The Flash Annual #3

Because The Flash is a total jizz blister?

I Revile Comics! That should be the name of this blog! But no! I had to go with Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea because I'm too clever for my own good! Also because I created the blog before I knew what the fucking blog was going to be about. Maybe I'll make "I Revile Comics" the subtitle! That way when people find the blog, they'll know exactly what they're getting into! After they've looked up the definition for revile.

The stupid Annual begins, as all stupid annuals do, at the beginning of a story that I'd rather read in the regular monthly format. I hate annuals. They cost too much and they're too long to hold my attention and they force me to write commentaries on fifth Wednesday weeks instead of being able to take the time off to sit in my underwear playing video games and eating Oreo cookies. They remind me that I could be not using my brain instead of using my brain! Have you noticed how much nicer life is when you don't use your brain? I mean the conscious part of your brain and not the part of the brain that reminds your lungs to keep breathing and your heart to keep beating and all that crap. That telegraph line needs to keep going or else life would be no kind of life at all.

So Barry is out doing shit and then he notices someone in a hoodie in an affluent white neighborhood and he has the typical reaction of a well-off white police officer.

It's possible he's reacting to the stranger spray painting graffiti on a wall of his newly rebuilt city but why would I want to give him the benefit of the doubt? He may be a super hero but he'll always just be a cop to me.

One thing I didn't mention in my commentary on The Flash #30 was how unimaginative the taggers were in Central City. Every piece of graffiti on the police station had "pig" in it. I would guess that this tagger was spray painting "pig" on the wall right now but I already saw on the cover that she's spray painting "[Lightning Bolt]UX" which I'm interpreting to mean Flash Sucks.

Barry rushes over to stop the criminal and discovers the kid has spray painted some anti-Flash propaganda on the wall. Barry can't let him get away with that, so Barry decides to use his super speed to catch the kid even though he isn't in his Flash costume. I guess Barry figures since the kid is a vandal, he's too stupid to realize the only way this yuppie asshole could have caught him is by running faster than any normal person can run. Barry and the police have a good laugh about the stupid kid being arrested and go back to their easy lives of subjugating the poor, the different, and the mentally ill.

I'm just checking but it's okay for me to write horrible things about police officers, right? The current social climate says they're our enemies, so I can make really horrible jokes and comments about them without anybody caring, correct? Fucking pigs! They're probably straight and Christian as well! Assholes!

Back at work, Barry Allen has a run-in with the Theory of Relativity. I have a feeling introducing the Theory of Relativity into a Flash comic book is going to get a little bit confusing. As Barry nears the speed of light, time slows down for him. Which means time speeds up for everybody else. When he's done running at super speed, more time has passed in the world than has passed for him. So The Flash runs halfway across the world in mere moments to retrieve a South American fruit for Patty. He does it in the space of a few seconds so that nobody will notice he was gone. But when he gets back, his super hot coffee is already cold. And everybody on Earth has aged 100 years! That seems like the opposite of The Flash's supposed powers! Suddenly he's fast in theory but since time is warping around him, he's not fast at all? I guess he'll just have to stop running close to the speed of light.

I have a feeling The Flash is going to be giving me a headache.

And then Barry gets introduced to the kid he apprehended earlier for wearing a hoodie. And it's no surprise to anybody ever who it is.

Although it is a surprise that he doesn't have orange hair anymore.

Iris West actually asks Barry if he can hang out with her nephew because he needs a decent role model. The fucking gall this lady has! Why the fuck would Barry want to take time out of his life to hang out with some kid he doesn't even know?! That's the kind of favor you only ask of people you're having se...oh! Barry, you dog!

Meanwhile twenty years in the future, Barry visits the grave of Wally West because he needs to save him from dying fifteen years previously (that's five years from now!). Why does he need to do this? Comic books!

Whenever I can't actually answer a question because either I don't know the answer or the answer is too ridiculous to care about, I answer "Fuck you" or "Comic books." Those answers aren't as different as they might first appear to be.

I still don't know what he's trying to repair or how saving Wally West will repair it!

Back in the present, Barry visits an idiot criminal calling himself Mogul. It's a pun just like everything else in The Flash comic books! You see, Mogul has a gun that draws moisture from the environment to make snow! He makes snow drifts and skis away from his crimes. See? It's another stupid pun! Anyway, Barry points out that this guy's snow gun doesn't just make free snow. It takes moisture from one place to use it in another. It's a lesson Barry's going to have to learn when he realizes his super powers are based in science and that speed times distance equals time and that the Theory of Relativity isn't just a theory! It's the law! Ha ha! I stole that from Beakman! He'll never know! Besides, he probably stole it from Bill Nye!

Meanwhile twenty years from now again, Gorilla Grodd is busy eating brains while sitting in a rope web. I guess he's become a Spider Monkey in the intervening years. He's also been busy eating the brains of people connected to the Speed Force so that he could gain their powers. He managed to eat Daniel West's brain, gaining the Reverse-Speed-Force Power! Which means he can run slow? No wait! It means he can go back in time! Which Grodd did! He traveled back in time to save documents lost to history. Which is why all of Earth's history books suddenly have mentions of talking apes in them.

The Flash dreams of committing infanticide. Just like a cop!

Flash and Grodd battle in the future as Flash and some hooligans with ultrasonic vibrators tangle in the past. In the past, The Flash says he'll never take a life. In the future, The Flash blows Grodd's head off by putting a tiny bomb in his ear. Enh. Twenty years can really change a person.

Speciesist.

Now Future Flash has determined that he needs to go back in time to kill present Flash. Because being in charge of the time stream is a job that nobody should have! Or something.

The Flash Annual #3 Rating: Relativistic! Time travel is never a good thing for a comic book character to involve themselves with. It just gets so complicated that they eventually simply have to kill themselves! I guess. I'm sure the death of The Flash will solve everything! At least for about twenty years. That's about how long the solution held last time.

Gorilla Grodd! (as seen in The Flash)

PERSONAL DATA
Alter Ego: Variously Drew Drowden, William Dawson, an anonymous derelict [So did Grodd turn into a giant ape after being struck by lightning while doused in Dumpster juice?]
Occupation: Would-Be World Conqueror [To be fair, this is the occupation of all anonymous derelicts]
Marital Status: Formerly married [You know. Before he turned into a great big stinking ape.]
Known Relatives: Baka (wife, separated) [Ha ha. I chuckled that her name was Baka.]
Group Affiliation: Secret Society of Super-Villains
Base of Operations: Gorilla City
First Appearance: FLASH #106
Height: 6'6" [So just an inch taller than The Joker!] Weight: 600 lbs.
Eyes: Gray Hair: Black [And all over.]

HISTORY
Grodd was the greatest scientific genius among the highly evolved and extraordinarily intelligent gorillas living in Gorilla City, a hidden civilization in equatorial Africa (see Gorilla City) [Okay, so I got it backwards! He's the greatest scientific ape in the world and he cashes that all in to be a human bum.], Grodd made repeated unsuccessful attempts to conquer Gorilla City and the world, most of which were thwarted by the second Flash (see Flash II). (An account alleging Grodd and the other gorillas of Gorilla City to be extraterrestrials is totally erroneous [In other words, disregard that one story by that one hack that made no fucking sense anyway.].)

Years ago, Grodd used his telepathic powers to read the mind of Solovar (see Solovar), Gorilla City's leader, and thus discovered how to control the minds of others through "force of mind." Grodd returned to Gorilla City, and psionically took control of its soldiers. Solovar enlisted the aid of the Flash, who detested Grodd [What did Grodd ever do to Barry Allen to deserve such hostility?]. Later, Grodd apparently lost his new power [By ingesting some tainted fruit? By pissing off the Gorilla Gods? Through sheer laziness and sniffing his fingers too much?].

Still later, Grodd used an evolution accelerator to transform himself into a human being [Do I have to list all the things that don't make sense about an "evolution accelerator?" How about just the big ones? How would the accelerator know the outside forces working on the species that would help form it to better survive? How about the fact individual species don't actually evolve? You need birth after birth after birth to effect the change and that overall change is determined not by what the species wants to become but what is best to survive the environment around it? But I bet the big dumb ape simply evolved into a human, right?!]. Calling himself Drew Drowden [I suppose the name is all the explanation that nerdy Gorilla Grodd evolved into a nerdy human?], Grodd found a means to give himself tremendous mind-over-matter powers [Again, a little lacking in the details.]. Upon reverting to gorilla form, Grodd lost those powers and was again defeated by the Flash.

Unable to escape his Gorilla City cell physically, Grodd killed his own body and projected his mind into the body of a human named William Dawson. Dawson's released mental essence began wandering the cosmos. Eventually, Dawson's body turned into a duplicate of Grodd's original gorilla form [Fucking typical.]. Sometime later, Grodd somehow regained his power to control the minds of others and his mind-over-matter powers [Somehow? Probably an editorial snafu.], and could use all these powers in his gorilla form.

Dawson's mental essence returned to Earth and transformed an anonymous derelict into a highly evolved human form, into which Dawson's mind projected itself. Calling himself Psykon, Dawson used the great psionic powers he had acquired to battle Grodd. Grodd forced an exchange of minds with Psykon, but Grodd's own psionic powers were too weak to maintain Psykn's physical form, and Dawson, now in Grodd's body, used his fading mental powers to cloud Grodd's mind and to turn Grodd's body back into his own human form.

Grodd has since regained his full intelligence and mental powers and has psionically transformed himself back into his gorilla form. He is currently imprisoned in Gorilla City [This might be the most confusing character in the old DC Universe. I think maybe it was Grodd that was the reason for the Crisis on Infinite Earths. "Hey? Does anybody know if Grodd is currently a gorilla?" "I think there is a gorilla named Grodd but the mind of Grodd is in some guy named Dawson!" "But isn't Dawson currently a bum that looks like a Gorilla?" "Fuck it. Start the whole thing over."].

POWERS & WEAPONS
In addition to his natural telepathic ability, Grodd possesses extraordinary "force of mind" powers. These enable him to mentally control and transform matter, to levitate immense objects, to project powerful mental force beams, to control the minds of others, and to transfer his own mind into another body, among other feats. Grodd's mind is so powerful that it can transform the human bodies into which he has projected his consciousness into duplicates of his original gorilla body.

Like other members of his species, Grodd possesses colossal physical strength that is far greater than that of either a human or an ordinary gorilla.

Grodd is a scientific genius who has mastered Gorilla City's advanced technology and created many incredible inventions of his own.

The Flash #17

How much do you want to bet the next story featuring Grodd will also be called Gorilla Warfare?

This cover begins with a pun (an old, overused pun but still a pun), so I'm really excited to get back to the good old normal Scarlet Punster of yore! This whole gorilla invasion is getting too serious! I mean, as serious as an invasion of monkeys can get. Man. If Portland were ever invaded by monkeys I would just sit on the roof watching the chaos with a gigantic grin on my face. I may or may not be drinking sake, depending on whether or not I had any in the fridge before the monkey invasion began and kept me from getting to Fred Meyers.

The issue begins with Grodd and The Flash battling inside the speed force. Five pages of punching and kicking and bravado but not a single pun. My disappointment knows no end. See how disappointed I am? I can't even think up a pun of my own!

Meanwhile at Central City Stadium where the apes have half the population of the city hooked into their Illusion Matrix, Flash's father figure, the police detective, dives past the apes and unplugs the machine.

Stupid monkeys! Every super villain knows you're supposed to surround the power source with a force field! And that you're supposed to surround the force field's power source with another force field that is powered by a source inside the other force field! Impenetrable!

Turbine and the Rogues help out Flash's Father Figure since he only unplugs one of many transmitters. They send the machines into the Mirror World and save everybody from the Illusion Matrix!

Really, dude? Least imaginative thing you could have said. I bet whenever you're out sailing with friends and y'all get attacked by a shark, you're the first to scream, "We're gonna need a bigger boat!" Then you probably high five somebody.

The illusion over Central City drops and nobody makes a single fucking pun. I'm about ready to throw this comic against the wall! What a travesty! This is supposed to be a Flash comic book! I'm going to write DC an angry letter.

Dear DC,

I hope this letter finds you well. I've been reading and thoroughly enjoying your "relaunch" of your intellectual properties. I think you have been doing a bang up job and may I commend you (if I may) for your business acumen on screwing that creator Scott Shaw out of all of his royalties to your Captain K'rot character? I was wondering, though, how you got about the legalities of still using the name Pig Iron for his sidekick? Perhaps you owned that character outright? Anyway, I wasn't writing merely to praise you for your cutthroat business practices (well, not exclusively, that is). I was mainly wondering if you, perchance, had a moment to read your "The Flash" monthly serial recently? Mssrs. Manapul and Buccellato have been putting together this normally high quality serialization of your "Scarlet Speedster" character. (Oh, and before I go any further, might I say what a wise and unquestionable business move it was to replace that all too fallible "Wally West" with the much more stoic mother's boy, Barry Allen. Kudos!) While I have mostly been enjoying the tales of high adventure and bravado of Central City and Keystone City's protector (another brilliant move to merge the two cities of The Flash's origin so as to remove confusion from the minds of all but the most stubborn), I find myself having a moment of doubt as to the direction Mssrs. Manapul and Buccellato have been leading the serialization in the last couple of issues. While I laud their use of the always humorous title, "Gorilla Warfare," I must say I am a bit disappointed at the relative lack of puns throughout the monthly magazine. The puns have always been my favorite feature of the serialization and I feel the quality is sorely lacking when they are left out. I read this adventure series to relax after a long and stressful day of relaxing without reading illustrated tales, and I expect to be entertained with spasms of laughter from the frivolous tales told. The serious turn this title has taken has me severely rethinking my continuing purchase of your normally well-executed entertainment pamphlet. Please take Mssrs. Manapul and Buccellato to task for their failures so that I do not have to engage my local comic book store owner in a discussion on the number of titles he reserves for me each month.

Thank you, with kind regards,
Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea!

I feel much better! Except I'm suddenly strangely melancholic about the loss of the art of letter writing! Oh well! Maybe The Flash has some puns waiting for me!

No sooner had I written the letter than DC responded with a positive change in their pun status! The illusion drops and the army moves in and the monkeys are defeated which causes one apt monkey to drop a pun bomb all over my face.

"Grodd has abandoned us!" Oh the existential goodness! Welcome to civilization, monkeys! Also, that dumber monkey on the right probably could have come up with a good pun for "prophets" but he didn't even try. Jerk.

With the sudden realization that Grodd cannot save them, the monkeys flee from Central City. They pack up in their pods and blast back to wherever Gorilla City is located. Maybe just outside Tinasha? While they flee, they round up Solovar who is still barely alive. Thanks for that! I was so worried for him when he died just a few panels after he was introduced and had become my favorite monkey character ever! Except for that chimpanzee that wears the Sherlock Holmes get-up and solves occult crimes. He's funny because he's a monkey that wears a hat!

Meanwhile in the Speed Force, Grodd gets run over by a Wooly Mammoth and they disappear deep into the Speed Force. The Flash grabs Iris and her friends and vibrates them back to Central City. The Flash claims he's the only one that can exit the Speed Force but I suspect Grodd has enough of an attachment to the place that he'll be able to secure his own exit. And I bet he exits six or seven years in the past to be a thorn in Green Lantern and The Flash's sides so that they can discuss fighting a gorilla together when they meet up again in Justice League #2! Everything works out!

Meanwhile meanwhile in Mirror World (sheesh, there are a lot of non-real dimensions in this comic book!), The Rogues recruit Turbine, the silly spastic loony tunes. Then they kick out all of the civilians they saved and begin to tinker with the technology they stole from the monkeys. I suppose that will be trouble later.

Meanwhile meanwhile meanwhile in Dr. Elias's lab, Dr. Elias uncovers some unbroken Speed Force Tubes hidden in the floor and threatens The Flash. I suppose that will be trouble even later!

Barry Allen pretends to have been with the people trapped for three months in the Speed Force and voila! The Flash gets a secret identity again!

Everything is not fine! What about the puns, Barry?! WHAT ABOUT THE PUNS?!

One month later, Reverse Flash comes running out of nowhere talking about going in reverse but still running forward. What a stupid doody face! Maybe he'll create Reverse Flash Point and fix everything! Go away, Reverse Flash! Go home! You're not wanted here! Don't mess up my New 52 and return the universe to the one that all the people who love DC cartoons are missing! Leave my new chaotic mess that I love like an unborn child alone!

Unborn children are the easiest to love because you have yet to resent them for keeping you up all night. That's why I decided to not have five children. I love all of my children I'll never have! And any time I think five children to not have is too many, I can just not have three children! Or sometimes when I really want to feel all of their non-existent unconditional love, sometimes I think about not having five hundred children! And I do! I mean, do not. Umm. What?

The Flash #17 Rating: +1 Ranking. This comic book is nice to look at and has monkeys. Does Batman have a Reverse Enemy? Perhaps Manbat? Superman has Bizarro. And The Flash has Reverse Flash. Who does Wonder Woman have? Slacker Man? Not-So-Wonderful Woman?

The Flash #16

I don't get it. What kind of pun is that?

Now that The Flash is pummeling monkeys all over Central City, isn't it time for PETA to step forward and begin protesting him for cruelty to animals? Maybe talking animals aren't covered by PETA's umbrella of empathy and/or political motivations. Perhaps they believe that an animal that can talk is an animal that can defend itself. I bet if you had to spend an hour listening to a cow talk about its day, you'd be dying to make it into burgers and shoes. I know if my cat could speak his mind in a way that I could understand every nuance of his rants and raves as opposed to simply meowing loudly, I'd hate his fucking guts.

"Hey Thumbs! Transform that can into food already! And my chin itches. Could you scratch my chin? Yeah! Yeah! That's it! That's it! FUCK YOU THAT'S ENOUGH! By the love of Bast, you don't know when to quit, do you? Is it time for more food now? Well, I hope to see more on the plate when I get back from the burying room." *leaves the room* "Hey Thumbs! You call this clean?! Have you been shitting in it too? Is it too much to fucking ask that you disappear my excrement more than once a day? Bast, you monkeys are filthy."

Although I think that's better than having to listen to a dog go on and on about all the crap he loves. "I love smells. I love food. I love outside. I hate squirrels. I love chasing squirrels. I love poop. Did I mention I love smells? I love you. I love when you pet me. I love when you take me for a walk. I love when you beat me. I love when you yell at me. I love smells." Shut up already!

And then you have the talking apes as seen in The Flash. "Well, la dee dah! Look at Mr. Hairless over there! Running the world! Too high and mighty to scratch his ass and sniff his fingers. At least in public, am I right?! Yeah, you and your fancy "language" and "clothing" and "technology." But you hear the words coming out of my mouth, right? Oh yeah. I can smell that you just pissed yourself a little bit because us monkeys are so physically superior to you humans that you know it's over now, don't you? Apes that can talk and carry weapons? Yeah. You guys are fucked. Get back in the ocean where you belong, you stupid water monkeys."

So nobody in Central City cares enough to save the talking apes because I just explained why! Plus they're all too busy being strapped into Gorilla Grodd's Illusion Machine to make Central City appear radioactive and destroyed, keeping other super heroes at bay. The Rogues are busy trying to save humans (including Daniel West!) by stuffing them all into Mirror Master's Mirror Dimension. And The Flash is busy reminiscing about how Iris West was always flirting with him simply to get police information out of him for her news stories.

And sometimes simply for personal information about her delinquent brother.

Barry is thinking about the past and Iris because he's currently comparing it to the present and Patty. Patty now knows he's The Flash and she supports his decisions even when they're completely stupid like giving himself up to Grodd. But The Flash has used his Speed Mind Power to see the future and everything but giving himself up ends in disaster. At least all the options The Flash can think of with his limited imagination! Which is three! So after he thinks up three scenarios and takes them to their disastrous conclusion, he gives up and goes off to surrender to Grodd.

Meanwhile in The Speed Force, the story is greatly appealing to average twelve year old boys!

And weird twelve year old girls. You know the kind? The best kind!

Iris West and her rag-tag group of Speed Force survivors are busy learning how to use Soviet Tanks and, very possibly, developing their own super powers.

The Flash, on the other hand, is busy trying to give up his powers to a psionic ape that ate his daddy's brain and wants everything now. I wish some shorter apes would begin singing a song about greed and power.

I think Grodd was expecting them to sing as well.

As Grodd tries to kill Flash and take his power, The Flash uses his powers to transport himself and Grodd into the Speed Force. From the Speed Force, they can time travel so maybe Grodd will end up traveling back into the past where he can fight Green Lantern and The Flash so that Green Lantern's dialogue in Justice League #2 makes sense!

Inside the Speed Force, Grodd begins to grow more and more powerful. But The Flash doesn't care because The Flash is the most powerful person inside the Speed Force. He's also not the only person in the Speed Force like he first thought.

What happened to all of the puns this issue?

While in the Speed Force, Turbine developed his spinning like a spaz powers. And now Grodd is powering up as well. And the Asian guy with Iris began to develop a power as well. Will Iris West develop a super power too? Be with us next time when "How the West Will Pun" or "Tanks for the Mammaries."

The Flash #16 Rating: +1 Ranking. Sixteen issues of fifty-two different titles...what more can I say? This comic is fun, looks good, and has a terrific narrative that remains consistent and coherent. This is the kind of thing I expect from comic books. I don't think of it as the star of The New 52 but it's a comic book that you can pick up and it won't disappoint. I truly hope the creative team of Manapul and Buccellato remains on this book for years to come. It's one of the few comic books in The New 52 that I can see easiy running hundreds of issues.

The Flash #15

I think this is a pun about how the feet are used to travel upon roads.

Last issue ended with one of the greatest examples of "Gorilla Ex Machina" I've ever seen in a comic book. And comic books being what they are, there have been a lot of them! For the first forty years in the history of comic books, the most surefire way to get kids to pick up your comic book from the pharmacy comic book rack was to throw an ape or a dinosaur or the word "SHOCKING!" on the cover. Judging by the amount of monkeys and dinosaurs in The New 52 so far, it must still be common wisdom.

The great moment last issue was when Solovar was introduced two pages before he threw his life away to save The Flash. Technically he was introduced in an earlier issue during one of The Flash's Flashbacks to his safari trip. But only Turbine had any idea what that was about so it doesn't really count. Now can The Flash turn the tables on Gorilla Grodd or will Solovar have thrown his life away for nothing? Although I think philosophically speaking (depending on which philosophers were speaking, of course!), a mere ape throwing his life away so that a human being filled with God's Soul and Righteous Glory can live for even just a few more seconds is as majestic a life as an ape can live. Of course those philosophers are idiots.

Barry lies beneath 800 pounds of dead gorilla while Grodd beats his own chest in gorilla victory. But that's not enough to keep Patty Spivot, Barry's love interest, from submitting the first pun of the comic!

Okay, so it's not actually a pun. But you know what I mean! On a meta-textual level it is! Okay, not really. But she said "run" and we're reading a comic book about a guy that runs fast!

Grodd's infusion of speed force suddenly wears out, so Turbine begins throwing rocks at him to distract him while Patty somehow pushes an 800 pound gorilla off of Barry's chest. Luckily Solovar isn't completely dead so he can roll himself off of Barry while Patty pretends to do all of the work. Now Solovar tells her she's supposed to tell Barry something because his mind is always faster than, well, I don't know what he's saying. He's a delirious, dying, time traveling, talking ape! I'm pretty sure he's just babbling nonsense.

Meanwhile Captain Cold and the Rogues are putting their plan into effect. They're going to begin transferring citizens into the Mirror Realm to keep them safe from the monkeys. And of course they're going to do it while punning on each others' gimmicks.

How many times a year do you think Weather Wizard hears this?

While Patty is taking care of Barry, Grodd has found his way back to Dr. Elias's lab to suck down some more Speed Force. Dr. Elias has been storing it in tubes for some reason that may or may not have been explained previously. Probably to help power the city so that they never endure another blackout caused by a time traveling EMP blast.

Iris West's brother and probably Wally West's father, is still running around the streets looking for his sister. But he can't find her because she's on vacation in the Speed Force. He's caught by the apes and sent to Ape School where he'll be part of the project projecting an image of Central City completely destroyed and irradiated to anybody outside the city limits.

Barry Allen lies in bed doing his stupid Speed Mind thing. I guess having access to the Speed Force allows him to see the future and with his Speed Mind deal, he can see every future possibility in nearly no time at all. Using this amazing ability to read the scripts of future issues, he awakens from his unconscious state with the answer to Central City's Gorilla Problem.

Love will find a way, bitches. That's a saying, right?

The Flash #15 Rating: No change. There just wasn't enough comic book in this comic book. Half a dozen pages were taken up by the Speed Mind scenario that might have looked interesting but since I already dislike the entire concept, they really didn't impress me much. Not that I totally dislike the concept of somehow seeing alternate timelines and dealing with those. I just don't like how it was incorporated into The Flash's speed power and somehow associated with his ability to "think fast!" It really is more of a psychic power since he doesn't know most of the stuff he sees in his future possibilities. But I guess that's why it's tied to the Speed Force and that place that seems to access multiple points across the timeline.

The Flash's Speed Mind is a lot like The Centipede's power from Dial H except The Centipede is cooler because he has to live every single possibility and rewind when it doesn't work out. So he's actively trying each one as he goes and people can see a weird blurry afterimage of all of his various tries to solve a problem. I wonder if The Centipede leaves corpses as well or if those just fade away as he replays the timeline over and over?

This power is also reminiscent of the new version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy from the final book, Mostly Harmless, where the guide manipulates the time line so that hitchhikers can get a lift precisely when they need one. Although it mostly just manipulates timelines so that it can get Arthur Dent to die on Earth like he was supposed to! Um, Spoiler Warning for the previous sentence!

Animal Man #15

Why didn't Superman ever sue Steel for using his "S" logo? Or maybe he did and I missed that issue!

The first thing I realize when I open this comic book is how unobservant I've gotten while reading comics. When I began this project, I wanted to really take my time with each issue. But look at what I missed in the last panel of last issue? My favorite French gay gorilla in the DCnU!

Monsieur Mallah! And his current Squick Buddy, The Brain!

This is from the first panel of Issue #15 and not the last panel of Issue #14 which I may have led you to believe I was going to comment on. But I scanned that last commentary and Monsieur Mallah is right there next to Grodd and I didn't even notice. If I had, I would have made a big deal about it! He's the best!

Although I could be jumping to conclusions by saying that Monsieur Mallah is gay. The origin of The Brain was always sort of mysterious but I'm pretty sure the scientist whose head it came out of was male. Besides, the Who's Who entry on Monsieur Mallah confirms he was gay!

See? "Marital Status: Inapplicable"! Also, he's basically Pinky since he's "Assistant to Would-Be World Conqueror" The Brain.

Brain begins barking orders at Mallah as if Mallah couldn't figure out that shooting Steel in the face was the best plan of attack at the moment. Mallah must be in love with this thing to keep it around simply so it can talk down to him and order him around. What else can The Brain do? It just sits in its jar! Luckily Mallah isn't going to be pushed around by it much longer.

Monsieur Mallah doesn't mourn for long. He's gunned down in the next panel.

The person doing all of the killing is Frankenstein, just in case you didn't recognize his sword. He's got an army of other Frankenpeople with him. They slaughter all of the monkeys although doesn't that mean they'll just have to slaughter an army of zombie monkeys now? I guess not since the Gorillas remain dead after the battle is over. Maybe Frankenstein knows a secret to keeping dead things dead.

Constantine and Baker try to recruit Frankenstein and his patchwork people for their assault against Arcane's fortress. But Frank has seen the place and says it's still too dangerous. But he knows that Arcane keeps a prisoner beneath Metropolis rumoured to be powerful enough to change the tide of battle. They speculate that it could be Superman but would it really be that obvious? Who else might it be? Maybe it's Cyborg!

Meanwhile in the past, Maxine believes William Arcane is going to help her because he's just a young boy and what trouble could he be? Sure his name is Arcane! But you can't hold that against him, can you? Socks warns her that it's a trap but Maxine is too young to realize that you should always listen to your cat. Cats are like the smartest things ever. And I don't mean because they make people serve them. That's small potatoes! Cats are intelligent because they found a way they have, time and time again, found a way to reap the benefits of human society so that they put out minimal effort to survive. Dog people think dogs have it made but when is the last time you lived in a city that allowed dogs to wander around the neighborhood without supervision? Yeah, cats fucking can't even be touched by the law. Okay, if they're not properly licensed, they can be scooped up and taken away (although most people just assume they're someone's pet and leave them alone anyway). But if they are licensed, they're generally assumed to be part of the landscape. They're free to wander as they please. A few horrible, stuffy, shit-stain cities have tried to make it against the law to let cats wander the neighborhood. But those cities all sickened and died from lack of a soul. It's fucking true! I'm pretty sure I read it on Wikipedia.

Anyway, Maxine doesn't listen to Socks and ends up paying the price that all people who ignore cat advice end up paying.

They turn into monsters with anuses for eyeballs!

Back to Rotworld, I have to immediately scan another picture. Ever since Beast Boy appeared in Rotworld, I've been saying he's the best Beast Boy so far in the New 52. This issue, Lemire and Pugh aren't done trying to show Mackie, DeFalco, and Lobdell how to write this kid.

He's a giraffe! Wearing Mallah's beret and bandolier! Ha ha!

The few humans left in the world climb into one of Frankenstein's army's supply wagons to get some sleep before they reach Metropolis. Buddy Baker dreams he's back in San Diego at home with his family. He even remembers battling Crazy Quilt the night before. Hopefully he didn't incarcerate him before he gets a chance to beat the shit out of Jason Todd.

In his dream, zombie Cliff tells him to not turn his back on the boy since the boy won't be dead yet. Probably a warning about Willam Arcane. Or Damian Wayne! Everyone should be warned about that bar steward. Erm, bastard.

And then they get to Metropolis!

It looks like the Metropolis where Superman is going to have his final confrontation with Vyndktvx!

Metropolis is covered in vegetation which confuses everybody. Constantine and Black Orchid feel something familiar about the power used to cover Metropolis in vegetation. My guess is it's Blackbriar Thorn, evil druid of evil.

Eh. Close enough!

Animal Man #15 Rating: +1 Ranking. This Rotworld crossover would be the best crossover if Death of the Family wasn't over there being such a good crossover. Although they really might be neck and neck. I like seeing all of these future versions of the super heroes. Especially the dead ones since Lemire is making all of the crappy written heroes into Rot Things. I bet Green Arrow is the next Rotten Hero to come along!

The Flash #14

Is "Grodd Gone Mad" a pun? I must be missing something. Everything is a pun in a The Flash comic book!

At some point in the future, the pun "Gorilla Warfare" is going to be used so many times in comic books that it will become the norm. At that point, writers will begin writing comic books about Gorillas in camouflage overthrowing small third world countries and calling the story "Guerrilla Warfare" as the punning title.

I wish I had some old Flash comic books to see how he dealt with talking apes and the Rogue's Gallery back when comics didn't have such a cynical audience. The Flash is the most powerful super hero in comic books (after The Batman and Superman and Green Lantern and Aquaman and...ha ha, no, no. Not Aquaman. He's a fucking joke! (Seriously! All of you people jumping on the Aquaman bandwagon and saying you've always liked him are going to be really embarrassed when you realize you've been fooled by the Emperor's New Clothes of DC's Reboot. Aquaman still isn't cool)) and his enemies were gorillas and people with hand weapons. You're telling me he had trouble defeating these guys? Well, the Reboot has come along and changed all of that to make it more believable! Every member of the Rogue's Gallery has had their power incorporated into their being so they can't be instantly disarmed. And Grodd and his monkeys were born of the Speed Force, so they have a tactical advantage against The Flash and can react to his super speed.

Isn't it nice to read stories about a man that can run faster than light that are finally believable?

Last issue, Gorilla Grodd had been infused with some kind of power that is going to make him an actual threat to The Flash. I think maybe he did a few miles on The Flash's cosmic treadmill.

This statement is incorrect. If you haven't accepted evolution as fact, you're not a rational thinker. Therefore, ALL rational thinkers have accepted evolution as fact.

The continued discussion of evolution in the Narration Boxes on the first page make me long for the days of Rob Liefeld!

History shows that, over time, species change on a genetic level to adapt to the conditions of the world they inhabit.

It's not a new concept. Darwin called it "natural selection."

Oh yeah. That concept has been around for ages! Darwin just simply picked up on it and casually referred to it as "natural selection." And everyone went, "What are you on about, Darwin?" And he would respond, "You know? That thing history has taught us? That idea that isn't new at all and wasn't my insight and grand scientific breakthrough at all? The thing about adapting to the environment at a genetic level." And everyone would say, "What is 'the genetic level'? Are you winding us up? You havin' a laugh?" And Darwin would say, "You may not have heard about it yet, but Gregor Mendel is coming up with some really radical ideas about smooth and wrinkled peas that will tie right in with my belief that we're all walking, talking, civilized monkey men!" And everyone went, "What's that now?" And the Church of England lifted up an eyebrow and said, "Hey now. What's going on over there?" And Darwin said, "Oh, nothing, nothing. Never mind. I'm probably wrong about all of this anyway." And everyone else sighed a big sigh of relief because they didn't want to think about things that might be disturbing no matter how true they were.

Anyway, all of the Narration Boxing on the first page giving the reader a nice elementary school summary of evolution is told simply to say this: Evolution is a gradual process except when it isn't.

Except when it isn't a gradual process it isn't evolution. It's mutation. But that might trouble with the copyright lawyers, so we'll stick with the idea that Grodd's apes "evolved in a flash" and move right along. Nothing to sue over here!

Back to the comic book, Grodd has indeed gotten his hands on the Speed Force. I don't know how he did it though. Maybe the evolution in a flash explanation on the first page was the actual explanation. Perhaps Grodd simply evolved. But probably only after running on the Cosmic Treadmill.

This is the monkeys' plan to keep the real heroes away from Central City.

Turbine the whirligig also has a plan! As does Captain Cold! The only one without a plan is Barry. But that's because he has yet to take his mother's advice to "slow down and think things through." He's just been running around in circles going ape.

Turbine's plan is to visit the Central City Zoo where a talking ape has been in captivity ever since it appeared out of thin air and attacked Barry Allen's safari tour bus twenty years ago. This ape's name is Solovar and he's probably an ape I would remember if I had ever been interested in The Flash. Turbine knows about him because Turbine lived in the Speed Force for eighty years or more.

Speaking of people living in the Speed Force, Iris West and her companions are still having a wonderful time there.

Wish you were here!

Captain Cold's plan is never revealed but it has something to do with Mirror Master. The Rogues will probably end up defeating Grodd's apes at the stadium that are creating the illusion of a ruined Central City while The Flash fights Grodd. It seems Solovar's sole purpose in coming to the future and being rescued by Turbine was to die.

Nooooo! After knowing Solovar for a total of two pages, I'm emotionally attached to him! How dare you kill my favorite character in The New 52?!

I think this is what is referred to as "Gorilla Ex Machina."

The Flash #14 Rating: No change. I don't think I care all that much about The Flash fighting Gorilla Grodd. I prefer my comic book gorillas French who is best friends with a brain in a jar.

The Flash #13

Wasn't the Gorilla Warfare title already used? Like a million times? Can we please lay this pun to rest?

The Flash had just been defeated by his Rogue's Gallery when an army of monkeys in pods dropped out of the sky to take over Central City. It was at that moment that the Rogue's Gallery began questioning the wisdom of their actions. Because when your city is suddenly invaded by hundreds of six hundred pound gorillas (unless they're heavier!), you really want the guy that can defeat them all in the time it takes to tell one monkey joke conscious.

But the big monkey fight can wait since this issue begins with a flashback scene from ten years ago.

The slow down and take your time line was so good, it had to be used two issues in a row.

And that was all that needed to be said about the past. It seems like a pretty weak moment. Maybe it was done to get Barry's mother's slow down advice into the normal run since that advice was given to him in the Zero Issue. Also Darryl's role as Barry's father figure was highlighted in the Zero Issue as well. So maybe this moment was mainly to get some of the main Zero Issue points across to the not very loyal Flash readers that skipped the Zero Issue.

And then two minutes from ten years later, Patty breaks into Darryl's office to declare that Barry is alive! Her new buddy Turbine told her all about it. Turbine also seems to know a secret about Captain Darryl! But then their two minutes are up and it's exactly ten years after the initial scene and the monkeys come crashing down into Central City.

How is Weather Wizard going to wake him up? Blast him with lightning?

Oh, turns out he just douses him with water. I've always figured the best way to bring someone back to consciousness after a concussion was with water. Or maybe a slap to the face. It probably works because The Flash's speedy system has already healed himself and then the water brings him around. It's all very comic book scientific. But enough with the unbelievable bullshit the writers are trying to pass off on the readers. Let's get to the talking monkeys!

The Rogues don't seem to be too keen on talking monkeys, so they try to retreat while The Flash deals with them. But seeing as how an army of monkeys landed all around them, they're forced to take part in the monkey business.

Where are all the good monkey puns? I at least expect a no more monkeying around comment at some point.

The Flash has trouble beating up the gorillas because these are the special kind of gorillas that were born out of the Speed Force. So they are quicker and able to react to The Flash no matter how fast he goes. Plus there are a lot of them. And they smell bad. Luckily he's got the Rogues to help him out for awhile. But just for awhile! As soon as the tide turns and The Flash has the upper hand against the apes, I'm sure they'll switch sides again. And for some of them, it doesn't even take that long. The Trickster has decided to strike up a deal with Grodd. But the partnership doesn't go anywhere past the handshake.

Hopefully that was just a trick arm.

Grodd is up to something. He sneaks off to look for something powerful he feels within the city while his ape army distract The Flash.

Which they don't do for long.

But apparently they do it for long enough because when The Flash finally rushes off to find Grodd, he discovers Grodd looking a lot like Mr. Hyde from Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

I have no idea what happened here. But it looks like he got a little bit of speed force in him.

The Flash #13 Rating: No change. Manapul's art seemed a bit rushed and sketchy throughout the issue. The issue itself was mostly just a big battle against talking monkeys. And while the Trickster getting his arm torn off was a nice surprise, the fact that this was another fucking comic book called "Gorilla Warfare" erodes any good feelings I had toward the issue. I wish I could remember which other comic in The New 52 was called Gorilla Warfare so I could link to it and my feeble research on that pun being used throughout comic book history. Oh well!

The Flash #9

Do other gorillas act any different? What makes Grodd so special?

After The Flash exited The Speed Force last issue with Turbine, he ended up in Gorilla City. I'm not sure where Turbine ended up. He's probably spinning around somewhere in Tokyo.

The Flash interrupts Gorilla Grodd as he eats his own father's brains. I'm sure that's some sort of faux pas in Gorilla City.

"He can talk! He can talk! He can talk! He can talk! He can talk!" "I can siiiiiiiiiiiiiing!"

The Flash is captured by Grodd because he's forgotten who he is and apparently can't run super fast without the knowledge that he can run super fast. Grodd and his men apes seem to think that The Flash is from The Light and is a messenger of some sort. At least the confusion keeps Grodd from immediately eating Barry's brains.

Meanwhile, Iris remains trapped inside the Speed Force with a few other people from Central City. They talk about not being hungry and not understanding television shows.

Technically, they were only dead and didn't know it in the Flashwhatevers of the final season. And that Flashwhatever took place in a sort of timeless limbo where they were all just hanging around until all of the people who experienced the island with them died.

Back in Gorilla City, The Flash gets a history lesson from the elders who are willing to free The Flash before Grodd can kill him.

The Speed Force destroyed a South American civilization. The Speed Force zapped a tribe of gorillas and made them faster and smarter. The Speed Force trapped the Tuskegee Airman inside it. The Speed Force created The Flash by zapping him and some chemicals.

So The Speed Force made the Gorillas of Gorilla City super smart. But the Speed Force has been leaving them, generation after generation. The gorillas are getting more brutish and Grodd is the leading example of how far they've fallen from their civlized heights. Now the elders feel that they must free The Flash to save the world although it will mean the destruction of Gorilla City. I don't know how that part works yet.

Oh! The Gorilla Elders tell Flash what Turbine told him last issue: The Flash must keep running to save the world! He's part Jesus Christ and part Forrest Gump!

Grodd interrupts the lesson and begins killing monkeys. But just as he's about to kill The Flash, The Flash remembers who he is! He's a little kid that once took a picture of a Gorilla with his Jay Garrick brand camera but then the gorilla knocked over the bus and almost ate him and he was so scared! But his mother came to his rescue and threw the camera at the Gorilla's head, making it angrier! Luckily, some hunters shot it with a tranquilizer dart at the exact same time, so everyone was safe. Anyway, The Flash remembers he can run fast and avoids Grodd's deadly headbutt!

The pillars in the underground cave they're in aren't fast enough to dodge Grodd's headbutt and collapse. And then the roof collapses as well! Grodd is trapped under the rubble but Barry and some of the Elders escape. The Elders then send Barry on his way to run and run and run and save the world!

Back in Central City, Patty requests a leave of absence and heads to Guatemala City to investigate a cold case. It looks like she'll be running into a drug cartel down there run by the Weather Wizard.

Barry Allen arrives home to find the biggest cliche in comics waiting for him: bigotry against costumes!

I don't know why Dr. Elias is leading the rally. Maybe he's mad that The Flash decided to risk DC Continuity by misusing his Cosmic Treadmill.

The Flash #9 Rating: No change. This seemed like a pretty weak issue to introduce Gorilla Grodd. I realize it was less about Grodd and more about the origins of Gorilla City and connecting The Flash to Grodd so that it makes sense that they're enemies. But it was fairly flat, especially for a comic that has had some pretty decent humor throughout. It still looked beautiful though!

The Flash #8

I hate Turbine already.

Last issue ended with The Flash entering a tear in the fabric of space and time so that he could find Iris West. He has no idea if what he's doing will help but you need a whole lot of stupidity and a fairly high percentage of death wish to be a super hero. But when he enters the wormhole, he ends up inside the Speed Force instead of blasting through time. Why would the Speed Force that he taps into not only be a field of energy but a place as well, right? Makes as much sense as everything else in this comic book.

And since the comic is already in a pretty sketchy area of believability, turns out there is a Tuskegee Airman from World War II trapped inside the Speed Force as well. His experimental plane he was flying somehow transported him into it. And now he lives there. But he doesn't want to live there. He wants out and believes The Flash is the way. He knows The Flash is Barry Allen as well. So perhaps living in the Speed Force allows him to see the lives of the people affected by it.

Oh yeah. The guy's name is Turbine and his super power is spinning around in circles.

Wheee! Maybe when he gets better at it, he can roll down hills.

Once The Flash knees Turbine in the face (because spinning around really fast isn't the best defense in the world (the best defense is falling down in a fetal position)), Turbine decides he'll speak with The Flash instead of fighting him. So big point loss to The Flash for ending a comic with a guy who didn't really want to fight in the first place just for the action packed cliffhanger. Sure, Turbine is crazy and has been trapped in the Time Stream/Speed Force/Whatever the Fuck It Is for 70 years. And the spinning around all the time probably isn't helping.

Turbine knows all about The Flash because being trapped in the Time Stream / Speed Force allows a person to watch the lives of other people across the horizon like a super entertaining Aurora Borealis. I wonder how many times he's watched Barry take shit or masturbate. Or masturbate while taking a shit.

A path opens up to another wormhole to the future which Barry wants to follow but Turbine convinces him to go backwards and look at images of The Flash's origin story.

I prefer 'votices'.

Turbine (who I would like and fine more interesting if his spinning around really fast wasn't a real super power at all but he's just crazy and believes it is so he named himself) tells The Flash that the Speed Force builds up excess energy and it needs to be released somehow. When The Flash runs, he releases this energy like a pressure valve releasing steam.

Meanwhile in the real world, the Central City police are having a memorial service for police officers who died in the line of duty and Barry who died on a boat. Well, he disappeared into a wormhole but everyone might as well assume he's dead. Patty, of course, is hating on The Flash because that's how these kinds of relationships have to go down. She loves Barry Allen but hates The Flash! Oh the drama inherent in the set-up! It's too easy to pass up! But the real reason I mention this memorial service is because one of the officers, David Singh, a close friend of Patty's who had some weird flutes in his house that belonged to "a friend", introduces that friend to everyone. I think he might be The Pied Piper. Isn't that one of The Flash's Rogue's Gallery villains?

Is making The Pied Piper gay offensive?

Back to the Speed Force, Flash learns everything he needs to know about his super power. If he doesn't run, the Speed Force flips out and does crazy things like pulling Turbine's plane out of the world and trapping him inside itself. But when The Flash runs and releases that extra energy, wormholes open up within the Speed Force and release the energy. Things don't normally get sucked in. But every time a wormhole opens, Turbine tries to enter it to go home but he just spins around instead, creating a vortex which pulls shit through and ejects it into another time. Unless it crashes into the natural rock formations that exist within the Speed Force for some unknowable reason. So Turbine is to blame for stuff being transported through time! And Flash can go back to running super duper fast! Once The Flash kills Turbine, everything will work out in the end!

Except The Flash probably won't kill Turbine. Maybe he'll try to help him get back to 1944 so by the time The Flash returns to his time, Turbine will probably be dead. Maybe he'll be an old man and Barry Allen will visit with him. Maybe he'll become his Sidekick! Especially since Barry feels too responsible to fuck up the timeline by sending Turbine back to 1944. So he wants to take Turbine to the future with him. Turbine doesn't want to go and would rather kill The Flash.

How much more of a literal break from reality can Turbine get? He's been pulled out of it into Magic Picture Land.

Flash forces Turbine out of the Speed Force with him but Turbine yanks off his Lightning Bolt ear rig that lets him hear when he runs faster than the speed of sound and, I think, also contains the warning system that he isn't going to need anymore once he removes Turbine from the Speed Force. But after they escape, Iris West finds his antenna. It looks like her part of the boat did crash inside the Speed Force with the other victims. She'll probably find a way to contact Flash with his earpiece. But until then, she'll get to watch images of Barry Allen as he fucks Patty.

On exiting the Speed Force, Flash ends up in Gorilla City. Yay! It Monkey Time! Sorry if that offended any sentient gorillas reading this.

The Flash #8 Rating: +1 Rating. Still enjoying this comic! And now I'm pretending that Turbine doesn't spin very fast at all but he thinks he does. He'd be my favorite sidekick ever if he just followed The Flash around and spun about.