Wednesday, December 28, 2016

The Flash #10


I don't remember a Flash villain called The Vaudevillian.

There have been a slew of celebrity deaths in 2016 that have been tragic and then there's Debbie Reynolds. I'm not saying she was the devil and we should celebrate her death! I just mean she's one of the celebrities that would have went whether or not the year was cursed! I'm not being mean (cynical, maybe! But not mean!) and saying people who loved her and remember her fondly shouldn't mourn. I just think when you bring up the list of unbelievable celebrity losses in 2016, maybe just leave off Debbie Reynolds. And definitely leave off Nancy Reagan.

After Carrie Fisher died, I saw a meme on Facebook that said something about how kids of the 80s are losing everybody who made their lives great. It was a collage of celebrities who were big in the time, including Nancy Reagan. What fucking kid of the 80s worshiped Nancy Reagan?! She nearly single-handedly ruined everybody's fun. What a fucking buzzkill! And how dare she drag Mr. T into her evil network of fun-killing downers!

I'm glad 2016 has never heard of me! It's like one of God's plagues. I think when one of Revelation's seals was opened, it mentioned a mass death of celebrities.

This issue begins telling the fairy tale of Shade Not The Changing Man. This is just the vaudevillian villain from the cover. I guess the most important thing to learn about Shade is this bit of wisdom he learned about life: "your life could be affected by the maliciousness of others." Whoa! Why the fuck didn't anybody tell me this earlier?! I've been walking around in crowds unsuspecting all this time that, at any moment, one of those faces in the crowd might be malicious to me! Or at me! Thank goodness this comic book filled that gap in my knowledge of survival. Now I'm going to make sure I beat anybody who comes near me with a lead pipe. You aren't going to negatively affect my life, you mysterious bastards!

Apparently Shade found a woman to fuck so he reconciled himself to an easy life full of calmness and heavy petting. Everybody was safe from his darkness! But that was a long time ago. That's an ominous way of saying his fuck buddy was probably taken from him in a totally unjust way and now he's out to make everybody miserable by affecting their lives with his maliciousness.

Barry is currently out jogging thinking, "The DC Universe is so stupid right now. I can't wait until it figures itself out and pretends it never Rebooted the stupid thing. Of course by that point, I'll probably have an itch to time travel or vibrate into a triple upside down dimension and everything will become fucked up again." While he thinks that, he's ignoring Iris who is trying to talk to him while they jog. Ugh. The only thing more annoying than jogging is when your shit breaks off halfway out of your ass. I mean, jogging with another person! That's what I meant!


Barry's too nice. I'd tell Iris to back the fuck off and call a Big Brother program for her problem nephew. Even knowing he's Kid Flash!

Last issue, we learned that Iris was a terrible reporter. She was getting sent flowers from an unnamed person every week and denied having a secret admirer. I mean, sure, she was right because it was actually Wally West who was sending them. But she never found that out and there's no reason to not believe you have a secret admirer when you get flowers constantly without anybody taking credit. In this story, Iris tells Barry that she asked him along to jog because she heard there were some "unusual muggings" (whatever those are) happening in the park and she didn't want to jog alone because it would look suspicious. Are you fucking crazy? Iris West is the worst reporter in the world and I won't listen to all of you Iris West fans making up stupid reasons for why her terrible statement makes sense right now. If you are going to defend this nonsense, you have to see that you're completely biased. She's an idiot and there's nothing more to say on that subject. Except maybe to say, a few more times later on, how much of an ignoramus she is.

Apparently the muggings have been unusual because they've been perpetrated by a villain known as Papercut. That's not unusual. That's ridiculous. His super power is to fold paper into origami ninja stars and then threaten people with them. So basically he's me in 7th grade.

Wally turns up to stop Papercut because Barry Allen doesn't act quickly enough. Get it?! He's the fastest man...oh, never mind. I can see why Flash comic books are generally 85% speed puns. They're hard to avoid.


No wonder Barry doesn't want Wally out fighting crime alone. His quips are terribly mundane.

Papercut doesn't remain unconscious even though he almost certainly has a fractured skull. No way Wally West has put in enough time training to calculate how hard he can hit somebody without exploding their brain. As he gets up, Papercut reveals that he controls everything made of wood and I bravely refrain from making an erection joke. Who says there aren't real heroes anymore? I mean, no American, probably, since they're all sycophants worshiping at the altar of military servicemen. I just want to throw my hat into the same heroic ring as people who risk their lives protecting overseas corporate investments. Oh, and, um, freedom too! Probably.

Using the distraction of everybody trying not to make a penis joke, Barry turns into Flash, punches Papercut the precise amount to knock him unconscious for a few minutes, and then rushes him off to Iron Heights where he'll be put in a cell and probably never go on trial and maybe even die on a Suicide Squad mission without ever getting the benefit of a trial by a jury of his peers.

Afterward, Flash and Kid Flash have one of those trust discussions that I'm sick to fuck of because I watch the CW superhero television shows.


Why does everybody have to know everything about everybody else? Respect people's right to have some Goddamned motherfucking secrets!

Wally decides that to earn the Flash's trust, he'll go behind the Flash's back and do a bunch of dangerous stuff the Flash wouldn't want him doing. He's going to solve The Mystery of the Speed of Darkness!

Wally doesn't solve it but he does wind up captured in Shade's shadow place (which isn't as gross as it sounds. Maybe). I wonder if Wally is realizing that maybe Flash knew what he was talking about?

The Ranking!
No change! One of the advertisements for The Flash collected stories says that Joshua Williamson's writing is on point. Is that really a compliment? I would rather somebody describe my writing as entertaining! Not that anybody would ever praise my writing as being on point. Unless the point was to show how often I could digress while trying to make a point. Anyway, this writing might be on point but it's not entertaining me anymore. I hate to give up reading The Flash comic book since it's usually the place where the whole DC Universe begins breaking down but I just don't have time for it anymore.

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