The Flash #34 – Ryan North, Writer; Gavin Guidry, Artist; Adriano Lucas, Colorist
Ray – 9.5/10
Ray: I continue to love just how much DC plays with format in recent comics, and I put a big part of that credit on the fact that they’re committed to hiring the best artists in the business. Whether it’s Dan Mora shifting his art style ten times in one issue, Hayden Sherman taking us deep into eldritch depths, or what Gavin Guidry pulls off this issue, every book has its own unmistakable art feel these days. Picking up from the previous arc where Wally’s new precognitive abilities helped stop an atomic bomb, he seeks out his ostensible boss Mr. Terrific for advice. Holt would like Wally to get back to work in the lab, but he’s intrigued by the mystery, and considers Wally’s flash-forwards to be a possible combination of time travel and a predictive algorithm that only his super-fast mind can process, and he gives Wally some tips for working with it – just in time for a possible crisis to emerge in Gorilla City.
That’s where Guidry pulls off one of the best hat tricks I’ve seen in a comic in a while, with a massive two-page spread – featuring twenty panels on each page, as Wally uses his predictive powers to try to figure out the exact way to pacify Grodd and prevent a full invasion of Central City. Following bolts of lightning, the story becomes a choose-your-own-adventure as we follow different paths, playing out scenarios with Wally, all without ever leaving the page. This comic is usually a pretty fast read, but I spent as much time on this page as the whole rest of the issue combined. It’s the kind of thing you rarely see in comics, and the effort and precision that went into it was amazing. The story adds some fascinating new wrinkles for Wally’s power, and the addition of Holt to the core cast again – he played a pretty key role in Adams’ run – is a great way to give Wally someone else to bounce off.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes
