The Flash #18

It's either because of the bag full of diamonds or his twelve inch penis.

I think I'm going to go through my pre-Crisis on Infinite Earth's Who's Who comics and add "Penis Size" as a category to all of the personal information. If they can guess at something as useless as a character's weight, I can guess at the length of their manhood. "Penis Size: (Flaccid) X (Erect) Y". I hate to speculate as to whose might be the biggest in the Who's Who but I suppose it would be between Darkseid and Mister Terrific. And that isn't a "black men have big penises" joke since the Pre-Crisis Mister Terrific is white. But the stupid name had to come from somewhere!

Oh! And look at that! He was Terry Sloane who is now Mr. 8 on Earth 2! I did not know that!

And here's more proof that he's got some serious goods in those tights from the back cover of Issue XVI.

Night Girl is simply aswoon at the possibilities. If she's this into big dick, it could suggest that Cosmic Boy is also packing a mighty magnetic anaconda in his future tights as well.

Why am I discussing Super Hero Penis Sizes instead of reading The Flash? Perhaps his hilariously inappropriate name threw me off track.

The comic begins with a long shot of the Keystone City skyline with cranes on just about every building. I guess those monkeys really did a number on the infrastructure. The camera pans in closer to reveal a quiet street in the Diamond District. Moving inside a building, the camera reveals a lone security guard eating chips and watching porn on his laptop. And then the silence is broken with a loud KAAAA-THOOM as an explosion rips through the building! A shadowy figure with a hammer moves into the smoking ruins. The only sound is the security guard's rasping breath as he slowly bleeds out from shrapnel. The figure moves in, smashes a case full of diamonds, and an alarm sounds! The thief escapes with...wait a second! What the fuck kind of shitty security system did this jewelry store invest in? The entire front of the store is blown open and no alarm? Even if that explosion somehow took out a security system for breaching the store that is separate from an alarm system for the cases, the explosion smashed a bunch of jewelry cases as well! Perhaps the security guard was outfitted with a deadman's switch which would trip an alarm only after he died! And then it was just a coincidence that he bled out just as the thief smashed the case with the diamonds!

Whew. Good thing I thought up a totally plausible reason for the weird alarm system or I wasn't going to be able to get my mind back on the comic book.

The Flash has been busy helping rebuild the city since Grodd's invasion. I don't know if this is such a good idea. I know he's fast so he can do everybody's jobs for them while they sit out of work because they're too Goddamned slow, but he isn't actually a carpenter or a drywaller or a bricklayer or an engineer now, is he? He's definitely not union.

No, it's also about putting skilled laborers out of work. I'm not sure I'd allow my kids to play on that.

When people walk at normal speeds around a city, they sometimes bump into other people while turning corners or not paying attention. Does The Flash ever round a corner and suddenly bump into someone? I know his reactions are supposed to be super fast but even he can be surprised if the timing is just right. Would he simply explode right through them? Do you think he'd tell anybody? Or are the Gem Cities' papers filled with reports of people mysteriously exploding into a fine mist?

Barry Allen is dating (or possibly living with. But that's just extreme dating anyway) Patty and he's allowed her to retain the memory that he's The Flash. That's pretty magnanimous (and unsafe!) of him. If I were Patty, I'd totally love fucking The Flash suspect every friend Barry brought by the apartment was another Super Hero. He'd introduce me to his friend and every time I talked with the friend, I'd probably use a lot of air quotes. "So, 'Bruce', how do you know Barry? Did you meet him on a 'business trip'? Would you consider yourself a 'super friend'? You're Batman, right?"

Currently Barry is suspended without pay from the Central City Police Force due to being dead. But now that he's not dead, he's waiting to see if the union will allow him to come back. If they knew he was The Flash and he was taking other union jobs, his union might not look too favorably on his request to be brought back to life. I wonder if Deadshot is having the same problem with the Suicide Squad's union.

Ha ha! That's really funny. The Suicide Squad having a union! Ha ha! See what happens when unions are crushed?! The bosses stop caring if you live or die while at work! And fuck child labor laws! Add the Teen Titans to the roster! No fire exits in your sweater making factory? Fuck you! You're all going to die! Oh la dee da! You want changes made so that you don't die? You're fired, asshole!

While Barry waits to hear about his real job, he has a non-real job serving beer to Central City's Rogues at the Keystone Saloon. Currently The Trickster is drinking beers acting down on his luck. My guess is that he didn't do the diamond heist! At least he's not dead from having an arm torn off by a talking ape.

Cut him off, Charles! You know he's had one too many when he can't even say "Ape-ocalypse" correctly. Other than stumbling on the word, that was a good pun!

Does the Keystone Saloon pay off all the cops so that the place isn't continuously being busted? The Rogues hang out in full costume all the time! Perhaps only Barry Allen is hip to the hideout due to his amazing powers of observation as a Central Keystone City crime scene investigator. Is there a super villain called the Investi-Gator? There should be. He could be Detective Chimp's rival!

The Trickster really is pretty drunk since he just won't shut up about his criminal activities. And his new arm!

My letter to DC must have worked! Puns left and right! Mostly right with this one.

If I were The Trickster, I'd call my new hand a "her" as well, if you know what I mean! I think we all know what he means by "test drive" as well. I'd be afraid to get that cyberhand anywhere near my penis though! And here's the rest of the page just to show that I'm not being inappropriately vulgar!

I'm pretty sure they are talking about masturbation! Also, I think the trick thing counts as a double pun! It references The Trickster's name and trick as in a sexual act provided by a prostitute!

Those men with guns that know The Trickster's name? They're cops. Yeah, I guess everybody knows this is where the super bad guys hang out. They want to arrest The Trickster for robbery and murder. I'm fairly certain that The Rogues and thus The Trickster have always tried to avoid murder. They just don't need the extra heat from a crime like that. But who could the shadowy diamond thief be then? If this were a Scott Lobdell comic book, he wouldn't tell us for another five issues. Being that this is a normal comic book by a decent (if not actually quite good) writer, I'm guessing we'll learn the bad guy's identity by the final page. If I'm wrong about that, I'll owe Lobdell an apology. I won't give it to him. I'll just throw it on the pile with the rest of them.

The Trickster escapes by losing a hand and slipping out of the cuffs. Don't worry, he just lost his new fake robot hand. It's probably just a big plastic, lubed up fist. I'm sure he has plenty of cheap replacements for it. The arm is where all the actual technology lies.

Before Barry can change into The Flash and go after The Trickster, the two new guys from the cover show up to nab The Trickster. They call themselves Speed Force. The guy in the football jersey is Sprint and the guy on the rocket powered Segway is Turbo Charger. I guess their powers are sprinting and charging turbos. I guess those are better powers than spinning like a spaz. I mention that because these are two of the guys sucked into the Speed Force many issues ago. And just like Turbine, they seem to have gained super powers while inside the Speed Force. I wonder if Iris West has any herself?

The Flash manages to capture The Trickster and prevent Speed Force from hurting anybody or themselves. But they're pretty crappy as super heroes, so The Flash decides to lecture them after handing The Trickster over to the authorities. Or putting him in a shed for safe keeping. I'm not sure what he does with him yet.

The Flash's lecture basically comes down to "stop using your powers, you stupid douchebags. I'm the hero here!" I may be interpreting what he said a bit liberally. Who gave The Flash the right to say who can and cannot use super powers? Fuck him! What a dick! He steals contractor jobs and now when someone threatens his job, he tries to put a stop to it? Barry Allen is a big jerk! Maybe a bigger jerk than Superman and Batman! And I liked him up until now!

Well, I still like him. I'd put a stop to some stupid guy flying around on a rocket Segway too. And a lummox in a football jersey that can, well, sprint fast? I guess? They simply speak in generalities about their powers during the conversation, so I don't really know what these two idiots can do. Maybe Sprint will become a bad guy now that The Flash has pissed him off when he got Sprint's girlfriend involved.

Meanwhile some post-ape-ocalyptic group known as Outlander Nation (I think these guys live in the Badlands and were associated with Mob Rule in an early story) are threatening to storm the city and free The Trickster from Iron Heights if he isn't released. They claim he's a citizen of Outlander Nation and thus not subject to U.S. laws. I'm sure that will go over well.

The Flash decides to prove The Trickster is innocent of the diamond heist before more hell breaks out in Central Keystone City. He checks out the police report and the warrant and finds the evidence lacking. So then he decides to speak with The Trickster in jail. I guess vibrating-through-walls powers come in pretty handy sometimes. His discussion with The Trickster leads him to go after a sample of The Trickster's bombs to test them against the explosives used at the scene of the diamond robbery.

Oh Trickster. You do not want to get into a copyright fight with a massive corporation like Holt Industries!

While The Flash is in the prison armory checking out The Trickster's balls (will that joke ever get old?), Outlander Nation attacks the prison. And The Flash slams into the wall as he tries to vibrate out to fight them. His powers have just disappeared. And they've disappeared because of the moment I've been waiting for for months!

Way to go, Nelson and Roxie! Now I'm tempted to move Dial H #11 up in my stack!

The Flash #18 Rating: +2 Rating. This comic book really captures an aspect of comic books that I can't quite communicate. It's something visceral that brings me back to when I first began reading them. It's a very comic booky comic book, if you get my meaning. If you don't, well, I don't have the words to make it any clearer. I might be able to find them but that would take effort! Anyway, I enjoy reading this comic book. It's building a great character and a great cast. Every issue feels like it's not just built on one or two previous issues but it's standing on the spines of all the other issues, ruining their near mint condition. Stupid comic books. Stop standing on each other! Get back in your polybags! Also, a regular New 52 character finally had their powers taken by the Dial H Dial! Yay! Oh yeah! Go read Dial H, nerds! If the best comic books get cancelled because you're all reading shitty comics that star characters you love from the cartoons, I'm going to be really angry with all of you!