Comic book fans will be hard pressed not to notice the return of Barry Allen as the Flash, after a 24 year absence since the original Crisis On Infinite Earths back in 1985. Just like they brought back Hal Jordan as Green Lantern, Barry is returning in a mini series called “Flash: Rebirth”, which has already sold out, according to the new DC blog.

I was born in 1984 and only got into comics in 1997, and read the original Crisis On Infinite Earths maybe in 2005, and so the only Flash I’ve interacted with, is Wally West, who to me, is the Flash. Barry was long “dead” in the comic book world, though his legacy lived on. So why bring him back now? The biggest reason I can think of, is that the comic creators who are currently holding a high profile at DC Comics, were those who grew up in the ’70s and ’80s, and are used to Barry as the Flash. However, is this representative of what comic fans in general think?

Here’s an excerpt from the Weekly Crisis:

It wasn’t bad would probably be the nicest way to describe this issue, which amounted to, more or less, 40 pages of everyone, save Bart Allen, praising Barry Allen as if he was the second coming of Christ. In between the blatant Barry lovefest scenes, the book does a good job of building up a decent mystery around Barry’s return to the land of the living along with his new powers.

Let’s look at more data. A poll on Newsarama (a leading comic book and pop culture website) asked readers who they felt was their Flash.

This is the screenshot I took yesterday:

Flash Poll: April 2nd

And here is the screenshot I just took:

Flash Poll: April 3rd

Even though the number of respondents doubled during the two time periods, the data stays roughly the same, with 63% preferring Wally and only 21% preferring Barry.

So why the change? As someone who saw Wally grow into his boots during Grant Morrison’s JLA and Geoff John’s Flash, it’s sad to think Barry is back to “steal” the show, and I wonder if Wally will be more than a supporting cast, a la Kyle Rayner after Hal Jordan came back.

Superman And The Legion Of Super-Heroes

After a slow start with Last Son and a stronger arc with Escape From Bizarro World, Geoff Johns and Gary Frank unite to metaphorically blow my mind with Superman and the Legion Of Super-Heroes. A cocktail of my love for team books, a fond affection for the Legion of Super-Heroes, Geoff John’s masterful understanding of the characters and Gary Frank’s amazing art results in one of my favourite Superman and Legion stories of all time.

The story in this arc is pretty intriguing. Superman’s legacy is being tarnished in the 31^st century (where the Legion reside) and a distress call is sent back in time to our time to ask for Superman’s help. However, Superman quickly finds out that in this future, the sun is red, which means his powers don’t work. Luckily he has a whole host of super-powered friends in the Legion to help him out.

If you have some precursor knowledge of the Legion of Super-Heroes (either from the comics or the criminally short-lived cartoon series), you’d know their roster is incredibly huge and can be unwieldy. In addition, Johns has chosen to use a version of the Legion that many modern-era readers (like me) are totally unfamiliar with. However, neither of those proved to be a problem because while Johns utilises practically the whole Legion (including the Substitutes, which was one of my favourite moments), he also focuses on a very core group including Polar Boy, Colossal Boy, Brainy, Dawnstar, among others, to make it a truly accessible story with distinguished characters, even if you have no idea who the Legion of Super-Heroes are.

Removing Superman’s powers – in the hands of any other writer – could be a cheap ploy to demonstrate how “heroic” he is, even without them. Of course Johns does demonstrate this, but not in a forced way. The danger he’s faced with is very real, and it’s much easier to relate to a Superman that isn’t 99.9% invulnerable. He also has one moment which has to be my favourite Superman moment ever where he says “I stand for everyone” because the humans think he’s anti-alien and only stands for humanity. Fantastic!

Gary Frank has always been a favourite artist of mine. From Midnight Nation to Supreme Power and Birds of Prey, I’ve liked his distinctive style, even if it took me awhile to get used to his faces initially. I just need to say he can draw the heck out of the Legion, and Superman as well.

If you’re curious about Superman from all my previous reviews and might be hesitant about spending $30 to pick up one of these (especially with Escape From Bizarro World’s terrible format), I would suggest picking up Superman and the Legion of Heroes and diving straight into Geoff John’s run from here. There are virtually no threads from the previous two story arcs that continue into this, so you don’t have to worry about not being able to follow the story. In fact, even if you’re not interested in John’s stint on Superman and just want a really good story, you could do worse than Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes.

[Image credits: Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes]

Superman - Escape From Bizarro World

Bizarro, a twisted version of Superman, was one of the key characters featured in Superman: Last Son, and this volume continues his story. He kidnaps Pa Kent and flies to “Bizarro World” which is powered by a blue sun, that gives him strange new powers. Superman’s job, of course, is to save his dad. But can he save Bizarro in the process?

Now this is more like it. Although I wasn’t overly enthralled with the Last Son collection, Escape From Bizarro World did more for me. I feel at the core of it, this is a Superman/Pa Kent story, and a good one at that. The flashbacks to a young Clark/Pa Kent were reminiscent of early Smallville episodes, but didn’t feel repetitive at all. The unfortunate thing is I know where this is building to because of a podcast I listened to, but that knowledge really makes this interaction all the more poignant and meaningful.

The whole Bizarro speech threw me off a little bit because I’m not familiar with the Bizarro character. Not only do they say “am” in speech (”me am happy”) but they also use reverse-speech like “goodbye” instead of “hello”. While it did make for some confusing moments, it didn’t take anything away from the story at all.

Eric Powell, creator of The Goon, does a great job with the art here. The Bizarro creatures look as twisted and creepy as they should, but yet with some humanity in them. He also captured the more human moments between Clark and Jonathan as well as he did the action sequences.

Bizarro Justice League

The best moment of this comic for me was the introduction of the Bizarro Justice League where we have a Bizarro Flash who is fat and lazy, a Bizarro Wonder Woman whose magic lasso makes you tell lies instead of truth, and a Bizarro Yellow Lantern (pictured shooting a beam at his own head) a member of the Sinestro Corps who is plain hilarious.

The resolution of the story might be one of my favourite endings in a graphic novel of all time. It’s not solved with punches or a huge fight, but with a clever twist and of course, Jonathan Kent provides the inspiration. Very nice touch. It’s not often that comics end with a happy note for everyone involved, but this did, in a very satisfying way.

The one dissatisfaction I had with this hardcover was that only half the story was new material and about half of it was reprints from early Superman comics from the ’80s. I just felt paying US$25 for a hardcover for half of it to be recycled material was just a disappointment.

[Image credits: Escape from Bizarro World | Bizarro Justice League]

I’m not a Superman fan by any means. I could never relate to Clark Kent, and he always seemed to “overpowered” for me. I mean, who can beat Superman?

Superman: Last Son

That said, Geoff Johns has been writing Superman for the last couple of years, and he’s done some amazing things with The Flash, another superhero I could never relate to until Johns wrote him. Combine that with positive (if not overwhelmingly positive) reviews around the internet, I decided I had to try out his run, even if that meant buying a hardcover.

So I picked up the first collection of his run called Last Son, where he works with Richard Donner (who directed the first Superman movie) and Adam Kubert, an artist known for his dynamic action style.

The plot is simple. A pod is found on earth containing what seems to be a Kryptonian boy, Superman meets him and is protective of him, but as always, there is a big bad at work.

One of the big plot points is that Superman (as Clark Kent) decides to adopt the boy (fraudulently), together with Lois, although most of the world is looking for him. Once you suspend the belief that people won’t put two and two together (that Clark suddenly has an adopted son the same age as the missing boy), the story actually works quite well.

Adam Kubert's Superman

The action sequences and the art in general are superb. One full chapter of the book which takes place in an inter dimensional jail called the Phantom Zone is even in 3-D (yes, it comes with 3-D glasses) and I really enjoyed reading that.

One thing that Johns still did not manage to do (so far) was to get me to relate to Superman. I didn’t feel his “bond” to the boy being very believable, but it’s only the first story arc. What Johns did manage to do is make me curious enough to buy the next two hardcovers Escape From Bizarro World and Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes to see where this is going. I hope I won’t be disappointed!

[Image credits: Adam Kubert's Superman]