The Flash #43

It's been about three years since The Flash actually helped anybody with his super powers. Lately he's just been defending himself against himself and against Professor Zoom and against old friends who now hate his guts. He's been busy dealing with a relationship with a woman he never really loved who stopped loving him because she couldn't stand to look at him because he looked exactly like the person who betrayed her. That person was Barry from the future, so it makes sense. He can't even do anything right with the Justice League since he's the one who barfed up Grail who then summoned the Anti-Monitor to Earth. Good job, Pukey!

This issue continues the story of Professor Zoom's Ultimate Failure to defeat the Flash. I call it his "ultimate failure" because Professor Zoom can time travel. That means he's probably tried to defeat The Flash an infinite number of times already. And why would readers be interested in any of those failures if Professor Zoom can time travel and try it again? The only encounter we want to read about is the one that sticks! Which must be this one because we're reading about it. Logic! Oh, and also because The Flash can't actually lose, we understand that Professor Zoom is going to fuck up so badly that he'll lose the ability to time travel by the end of this story. It's the only thing that makes sense or else what would be keeping him from trying this attack just one more time?

Barry is still hunting down his father who escaped prison because he realized Thawne was after his son. Harry and Thawne know each other for some reason that probably has something to do with Barry's mother's death and I'm really boring myself talking about the past. When can Barry Allen move past his past and begin to deal with his future? At least acknowledge the present, asshole! And stop looking like a Rob Liefeld penciled image inked by Marat Mychaels! It's fucking disturbing.

Henry and his gang find an old warehouse where they're supposed to meet up with Girder. Instead, they meet up with a new player in this story.

Who's this white haired old guy?!

What?! No way. Let me get a closer look at this guy.

No! Bullshit. That's not Barry.

It turns out it's Barry. He's come to speak with his dad to find out why he broke out of prison. Maybe his dad will finally be honest with his son about his mother's death and Eobard's involvement. But probably not. Comic books don't work that way. There probably won't be enough time to explain.

Barry tells his dad that he should go back to jail and wait to be released the legal way after he's been exonerated for the murder of his wife. Barry's kind of glossing over how, even if Henry is ultimately innocent, he still broke out of prison and he still murdered a security guard. Those things might hamper Barry's plans to earn Henry an early release. Henry tells Barry to just leave him be so he can do the mystery thing he broke out of prison to do. Barry isn't even curious about what those plans might be. I guess Barry is just stupid enough to believe Henry is simply trying to escape. And Barry decides to let him. He runs off to...well, I have no idea what he's going to do now. Somehow prove Henry didn't shoot that security guard even though Henry admitted that he was holding the gun and it "just went off"?

Barry mentions that he saw a guy near their old house who could "run as fast as The Flash." Henry's advice if Barry should ever encounter this guy again? "Run away!" Idiot! Barry just said the guy is super fast! How do you expect your son who is a totally ordinary person, as far as you know, to run away from him?!

The next day, Barry makes time for Wally and a speed pun. I still don't know who Wally's parents are. I thought Daniel was his father but he's apparently his uncle. And I thought Wally's mother was black but isn't Iris also black? What is going on?! I bet it's because of all this Goddamned time travel!

Maybe Iris is white. Comic book colorists must have the most confusing job in the world. I bet it's stressful too! They make one coloring mistake on some character's skin and DC Comics gets the shit boycotted out of them. Heck, the colorists don't even have to make a mistake and people flip the fuck out. Remember when the shit hit the fan about Onyx being white? I'm pretty sure that was just a side effect of Andrea Sorrentino's palette and color choices. You really couldn't tell what the skin color of anybody was in Andrea Sorrentino's I, Vampire or Green Arrow work! Although I'm fairly certain most of the people were supposed to be pasty white since they were either vampires or from Seattle.

The Flash hears about a hostage situation where the kidnappers will only speak to The Flash. Damn. I thought, for three seconds, that maybe The Flash was actually going to help out some innocent folks.

Wait. Why is he saying "unharmed?" like that. Is that supposed to be a mannequin? Or a corpse?

The people kidnapping mannequins are Henry Allen and the other two escaped convicts. See, Henry doesn't know The Flash is Barry. But he needs The Flash to help save his son. So now maybe he'll explain to The Flash what he's been unable to explain to his kid because people in comic books suck at communicating with the people they love. And, really, pretty much everybody else too. Henry tells The Flash that Eobard killed Nora and that The Flash needs to capture or kill Eobard. I bet Barry now hates his dad for keeping this secret from him! That's perfectly good Arrow drama right there!

After Henry is done speaking with The Flash, Captain Frye takes Henry and the other two guys into custody. They all head back to Iron Heights where I'm sure Henry's pals who helped him escape probably won't decide to shiv him during a basketball game for getting more years added to their sentences when he never actually intended to help them escape prison for good. Although I guess they'll never get the chance since Thawne and his Speed Force Freaks intercept the prison van so they can kidnap Henry. The Flash is still nearby so he tries to stop them but The Folding Man takes Barry and deposits him at the bottom of Loch Ness. It must be Loch Ness because there's a Plesiosaur nearby and Loch Ness is the only place on Earth where they still live. Um, I mean, allegedly! I guess Barry will drown next issue.

The Flash #43 Rating: No change. I remember when I wasn't as disturbed by Brett Booth's art as I completely am now. I began to wonder, "What's wrong with me? How did I not realize how bad he is at arting?" And then it occurred to me! Before, he was drawing The Teen Titans! I was so busy hating on Scott Lobdell that I barely even noticed the art! He was getting a free pass all that time because my intense hatred burned only for Scott Lobdell's scripts! And while I'm not exactly ecstatic about the direction The Flash has taken with all of this nonsensical time travel, it hasn't really been written poorly. It's just a competently written terrible plot which is why I now notice that every character's legs are way too fucking long for their bodies. There was a time when I think I even thought his "cartoony" art wasn't so bad. I'd love to blame that time on the artist who inked his work but that always seems to be Norm Rapmund, so it's not like that was any different. Anyway, I'm just sort of waiting until The Flash gets back on track and Venditti and Jensen stop with all of the ridiculous time travel shit. I love well conceived time travel stories and these past Flash issues have not been those.