Broken Frontier

Barry Allen continues to question his existence but mysteries grow upon mysteries and troubles loom on the horizon.

Two issues in and writer Geoff Johns continues to do what he is known for – integrate old continuity with newer ideas and more modern takes. As The Flash: Rebirth continues, however, the discrepancies and changes hang ever more awkwardly off the original. Johns is not known for failures in reconciling continuity but can all of this be fixed or will fans, in the end, be left with a mess?

Barry is sidetracked by the mystery of Savitar’s disintegration. Before he can seek help from Wally, however, he finds himself sidetracked again to Iris’s house – and Barry Allen finds himself asked to aid in the investigation of another set of murders – the deaths of the Central City CSI squad. Barry takes a moment to reflect on his life and apparent death but even that moment is cut short as he learns that other speedsters were affected when Savitar died. There are strange events afoot and they are drawing tighter and tighter around Barry. Just who is Barry Allen? Cop? Husband? A man scarred by a painful childhood? Maybe all of the above and certainly something more… perhaps something horrifically more.

Barry Allen was one of the lightest, brightest heroes in the DCU. A good, Midwestern boy raised by loving parents and a dedicated if slightly absent-minded forensic scientist. Geoff Johns’ retcon of Barry into a driven perfectionist forever haunted by his inability to find his mother’s killer and get his father released from prison just doesn’t fit right. Added to that are the rather broad hints and overtones that Central City is a place of corruption and this disconnect grows. Barry is not Batman and Central City is no Gotham. These darker shades do not add to the character – instead they detract and take what could be an interesting and enjoyable story and turn it into just another tiredly familiar angst-fest. The one bright spot in the story is actually the flashback to Barry and Iris’s first meeting. Although this is yet another retcon, it is a slight one and it has a lot of charm to it – an echo of what the characters once were. There is also an amusing little explanation for Barry’s bow ties that adds a spark of much needed humor here.

Ethan Van Sciver’s art continues its almost insane level of hyper-detail but it is within those details that some of the best bits of his craft can be seen. Take, for example, police Captain Frye. Van Sciver introduces the character in a flashback and gives him a district, real-world look. Tall, thin, and with a receding hairline, Van Sciver gives the character a sense of motion – of a man always in a hurry and with never enough time to do everything. When we meet Frye in the present day Van Sciver has realistically aged him – adding gray to the still receding hair, giving him stockiness with middle age but also slowing him down. He comes across as weary now and more deliberate instead of harried and rushed and all of this is conveyed through the art alone. There are also a lot of neat special effects that help give the story a feeling of a big-budget superhero movie played out on the page.

When it comes to a title supposedly about the fastest man alive, the plot here is just moving entirely too slowly. The dark corners of the story – the veneer of crime and criminality just do not jell with history and continuity. It may be that, in the end, Johns will pull this all together and the shadows will lift for a brighter, sunnier future but fans are likely better off waiting for the finish of this race.