The Flash #784 – Jeremy Adams, Writer; Amancay Nahuelpan, Artist; Jeromy Cox, Colorist
Ray – 9/10
Ray: Dark Crisis has sent the Flashes into the multiverse, and this second issue is just as entertaining as the first part of the tie-in. With Barry Allen lost in a world that is designed by Pariah as a honey pot, the entire Flash family has headed to different worlds to try to track him down—with mixed results. Jesse Quick and Max Mercury headed to a strange post-apocalyptic world where a grizzled Barry drives racecars in battle against ruthless villains. The visuals are great here, but it mostly seems to be a red herring—similar to the world Iris and Jai have found themselves on, a noir-accented world where a billionaire Barry Allen hunts crime as the Night-Flash, a ’90s-antihero-inspired version of the hero who stalks all outsiders—even children with powers similar to his own. The art style continues to shift nicely for each segment, although it’s clear which segment our attention is really supposed to be on.
That’s the third world, where Wally and Wallace have traveled and the actual place Barry is trapped. It’s designed to look like a recreation of 1950s silver-age comics, as Barry solves simple crimes that always have him home in time for family dinners. And this world does not take kindly to interruptions—when Wally shows up to snap him out of his possession, the world takes care of it—forcing Barry to see Wally not as himself, but as the Reverse Flash, the one villain he actually fears. This leads to a particularly brutal fight scene, with Wally desperately trying to crack through the veil of illusion. And as Wallace tries to find his own way in, he’s given a glimpse at what the world could look like if he had everything he wanted—and it’s awfully tempting to stay. This story works not just as an event tie-in, but as a fascinating look at decades of Flash legacy and the way comics have changed over the years.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
