If this was Jay Garrick: Rebirth, I might’ve been more excited for this mini. Now with that first sentence you can tell I am not salivating like the rest of the ifanbase over this. Dont get me wrong, it’s Geoff Johns doing a Flash comic. It’s the thing (along with JSA) that got him famous in the first place in the industry. But how many years ago was that? Nine years ago? To be perfectly honest that was Wally West that was Flash at the time, not Barry Allen. Now people could say what does it matter? It’s Geoff Johns writing Flash it will be awesome! But it’s the man behind the mask that makes the superhero, and he needs to have a good voice for Barry..

…I just….well…I didnt like this all that much. I’ll be short and sweet (too late), I was bored with this issue. Now granted it’s a first issue, we gotta get the ball moving slowly…Introduce Barry back to the DCU, get the obligitory catching up with a character whose’s been gone for so many years, bring in some references to early and recent Flash stories. The beginning of this story was great, I loved it the Rouges were prepairing for Barry; and others were actually prepairing speeches when they confront him. That stuff was great. But the whole ‘Oh I shouldnt be alive’ moping around got old really quick. I mean Barry just felt like a stick in the mud. He’s alive and he should be happy about it. But no, he’s worried his ass off that he’s just gonna die again.

You know what this read like? This read like the mini Captain Marvel had when he came back from the grave after Civil War. Now obviously Flash isnt going to turn into a Skrull here (what a twist!) but that’s what this issue felt like. Just a guy questioning his existence and being all mopey about it. I had more fun when John’s writing Hal Jordan in this then Barry Allen. I dont know, I dont think Johns is doing a bad job of writing here. Plus I’m not saying this was terrible at all, it was decent…I just got bored of this half-way threw.

Now Van Sciver is a guy I like. He did Green Lantern: Rebirth and some of the Sinestro Corps stuff in the GL series. He brings a nice use of detail in his pencils; his background are amazing and his character models are pretty good. But let’s get one thing straight here: Barry Allen looks like Flash Thompson of ASM fame. I literally didnt realise that was Barry when he first see him in the museum. Until the narration boxes had the lighting bolts in them, had no idea who this dude was. So that’s a problem if the guy cant distinguish a character from the face in the crowd. The other characters looked distinct and nice….but the panel layouts were a bit confusing at times as well. His design of Barry changing into his costume? Did not like that one bit. He just decided to smoosh that into half a page and it didnt look grand at all. Listen to ‘Tom vs The Flash’ made me think the artists made his costume change look magnificent. Obviously didnt look magnificent here.

So yeah….probably not gonna get the next issue of this. I’ll read this when it’s in trade format. I mean DC obviously wants to make a Flash relevent in the DCU again. Geoff Johns is a great writer and it’s probably for the best he does this then some random writer. I just, I dont know…this wasnt for me. If Barry gets his own regular series back, I’ll give it another shot then.