{"id":7337,"date":"2011-09-25T08:00:27","date_gmt":"2011-09-25T08:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=7337"},"modified":"2011-09-24T15:54:56","modified_gmt":"2011-09-24T15:54:56","slug":"the-flash-crossfire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2011\/09\/25\/the-flash-crossfire\/","title":{"rendered":"The Flash: Crossfire"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"
\nGeoff Johns<\/strong>, Scott Kolins<\/strong>, Doug Hazlewood<\/strong> & various (DC)
\nISBN: 978-1-84023-852-5<\/p>\n

There are many super-speedsters in the DCU and most of them congregate around the conjoined mid-western metropolis of Keystone and Central City. Wally West<\/em>, third hero to claim the mantle of the Flash<\/em>, <\/em>lives there with his new wife Linda Park, his aunt Iris, and fellow Vizier of Velocity Jay Garrick – the original Fastest Man Alive<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Created by Gardner Fox & Harry Lampert, Garrick debuted in Flash Comics<\/strong> #1 (January 1940). \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Fastest Man Alive\u00e2\u20ac\u009d wowed readers for over a decade before changing tastes benched him in 1951. The concept of speedsters and superheroes in general was successfully revived in 1956 by Julie Schwartz in Showcase<\/strong> #4 when police scientist Barry Allen<\/em> became the second hero to run with the concept.<\/p>\n

The Silver Age Flash, whose creation ushered in a new and apparently unstoppable era of costumed crusaders, died heroically during Crisis on Infinite Earths<\/strong> and was promptly succeeded by his sidekick Kid Flash. Of course, Allen later returned from the dead – but then again, doesn’t everyone?<\/p>\n

The Flash:<\/strong> Crossfire<\/strong> (reprinting issues #183-191 of the monthly comicbook and portions of Flash: Secret Files<\/strong> #3) continues the astounding extended epic begun in Blood Will Run<\/strong> and Rogues<\/strong> – so you’d better have read those first – as Wally continued to fight a high-speed, all-out war on two fronts against a seemingly endless parade of super-villains and a deadly new\/old AI villain, which is attempting to seize control of the twinned-metropolis of Keystone and Central City and the united mind of all humanity.<\/p>\n

The rollercoaster action is initiated with the introduction of a new, nastier iteration of classic Rogue The Trickster<\/em> in ‘Crossfire Prologue: Tricked!’<\/em> by revolutionary writer Geoff Johns, artists Scott Kolins & Doug Hazlewood and sublimely gifted colourist James Sinclair as the neophyte villain is introduced to the colossal criminal enterprise dubbed The Network; a national clearing house for loot and costumed looters run by the malevolent Blacksmith\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Crossfire<\/strong> proper opens with ‘Run Program’<\/em> and the tragic news that Joan Garrick, wife of half a century to the veteran hero, is dying of cancer. A little later Linda Park-West is attacked and suborned by evil electronic life form The Thinker<\/em> in Keystone, but Wally is too busy to notice since an army of super-criminals has mounted a devastating assault on Central City\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Just when it seems too much threat for even the Scarlet Speedster to cope with, ‘Hide and Seek’ <\/em>finds the Flash’s enemies attacking each other. The Thinker wants Wally for the World’s fastest computer processor whereas Blacksmith’s brigade just wants him dead\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

As unconventional cops Morillo and Chyre discover just how different they are from your average Boys in Blue and launch their own counter-attack, the malignant AI invades Flash’s brain and both Keystone and Central City become explosive dual killing fields in ‘The Thinking Man’<\/em> with the war between Rogues and cybernetic parasite heating up to crisis point.<\/p>\n

‘Run-Down’<\/em> (with additional inks from Dan Panosian) started the heroic fight-back as Wally began moving faster than thought to crush the conqueror inside his head and ex-Teen Titan Cyborg<\/em> joined him to conclude the epic confrontation of ‘Metal and Flesh’<\/em>.<\/p>\n

In the aftermath Flash learned that Blacksmith had been acting to isolate the hero for months, but with her finally gone the surviving Rogues got a new leader just as Wally and Linda heard some truly shocking news..,<\/p>\n

Rick Burchett & Dan Panosian then illustrated a tale of civic, civil and social reconstruction in ‘Messengers’<\/em> before Flash’s friend and reformed Rogue the Pied Piper – framed for murder and held in penal Hellhole Iron Heights and utterly unaware that he had already been cleared of all wrongdoing – became a desperate fugitive in the Justiano & Walden Wong limned ‘Rat Race’<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

This volume concludes with a spectacular Kolins & Hazlewood fantasy thriller ‘The Brave and the Beaten’<\/em> with the battle-crazed Hawkman guest-starring in a classic fantasy-fest wherein demonic Brother Grimm returned (see Flash: Wonderland<\/a><\/strong>) to once more abduct and seduce Wally’s wife Linda\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Even with order restored, however, there’s a foreboding glimpse at even worse perils to come\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Also included in this magical Fights ‘n’ Tights bonanza is a gallery of covers from Kolins and Brian Bolland plus a Who’s Who entry revealing all you need to know about Iron Heights and its decidedly draconian and peculiarly hinky warden Gregory Wolfe\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

These lightspeed-paced, all-action tales are the absolute acme of modern superhero comics: sharply written, enticingly drawn and designed to thrill the socks of the stunted eight year old in our heads.<\/p>\n

Fun, furious and fantastic, The Flash<\/strong> has always epitomised the very best of fantasy fiction and these tales are more cream of that crop. The Geoff Johns years are slick and absolutely addictive: engrossing, rapid-paced, classily violent and often genuinely scary. If you haven’t seen them yet, run – don’t walk to your nearest dealer or on-line vendor and catch all the breathless action you can handle, lickety-split!
\n\u00c2\u00a9 2002, 2004 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Geoff Johns, Scott Kolins, Doug Hazlewood & various (DC) ISBN: 978-1-84023-852-5 There are many super-speedsters in the DCU and most of them congregate around the conjoined mid-western metropolis of Keystone and Central City. Wally West, third hero to claim the mantle of the Flash, lives there with his new wife Linda Park, his aunt Iris, … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “The Flash: Crossfire”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[76,91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dc-superhero","category-flash"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-1Ul","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7337\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}