Letters to The Flash #24!

Couldn't agree more. Flash has come back strong and the ending blew me away. The entire issue was exceptionally well done and I was enthralled for beginning to end.

For some reason, though, I thought I've read every issue, but had no recollection that Iris was pregnant again?

5 stars on this one. Very strong out of the gate. Embracing the history that has come along before it and making it his own at the same time. This is the sign of the beginning of a great run.

Wasn't Iris revealed as pregnant in the multiverse issue, though?

More feedback later.

I can't quite cheer on like everyone else, with this first issue of Kevin's run. There are some good points, and some sticky points, and a couple of elements that left cold, so we'll go through them in turn. It was a solid three-star outing for me, but I'm expecting more and better from Kevin in the future, as he finds his sea legs.

First the little nitpicky crap. For your editor the "get out of Dodge" line, Dodge is capitalized because it's taken from "getting out of Dodge City". It was also a little jarring to have Savitar being referred to being pulled off Olympus. Savitar's not a Greek deity, he's named after a Hindu deity. This is doubtless just me and my passion for myths, but it did help jar me a little. Also for the editor: Golden Glider's powers unnerve me, since she's apparently the father of Mardon's child. Man, when did Flash slide over into Dirty Anime Land?

okay, now that the niggling details are out of the way and Charlie is properly harassed, onto the rest of the issue. Kevin did a decent job of capturing Barry and Iris, they were good, but I felt that the first person writing style was badly utilized in this instance. I like first-person perspective, and Barry's a good choice to go with this, but it was used to do a lot of telling, and not so much showing. He kept telling us about how he was reacting to events, and it just kind of went on in my opinion, and tired me out reading it over and pulled me out of the story. It was very static for a character who is all about dynamism.

I did like the focus on family in this issue, in all senses, since Flash is one of the more family-oriented characters and settings. Bringing in something as simple as an accident for Dad and Mom was nice and helped to get into Barry's mindset nicely.

The bits with the Rogues were solid, I did enjoy them. Again, character was well-captured, and their reactions were interesting, and I look forward to seeing how that all plays out.

I was less pleased to see who the big bad guy for this plot will apparently be. If it's who I think it is, I dislike the character greatly, and you have a hard job winning me over with him (just ask Brian about Anarky and me ). Good luck with that, here's hoping you can bring something new to the character.

Anyway, a solid effort, but there's some work needed in my opinion. I'll check out the next issue and see where you're going from there.

Take care
Don

Always glad to hear all takes, Don. And yes, this was my first ever experiment with First Person perspective, so hopefully I will be sharpening up on that in the future! Sorry it wasn't all to your tastes.



I know this was directed at Charlie but just to throw my hat in as the guy who wrote the line- while Savitar may be named after the Hindu God of Motion, he himself never had any relation to India or other Hindu countries, being instead from an unspecified poor nation with ties to the Cold War- and on the DC2, he actually doesn't have the same background as the original! So when I wrote it, I was just using it as a general metaphor- look, for example, at the character of Prometheus who, while named after a Greek diety, has no connection to them at all. I've always placed Savitar as a character who, while pulling the name from Hindu mythology, was probably not particularly familiar with the religion in detail. But then this is just a personal thing.



As I said, it's my first experiment writing the first person. I agree that there are a lot of flaws there- hopefully, as I get more experience with it, I'll improve in that regard. To be honest, both first person and present tense- two things I'm normally averse to- simply felt right with the character of Barry- like you, I felt he was a good character to do it with. I'll definitely take your criticisms on-board here since this is one area I'm looking to improve.



Thanks. As I said above, some of the Rogues won't be around in the short term, as alluded to this issue, but rest assured, there are plans at work for all of those seen here, as well as the "New Rogues" and others who have appeared.



To be honest, I'm giving the big bad a bit of a makeover. While I appreciate he has ties to key moments in Flash history and has a clearly established place there, he's never been very dynamic to me. He's always been a villain better in concept than execution, and even then he's lacked any sort of personality or even a clear motive, which makes him just run of the mill except in appearance and personality. So I'm taking the parts that work, and reshaping his personality and especially his motives. Hopefully you'll enjoy the character more- I assume you've guessed right, of course- it's not that hard to work out.



Always appreciate hearing your thoughts, Don, and I'll try to take it all onboard.



Thanks for the feedback. Savitar's very fun to write- actually, I'll be honest, almost *all* Flash characters are very fun to write, particularly the Rogues. Even Barry himself- speed jokes aside, I've written a few ahead in this and I honestly seem to write Flash faster than most titles, because the characters have such life and energy.