Written by Joshua Williamson
Illustrated by Christian Duce
Published by DC Comics
I feel like this title has been all over the place over the last few months. Williamson has been moving things either too quickly or painfully slow. I have been hopeful that he can get it under control.
Sadly, this issue doesn’t seem to be the issue that he will be doing so. It just seems that there is a lot going on and not enough breathing room for the story at any point in the issue.
This issue starts off with Barry and Iris going undercover. They are going to a criminal underground casino that a criminal named Roulette runs.
The first few pages are incredibly wordy with a lot of exposition. I almost checked out for this part. I got the point early on but they felt the need to keep repeating what was happening.
Apparently, there is a new user of the. mysterious Sage Force, a young Zandarian spy named Bashir. His codename is Psyche and he is apparently at the aforementioned casino. That is why the Flash has to go find him.
It really is a trudge to get through this, at least for the first third of the book.
It does pick up though. Barry and Iris go undercover and infiltrate Roulette’s casino and her gang. Iris does have a funny moment where someone calls her “Flash girlfriend” and she gets very upset. Just when it starts moving however, their cover is blown and the Flash has to come out.
An all out battle ensues from this point on. The Flash has to fight The Royal Flush Gang and the fight is very involved. I did enjoy the art by Duce here. His work just seems to be getting better and better.
Eventually, they find Psyche and he isn’t what he seems. This all leads to a very standard cliffhanger which isn’t terribly exciting. It’s serviceable. That’s about the best I can say about it. Hopefully, this starts going somewhere again.
I have been waiting for something more to happen in this book. Williamson is a capable writer but he isn’t really showing it as much as he used to. At the moment, I feel like we are running over the same ground repeatedly. And I I know it can certainly be better than that.
RATING: C+
