The Flash, Volume 3: Gorilla Warfare (Review)

Continuing their wildly successful reimagining of the Flash, Manapul and Buccellato deliver some of their best work on the title with Gorilla Warfare. The story picks up where the previous volume ends, with Grodd's forces raining into Central City. Grodd has returned, believing himself the only one capable of wielding the power of the Speed Force, and he's not going to let anyone stand in his way. In many ways, this story acts as a culmination of the work the creators have done thus far, as it's all hands on deck with heroes and villains alike uniting against this unprecedented threat.

The Flash, Volume 3: Gorilla Warfare

Wrapping up the Grodd invasion story takes up the majority of the volume, though the back half changes up the storytelling a bit, offering a few smaller narratives. One in particular sees Barry temporarily losing his powers in the middle of a sticky situation, and being forced to improvise. But these are the kinds of risks that Manapul and Buccellato are willing to take as storytellers, which keeps things fresh and prevents the execution from ever becoming too predictable. Perhaps the book's biggest tease comes in the form of Reverse-Flash, one of our titular hero's greatest villains. First introduced way back in the 1940s as "the Rival," Reverse-Flash is the Flash's archenemy, and arguably his biggest threat. We get a look at the character's New 52 redesign in this volume, and—minor qualms about the character's look aside—the tease is pretty spectacular.

One thing I've noticed reading through the series is the story's deft pacing. Barry moves faster than anything on the planet, and the story zips along pretty quickly, never giving us time to lull into the absurdity of the story being told. Talking gorillas? Don't worry about that, the story says, just go with it. This lends the title a unique, pulpy feel that feels like the story could have been ripped from an older time. And that is, perhaps, why The Flash was so well-received by audiences and critics alike during The New 52 relaunch. Though this is a ground-up reimagining of characters that have been staples of pop culture for decades now, as firmly fixed in the public imagination—if not more so—as any classic character from literature or the early days of film, what Manapul and Buccellato have managed to do here is recapture the feeling of the era in which comic books were birthed.

There are well-documented connections between the decades of pulp fiction and the early years of comic book superheroes. Pulp characters like the Phantom, the Avenger, the Shadow, and Doc Savage were all prototypical superheroes, somewhat pure and distilled archetypes that formed the bedrock of what would become the modern mythological superhero phenomenon. These early stories were known for the ways in which they thumbed their noses to critics. This was not high literature, nor did it pretend to be. Pulp writers were working class people who didn't have the luxury of drinking bourbon and smoking thoughtfully on a pipe whilst waxing poetic until the perfect phrase came to them. They had a word count they had to hit, and if character development had to be sacrificed to tell the story, so be it. They could develop that character later, in another tale. All that mattered was plot, the driving force behind the narrative. These were tales aimed at popular audiences, not literature professors. And what critics lambasted, audiences loved, and comics book creators have spent nearly a century now trying to claw their way out from under those prejudices. Only in the past decade or so has the academic perspective on comic books really begun to change.

The Flash catapults us back to that earlier era of b-movie plots and outlandish characters all servicing the most zany stories a writer could dream up. Manapul and Buccellato clearly love the character and the genre, and the art continues to wrap this wild story in a gorgeous package that makes reading it not only feel like a rediscovery of something older and more primal, but also an absolute pleasure. For anyone interested in a modern comic book that has all the quirks and madcap trappings of a bygone era in storytelling, The Flash is a title you don't want to miss.

The Flash, Volume 2: Rogues Revolution (Review)

The second volume of The Flash, titled Rogues Revolution, picks up right where the first ends, with our titular hero quite literally dropped into the middle of things. From the jump, we are introduced to Grodd, a classic Flash villain who also happens to be a massive, super-intelligent Gorilla. Think bigger, meaner, angrier Caesar from the reimagined Planet of the Apes trilogy and throw in some superpowers, and you're well on your way to understanding Grodd.

The Flash: Rogues Revolution

The first part of the book is dedicated to exploring Grodd and his kingdom, Gorilla City (comics are not known for their subtlety). And, for my money, this is some of the most interesting stuff in the volume. Manapul and Buccellato do a good job here of tapping into the Flash's mythic potential. As the newly-crowned king of Gorilla City, Grodd sees Flash as a threat to his rule, but the city's elders recognize him as a long-prophesied "messenger." It's worth noting that Hermes, the Greek god with remarkable speed due to his golden sandals, to whom Flash bears more than a passing resemblance, was known as the "messenger" of the ancient gods—the analogue is unmistakable. A lot of tantalizing clues are dropped in this section, but it's not long before the story zips back to Central City.

Once leaving Grodd behind, the book turns to focus primarily on another group of villains, known as the Rogues. The character that sees the most development here is Leonard Snart, the iconic, if somewhat underrated, Captain Cold. Like Grodd, Snart is reimagined in some interesting ways, and that reimagining lays the groundwork for the heart of the story this time around. Formerly a kind of leader of the Rogues, Snart has been ousted and replaced by a mysterious and beautiful entity called Glider.

The writers do a good job of building up sympathy for Snart, showing him to be a mostly honorable man who's just made some bad choices in life and is now paying for his sins. He no longer comes across as a bargain bin Mr. Freeze, but as a living, breathing character with his own agenda. When he finally shows up to help the Flash in the fight against his former allies, it's pretty exhilarating to see these two enemies on the same side. This kind of subversive storytelling so early on in their run demonstrates the creators' resolve to do something truly unique and not tread on ground previously covered by earlier writers. Like the previous volume, Rogues Revolution ends on a cliffhanger that is absolutely bonkers, with Grodd and his army raining into Central City seeking revenge. This is the kind of wild and offbeat storytelling that only the unique medium of comic books can really do well, neither taking itself too seriously nor sacrificing the integrity of beloved characters.

The art by Manapul and Buccellato remains a standout on this title. The few sections of the book containing art by Marcus To and Ray McCarthy are a little jarring to come across at first. That's not to say this art is bad—it certainly isn't—only that it's categorically different from what we have grown accustomed to. It's not uncommon for comic books to rotate writers and artists, if only to give consistent workers a bit of a break from having to produce content on a crunched schedule. But when the art has been as defining as it has been here, to deviate from that creates a certain amount of subtle dissonance in the flow of the narrative. But, this is a minor qualm with an otherwise gorgeous book. Rogues Revolution is a fun, fleet continuation and another win for Manapul and Buccellato as they carry on writing and drawing their definitive work on the Flash.