By ‘Iris Allen’ with Mark Waid, Brian Augustyn, Gil Kane, Joe Staton & Tom Palmer (DC Comics)
ISBN 1-84576-244-4
This is a rather odd, but definitely courageous, attempt to do something a little different with superhero iconography. The Flash has been a successful DC Comics property since 1940 and there have been a number of different versions over the decades.
To Baby-Boomers like myself, the ‘proper’ Flash is Barry Allen, whose introduction in Showcase #4 (1956) ushered in the ‘Silver Age of Comics’ and began the second age of superheroes – which doesn’t seem to have abated yet. This might spoil the ending for you but Barry died during the 1985 Crisis on Infinite Earths event, to be succeeded by his sidekick, Wally West.
This blending of comic art and prose tells Barry Allen’s life-story definitively (sic) in the faux form of a biography that fell through time from the future during the ‘Return of Barry Allen’ storyline (Flash: The Return of Barry Allen ISBN: 1-56389-268-5) and is a charming acknowledgement of the character’s popularity.
Whilst I feel that a better use of the readers money would be to invest in the original tales via one of the various reprint packages such as ‘Showcase Presents…’ or ‘DC Archives’, if you must have the career of the second Flash rationalised, the lavish art of Gil Kane, Joe Staton and Tom Palmer, supplemented by the précis of such knowledgably dedicated scribes as Mark Waid and Brian Augustyn is perhaps the best way to have it.
© 1997 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.