If there can be said to be one common complaint about the Flash and his own series, it would be about the magnitude of the character’s adventures.  By comparison to other heroes who often get thrown into bigger battles and bigger conspiracies, the Flash mostly seems to stay at home in Central City dealing with the usual foes from his Rogue’s Gallery.  The stories are usually fun enough and of an overall good quality, only that there is something missing to move them from being good to being great.

If the big scale story telling is something which is missing from the series, then this new story arc might be the one to do it.  For a lot of heroes and their books, it seems as though Convergence acted as a bit of a brake to forward momentum for the series, but in the case of this title it has taken a little taste of what has come before and expanded on it.  It should be said though that there is probably no better way to push the Flash forward than to give him his arch-enemy to deal with.  While Thawn/Reverse-Flash/Professor Zoom was introduced before Convergence this is the story arc that is going to tell the first major battle between the two since Flashpoint (which threw DC into the new 52).  The setting is a simple enough one, Barry is still trying to crack the case of the death of his mother, and visits his father in prison to tell him that he has new information that might help clear his father’s name and to find the true killer.  Barry knows that Thawn is involved, he just doesn’t know who that is and therefore what that means.  Instead he is poking around at parts of the truth.  At the same time his father is involved in a prison break that sees a few of the Rogue’s Gallery making an attempt for freedom.

While it remains to be seen what will happen with the story arc, the setup could not be better.  The story telling is very clever as it tells the story in a way that the reader gets to experience the mystery just as Barry does.  Of course the reader knows that Thawn is coming, but that is really their only advantage over the character.  There are a few other clever moves as well, such as using members of the Rogue’s gallery that are not as well known, and thus less likely to steal the show from the bigger enemy.  As it stands this is shaping up to be the best Flash story since Flashpoint, and for any fans that have been looking for a place to get on board, this is it!

Story: Robert Venditti and Van Jensen Art: Brett Booth
Story: 9.1 Art: 9.1 Overall: 9.1 Recommendation: Buy