Let’s go ALL IN with DC … Week 24!

Yes, I counted.

As I noted the last time I did this, DC has been frugal with brand new books, so I’ve been leaving the continuing series alone, but technically, they’re still doing ALL IN books (and I did miss Zatanna, sorry!), and this week brings us the first in the second wave of “Absolute” titles, so I thought I’d jump back in. There are some new titles coming up that fall under this initiative, including some more “Absolute” books, so I might keep up for a little bit. We shall see!

Absolute Flash #1 (“Of Two Worlds”) by Jeff Lemire, Nick Robles, Adriano Lucas, and Tom Napolitano. 28 pgs, $4.99. (The first three Absolute books were 42, 30, and 34 pages for the same price. Just sayin’.)

My retailer and I had a disagreement about Lemire, because he does not like his art and I do, even though I did say it was an acquired taste. We were discussing it because he did NOT like this comic, and I said I was a bit wary because Lemire writing but not drawing, much like Matt Kindt writing but not drawing, seems to be a lesser version of the best they can be. Lemire’s work for DC has been kind of dull, from what I’ve read of it (not too much), and I wonder if part of it is because he’s not drawing the books as well as writing him. DC wouldn’t let him within a thousand miles of a superhero comic if he wanted to draw it too, and if Lemire writing middle-of-the-road superhero comics funds his work for indie companies, more power to him, because that’s where he’s really good. But it’s still unfortunate.

That is to say, Absolute Flash isn’t terrible, just dull. I’m not sure what it’s supposed to be. AbsBats is “Batman without money” and AbsWoW is “Wonder Woman without Paradise Island” and AbsSupes is “Superman without the Kents,” but I’m not sure what this is. The Flash has always – as far as I’ve known – been a hero without a real hook except that he can run really fast. He isn’t super-rich, he’s not from a mysterious place, he’s not an alien, he doesn’t have a magic ring … He’s just fast, and that’s cool. I guess his hook is that he has a pretty good Rogues’ Gallery, but “Flash without a Rogues’ Gallery” not only sounds dumb, it probably wouldn’t work (and some of them show up in this first issue anyway). Lemire decides to make the backstory as boring as possible, so maybe AbsFlash is “Flash without any interesting characteristics”? Wally West is a 15-year-old Army brat with an overbearing father and a dead mother who just wants to do his own thing, man, but his jerk dad wants him to … well, it’s unclear what his dad wants, but it’s very clear that he’s a jerk. He’s working on some Top Secret Project™ for the guv’mint with Barry Allen, who actually takes an interest in Wally because he can see that Wally is bummed the fuck out, but the TSP™ involves live animals, so I’m going to guess that Barry’s no saint either. At the beginning of the book, Wally already has Flash powers, but we don’t know how he got them yet, because the big event toward the end of the book that might have given them to him is shrouded in mystery for now. Something happened, though, and it’s enough that a squad of killers (too-cool-for-school Captains Cold and Boomerang are among them) is after him. Then, there’s a tease at the end that takes place a year in the future. At least Lemire is ambitious!

So, it’s a paint-by-numbers comic, which is a bummer. Sure, making Wally a disaffected teen is something, but, shit, all goddamned teens are disaffected, so it’s not that interesting. As usual, he’s a teen who’s kind of a super-teen, in that he’s far smarter than other teens and he doesn’t make friends not because of anything wrong with him, but because he constantly moves so he’s always the new kid. Of course his dad is a jerk, and of course his mom is dead. It’s just nothing we haven’t seen before, and Lemire does nothing with it. I haven’t written about Fishflies yet, because it’s in my monthly review post (which is coming, I promise, but it will be a bit longer than usual), but it’s much, much better than this, and in that book, there’s also a kid with a jerky parent. Why does it work better in that comic than this? I don’t know, exactly, but it feels like, because that comic is a bit more grounded (not too much; I mean, it stars a giant, sentient bug), Fran’s situation just feels more fraught, and because Lemire takes his time, her father, while a jerk, feels like a more real character. Rudy West is created, at least in this issue, simply to be angry at his son for what feels like no reason. It’s hard to quantify it, because so much of works in fiction comes from tone, but it just feels like this is more crass, as if Lemire is taking a shortcut because he has to get to the superhero stuff. We get far too many shortcuts in superhero fiction, and it continues to frustrate me.

Robles does a nice job, so that’s nice. When we’re in the present and Wally has his powers (I guess, although it’s clear he doesn’t quite know what’s going on yet), Robles uses long red rectangles emanating across the panels to imply it, which is neat because it both shows that Wally is now super-powered but it also kind of shows his racing mind, because he doesn’t know what’s going on. Superhero readers are, apparently, a simplistic bunch, because everything in the past is colored blue-ish, which implies lassitude, while everything in the present (when Wally has powers) is colored yellow and red, which implies heat and therefore speed. It’s not a bad coloring job, to be sure, but it is simplistic. Robles and Lucas do a nice job with what we assume is the “inciting event” for Wally’s powers, as the panels fracture just as Wally’s world does, and the color shifts from blues to reds. Robles’s redesign of Captain Cold makes him look like he just stepped off the Queer Eye set, but good for him, embracing his metrosexuality like that! Robles doesn’t do anything all that unexpected with the art, but he has a good, solid style that works well on a superhero book. So that’s nice.

I’ve looked around yonder interwebs, and this book is getting a lot of love. I mean, great, but, as always, I wonder why I’m so out of step with most reviewers. This is a fairly standard superhero story, and while that’s fine, don’t we see fairly standard superhero stories all the damned time? I did read one reviewer who liked it and who broke it down in a fairly interesting manner (I didn’t agree, but still), but most reviews seem to be grading this on its potential, and as someone in sports once said (I want to say Mike Tyson, but maybe not), “Potential is a word that means you haven’t done shit yet.” Sure, Colonel West could be an interesting character. Sure, Wally could try to reject his powers and have to learn how to live with them (although, we don’t need another Joseph Campbell trope in comics). This could be the most fascinating character study of a superhero ever … but it’s not yet, is it? We can only review the issue in front of us, and this is just … kind of there. It’s not terrible, but it’s not interesting, either. Someone who doesn’t quite fit in gets superpowers that he doesn’t want. We’ve read that story before, because everyone in superhero fiction doesn’t quite fit in and very few of them want powers. I mean, presumably Lemire has heard of Peter Parker?

My retailer might have been a bit strong with his hatred, because there’s nothing in here really to hate. It’s largely inoffensive, but that doesn’t make it, you know, good. I’d rather go ALL IN with Lemire’s Minor Arcana than this, but you may disagree!

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel:

What’s next? Beats me! I really do want to like superhero comics, honest! I live in hope!!!!