Written by: Joshua Williamson
Art by: Neil Googe
Publisher: DC Comics
The Flash #4 sees Barry Allen continuing to manage his class of speedsters in Central City and the introduction and subsequent defeat of a new villain: The Speed Machine. One of the things that I both liked and complained about in previous issues is that Williamson was spending too much time on characterization that the plot wasn’t really moving forward. This issue begins to finally fix that.
We learn a lot more about Dr. Carver and The Black Hole, but Williamson doesn’t reveal all of his cards and there’s still quite a bit left to uncover. We still don’t know how The Black Hole ties in with August’s brother and if they were involved in the speed force storm. We also find out how Godspeed was able to steal the speed of the speedsters that he murdered, the explanation is a bit confusing but that’s to be expected when you’re dealing with a deus ex machina like the Speedforce. We also finally get to see what role young Wally will be playing. He finally joins the speedster class and it seems like we’ll be seeing him in a more expanded role from now on.
Apart from moving forward the plot on the overall story, we also see things moving forward in Barry’s relationships. Barry and Meena have their big moment this week as they finally cut through the sexual tension between them and make out. While some readers will get terrible flashbacks (no pun intended) to how relationship drama ruined Arrow and The Flash TV shows at times, i think it’s handled pretty well.
Another big Flash change this week is that we got a new artist. The new art is similar to the old one and in the same style, the only negative about the art is that the sometimes the faces look really weird. It’s not a consistent problem, because in most panels the faces still look great.
Even with all the plot advances this week, there’s still a lot that we don’t know and seeing that we’re already 5 issues deep into the story, it’s slowly starting to be a problem. In one way I kinda see what Williamson is trying to do. He’s spending a lot of time expanding the cast and focusing on world building and it all seems to getting ready for a big finale. Things like revealing Godspeed’s identity and August’s moral dilemmas will come more of a shock and pack more of a punch after all the character development that has occurred. Whatever Williamson is planning, it’s shaping up to be epic.
You are an insane person