplish this might cause a larger world hunger problem), I get annoyed. The Flash has the one super power which should enable him to never lose any battle ever. I guess that's why he keeps fighting people faster than him now. And he has to deal with time travel. And he often battles psychic gorillas because "nothing is faster than the speed of thought!" Ha ha! I'm sure that dumb bullshit will be used many more times in comics with speed-based heroes. This issue mainly gets the -2 Ranking for that stupid security guard who thought he could put out a fire with a gun and yelling at it not to move. What an idiot! Oh, and also because of the art. Pee-yuke!