A review of another of DC’s “Justice League of America” series of mass-market paperbacks. So far, this is the weakest of the lot.
The Flash: Stop Motion by Mark Schultz (2004)
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Mark Schultz is no newcomer to comics, being the writer-illustrator of Xenozoic Tales (Cadillacs & Dinosaurs), and he wrote a stint on one of the Superman titles a few years before this novel, but his knowledge of the DCU feels only skin deep — and it’s not an attractive skin at that.
Wally West, the Flash, is faced by a mysterious, other-worldy super-speedster villain who is even faster than he is. Already despondent over being a second-rate JLA member, can he protect his family, his city, and his entire universe?
Um … well, yeah, I guess he can, and learn all sorts of stuff in the process and become confident and well-adjusted. All in one novel.
The story begins with an improbability of the sort that hasn’t been seen since the Silver Age — the Flash, “flying” by means of super-vibrating the air beneath him. Uh … yeah. That’s probably the worst story gaffe, but the characterizations of other super-heroes are clumsy as all get-out. Pretty much all the other heroes have something … off … about their characters and dialog. The Martian Manhunter, in particular, a character with whom we spend a fair amount of time, keeps lapsing
into and out of casual and uncharacteristic slang. And while this takes place in an odd but not unrecognizable corner of DCU continuity, I simply don’t believe that Iris Allen has never met the Batman.
The title character himself spends have the time whining about being a loser, the other half of the time whining about his whining. Wally West has been callow in the past, but this particular iteration of him it not only not trusted by his JLA colleagues, there’s ample reason for that mistrust.
The story itself mundane, except for some deus ex mechana towards the end that not only purports to explain all there is to know about the Speed Force and super-speedsters in the DCU, but makes some other bold statements about DCU continuity that will likely (and justifiably) be forgotten.
Disappointing.
The two things that bugged me most about that book were the flying-Flash scene you mentioned, and the fact that the entire plot hinges on Wally and his aunt Iris being genetically related… despite the fact that it’s been well-established that she’s adopted.
I did kind of like the revelations about the powers, though of course following through with it would so radically change the character as to make him unrecognizable as the Flash. Otherwise, yeah, nothing particularly compelling about this one.
I keep meaning to do a write-up of Stop Motion, at least to describe the villain, but at this point I think I’ll need to re-read it to pick up the details, and I’m not sure it’s worth the time investment.
That the flying scene is literally the first sentence of the book (noted on the Amazon page) was like a body blow to the credibility of the book from the get-go. There was some nice stuff about super-speed in general, but overall it just felt like Schulz didn’t know the character all that well.
I’d forgotten about Iris being adopted. That’s funny.
The villain was … meh. To my mind, if you’re going to do one of these books, at least the first outing, you should draw on the character’s established rogue’s gallery (or, in this case, Rogue’s Gallery), rather than making it all up out of whole cloth.
That the flying scene is literally the first sentence of the book (noted on the Amazon page) was like a body blow to the credibility of the book from the get-go. There was some nice stuff about super-speed in general, but overall it just felt like Schulz didn’t know the character all that well.
I’d forgotten about Iris being adopted. That’s funny.
The villain was … meh. To my mind, if you’re going to do one of these books, at least the first outing, you should draw on the character’s established rogue’s gallery (or, in this case, Rogue’s Gallery), rather than making it all up out of whole cloth.