The Flash #44

Yay Ambush Bug!

I haven't been reading many comic books this weekend because I've been hanging out with Jim Doom from Doomkopf.com this weekend. He came to town to see The Prids' twentieth anniversary show which was Saturday night and probably not nerdy enough to talk about on this blog. I don't think any of their songs were about Wonder Woman or The New Gods but since I couldn't really hear the lyrics, I might be wrong. Usually when I mention things I've done in my life (not that there's much to mention besides the cookies I've eaten or the number of times I've masturbated), they don't actually have anything to do with the comic book I'm about to read. But since Van Jensen used to write for Doomkopf.com under the name "Jean Claude Van Doom," profit! I often begin sentences in ways that I probably shouldn't and wind up realizing I don't actually have anything left to say in the subordinate clause. If my editor hadn't decided to leave me because she can't take the joke where I scream at her that she's fired for trying to improve my writing, maybe I'd actually have somebody to tell me that it's better to reorganize my sentence than to write another couple of sentences explaining why the previous sentence was written so poorly. And I can't blame my writing assistant Pickle Boy since he quit to go work in a sandwich shop.

It would actually be better if the above wasn't true because I don't like talking about how much I hate a comic book plot when I'm practically best friends with the writer of that comic. I guess I could blame all of the time travel nonsense on Robert Venditti. He can take it because I'm practically sucking his cock over in my current reviews of Green Lantern where Hal Jordan is a sexy rebel space motorcyclist who is constantly space rebelling against any space thing you've got. Maybe "sucking his cock" is a bit hyperbolic. Although if I ever run into you at a convention sometime, Robert, wink!

This issue begins with The Flash drowning at the bottom of Loch Ness. My favorite bit about it is how Brett Booth catches the intense pain and crushing fear of drowning in one image.

That was a joke. He catches neither of those things. The octopus does add a certain amount of dignity to the proceedings. No wait. I just checked my dictionary and "dignity" was the wrong word.

Professor Zoom narrates as The Flash saves himself from drowning. It's the typical villain speech about how he wants to kill the hero but first he wants to humiliate him and his entire family and every generation of his entire family and then maybe stop by Popeyes for a quick lunch after which he'll get in some more humiliation. Eventually, after humiliating The Flash no longer does it for Professor Zoom's penis, it will be time to kill The Flash. But as everybody except the guy who can time travel knows, that'll be the one time Professor Zoom won't be able to kill The Flash. Super villains are fucking idiots. You never kill tomorrow a hero whom you can kill today!

Although I guess if you can time travel, you can kill yesterday a hero whom you didn't kill today.

Where did Brett Booth learn to art? I'm having a hard time believing he was actually able to draw that pirate or turtle to get into an art instruction school. I guess nobody ever asked, "Can you draw a man's torso and legs in the proper proportions?! If so then you can be an artist! If not, you can draw comic books!"

Professor Zoom wants to humiliate and discredit The Flash so that The Flash won't become a martyr. That makes sense! That's what the Anti-Monitor did wrong during Crisis on Infinite Earths! He killed Barry before making sure the authorities found all of that child porn on his laptop. Although it was more Supergirl who became the corpse everybody rallied behind in Crisis. I'm not sure anybody even really knew Barry was dead until he wasn't returning their calls after the Crisis was over.

Meanwhile Singh decides to get into a fight with Hartley about keeping their relationship in the closet. It's totally unbelievable because David starts the fight just as Hartley is pulling out a tray of freshly baked cookies. You can't actually get into a fight with the smell of fresh cookies in the air. It's physically impossible. But Singh thinks he can't be a cop in Central City if people know he's gay. Please! Of course he can be a gay cop! He'll just have to endure a lot of not very funny doing it in the butt jokes from all the dumb heteros he works with. And let's face it, he probably hears those on a near constant basis anyway! Guys are not creative when it comes to ribbing each other. It's usually just a lot of pointing out how often the other guy enjoys doing gay things. I think about 35% of it is just being juvenile, 10% is actual homophobia, and the other 55% are soft offers gauging how gay the temperature might be in the room so they know if a little after work dick sucking might ensue.

Oh! He just wants to keep The Pied Piper in the closet! I bet it's not because he's dating an ex-super villain. It's more that he's dating an ex-super villain that used to call himself The Pied Piper. Who was also gay. Inappropriate jokes in the workplace ahoy!

That reporter Iris West is more trouble than she's worth! Doesn't she respect anybody's privacy?

Now it's time for some Wally West action! He's no longer a miscreant abandoned by his parents. Now he's a fun-loving kid who obeys the law who was abandoned by his parents! It's a good thing Barry taught him how to be white!

Oh shut up, you little bastard! The two aren't mutually exclusive! Although if thirteen year old me had had this attitude, I wouldn't be subjecting myself to rereading Marv Wolfman's The New Teen Titans.

Wally gets to take time out of school to work on cars in the Central City Police Department because Wally is an engineering prodigy. Of course he is! He's in a comic book, isn't he? He's got to be the absolutely greatest at something! He's such a good kid now! I'm glad Barry worked all the rebelliousness out of him by taking him to that baseball game that one time.

Professor Zoom's henchmen arrive at the Central City Police Station to call out The Flash. When Barry sprints from the room to go meet them outside, Director Singh finally notices the bunch of papers flying everywhere signifying a speedster just left the room. Hopefully he'll figure out Barry is The Flash so he can point out to Barry how obvious it is every time Barry super speeds out of a room.

The Flash's first move is to say a bunch of inane comic book crap. His second move is to punch Block in the face.

His third move is to get his right arm set before his super healing kicks in and he's left with a mangled, useless limb.

Professor Zoom has some kind of machine that uses The Flash's own speed energy to blow up the Central City Police Department. I guess it also gives Wally West his powers. The other part of the plan is to explain to Iris West how The Flash is to blame for this destruction so that she can do no other research than accepting the story from the one person who delivers it and then print that story. How else is anybody going to know The Flash is to blame for killing all of the police in Central City? Anybody seeing what happened would just assume The Flash failed to stop some super villain terrorist's bomb!

The Flash #44 Rating: No change. I don't know why I'm currently buying issues of The Flash. I really should just wait out this idiotic Professor Zoom time travel story. Although judging by the last few Flash story arcs, I don't really have any reason to believe the next story arc won't also have to do with time travel and be idiotic as well. At least if I stopped reading this comic book, I wouldn't have to look at Brett Booth's misshapen people with overly long legs and derpy faces.