Written by: Simon Spurrier
Art by: Ramón Pérez, Vasco Gerorgiev
Colors by: Matt Herms
Letters by: Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou
Cover art by: Ramón Pérez
Cover price: $3.99
Release date: August 28, 2024
The Flash #12, by DC Comics on 8/28/24, brings Wally West to the brink of all reality to stop the assassination of the Deep Change and the end of Time.
Is The Flash #12 Good?
Oy! This series has run (*heh*) long past the tiresome point. In fairness to Si Spurrier, this issue is marginally easier to follow than the majority of the run, and Spurrier puts extra care into injecting some heart, but newer readers will be completely lost. Frankly, most readers will be completely lost, and it doesn't appear that anyone at DC cares.
When last we left Wally West in The Flash #12, we received a massive exposition dump from the Arc Angles, who explained their bid for utopian reality could only be possible if they eradicated change. To achieve their end, they need to undo the mechanism for change, Time, by eliminating the source, The Deep Change, which rests on the other side of the Source Wall. The Arc Angles struck a bargain with the Stillness wherein the Stillness would confuse Wally's mind, tricking him into opening a large enough conduit to the Deep Change to make an attack possible in exchange for the peace of death. The issue ended with Wally running fast enough to facilitate the Arc Angles plans.
Did you get all that? No? That's okay. Nobody is reading this series anyway.
In The Flash #12, Wally snapped out of Stillness's influence and the vision of the Crown of Thawnes to realize that the Deep Change is about to be destroyed. The infection is deployed, but Wally stops at the edge of Eternity. Elsewhere, the Flash family "feels" Wally again after he stops and races off to help him. Pilgrim hands baby Wade off to Iris and suggests she pass Wade off to Linda, who left to go to the bathroom.
The issue starts as well as could be expected. Si Spurrier's ridiculously pretentious narration in the voice of the Arc Angles doesn't make much sense, but that may be by design. All you need to know is that Wally snapped out of being used to kill the Deep Change, which gives the Flash family a window to help.
Iris heads to the ladies' room to find Linda in a trance-like state. Elsewhere, Linda's soul/spirit/consciousness/astral self finds Wally to encourage him to stop the Arc Angles' plan. Simultaneously, the Flash Family ascends to Wally's frequency with Max Mercury's help to fight the Arc Angles and buy Wally time to race after the infection. Lastly, Irey West took the vile of distilled Speed Force she created in the last issue and gave it to the Rogues so that they could join the fight as revenge against the Arc Angles for breaking their deal for absolute power.
In short, everyone joins the fight to give Wally an opening.
Frankly, the assembly of characters, heroes and villains, is one of the few things in this run that does seem to make sense. It's not clear if everyone understands what's at stake - the end of Time - but at least we get why each character is fighting.
The issue concludes with one Rogue getting backhanded out of existence, lots of validating words of love and admiration for Wally, and the excision of the tumor with the help of a father figure, mentor, and friend.
Overall, this issue is still the wonkiest and most psychedelic series at DC Comics, and not in a good way, but you can at least, sorta, kinda understand what's going on in this issue. The early news from DC states that Si Spurrier is continuing on the title after the big shakeup in October, so hopefully, Spurrier will learn from his failure in his attempts at high-browed nonsense.
How's the Art? Considering the esoteric concepts and nonsensical plot developments, the art is as good as could be expected. Ramón Pérez and Vasco Georgiev deliver visuals that get the ideas across to help visualize what Spurrier is trying to explain. In short, the art is fine.
About The Reviewer: Gabriel Hernandez is the Publisher & EIC of ComicalOpinions.com, a comics review site dedicated to indie, small, and mid-sized publishers.
Follow @ComicalOpinions on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter
Final Thoughts
The Flash #12 nears the end of Si Spurrier's bizarre, head-scratching take on the end of all things with an issue that's sort of understandable. This isn't a great comic by any stretch, but you can at least (almost) follow what's happening. That's about as much praise as this comic deserves.
4/10
We hope you found this article interesting. Come back for more reviews, previews, and opinions on comics, and don’t forget to follow us on social media:
Connect With Us Here: Weird Science DC Comics / Weird Science Marvel Comics
If you're interested in this creator’s works, remember to let your Local Comic Shop know to find more of their work for you. They would appreciate the call, and so would we.
Click here to find your Local Comic Shop: www.ComicShopLocator.com
As an Amazon Associate, we earn revenue from qualifying purchases to help fund this site. Links to Blu-Rays, DVDs, Books, Movies, and more contained in this article are affiliate links. Please consider purchasing if you find something interesting, and thank you for your support.
A question: I have read every issue of this run but I can't remember, has Thawn's motivation in this plan been explained? cause if I understood correctly, killing the deep change would also destroy the speed force right? So wouldn't that be very detrimental to Thawn? He wants to be a speedster more than anything and arguably at this point needs it to be alive unlike others. So genuinely asking, did he not know this part of the plan and is being duped or forced by the Arcs? Am i getting somethin wrong here? It definitely wouldn't make sense if he knew everything and went along with it to destroy the only thing that made it possible to forever torment and best Barry at everything and satisfy his psychpathic impluses . (Or maybe killing the deep change wouldn't destroy the speed force??? But that's not the case cause the deep change is the source of speed force.)
ReplyDelete