Comic Review: DC Rebirth The Flash Volume 3

The Flash, at his best, is a fun character.  He wears bright red and moves faster than the speed of sound, or on a good day light.  His enemies tend to be bank robbers with gimmicks and few superpowers between them.

After DC Rebirth, the Flash’s classic foes largely laid low.  Now they’re back in the third volume of the Rebirth series, subtitled Rogues Reloaded.

As it is, the volume contains more than just the main event storyline where Barry “The Flash” Allen takes on the combined work of Captain Cold, Heat Wave, Mirror Master, Golden Glider, Weather Wizard, and the young Trickster.  A second two-parter has Barry and the new Kid Flash travel to Australia for a team-up of sorts with Suicide Squad member Captain Boomerang, so there’s another classic Rogue accounted for.

Much of what comes out works off what makes the Flash and Captain Cold both tick.  Flash is a do-gooder, and he likes being such a person, whereas Cold just wants to beat the Flash.  For Cold, it’s not about the loot.  It’s about beating the Flash, and if he could do that, he’d maybe be happy to retire from crime somewhere.

Much of the rest of the ongoing plot for the series deals with Barry first telling the new Wally West his secret identity and his girlfriend Iris getting the merest sniff of what’s up.  Wally doesn’t take it well, and chances are Iris won’t either, but secret identity subplots are what DC heroes had as their only problems for the longest time.  It’s not the most welcome of stories, especially if the reader has a good idea that no matter what writer Joshua Williamson does, that when Iris learns the truth it will eventually turn out well, and Wally will likewise come running back someday.  For now, I find The Flash fun, and not much else.  Fun is a good start, though.  Eight and a half sudden reveals on the last page out of ten.

Also, please note that one of the chapters ends with a cliffhanger that went straight into the crossover with Batman called “The Button”.