The Flash #242 review

Fast Money part five: A Day In The Life

Iris West keeps aging faster and faster. At issue's beginning she's about 30, at the middle she's 40, at the end she's...

At the beginning of the story, Wally and the Kids meet back with Linda who's shocked to see Iris aging so quickly. She wants to put together experiemnts to find a cure, but Wally is forced against his will (by a telepathic suggestion implanted by Grodd in the alst issue) to find a mystic chimp called Nzame. Nzame was brought with Grodd when he was teleported into Spin's lair. Nzame...oh, I'll get to this stupid chimp later. He's a mystic religious symbol worshipped by the apes in Gorilla City and Flash has to return him because...fucking...cause. After finding Nzame over the shriveled, dying body of the guy Spin was using to send out negative vibes, we get a flashback of everything this guy, Edwar Martinez, went through. Experimented on for greed because of his power to manipulate emotions. After this bit of backstory, Edwar's dying act is to reverse everything he'd been forced into doing by Spin by making people feel more compassionate towards each other. With Nzame in hand, Wally runs back to the family to find Iris has aged another ten years. Hoping to curry favor with the apes in Gorilla City, Flash takes the family to return Nzame and asks if he can use the little chimp's healing powers (yep) to maybe reverse Iris's rapid aging. Initially, the head ape says no, but with a wink and a nod tacitly approves Nzame's reabduction by the Flash as a sort of backdoor way of not violating their relgious beliefs. So he does, and in the middle of the jungle, with Iris holding Nzame, her rapid aging...thing...kicks in in and seemingly ages to her death. At the same time, Nzame becomes a giant ape (implied that the energy given off by Iris's aging zaps him causing the same) who is now out to kill the Flash.

Ugh. Where do I begin?

First, reading this issue I was left with the constant impression that I had missed on issue. Nope, didn't miss an issue. I was thinking to myself the entire time, who the fuck is this Nzame character? Reviewing the previous two issues, this stupid little chimp was only barely noticeably introduced in #240. His role in the story was nonexistant. He's there, he's mentioned, but the direction of the story had nothing to do with the stupid chimp at all. Same for the telepathic suggestion. A two page bit stuck in the beginning of #241 and then promptly forgotten while Flash is sent on to do other things. The fuck?

The direction this story...this series...well, it has no direction. This is the problem, the villain we're introduced to in the beginning is not the villain we're seeing at the end. Spin? Who the hell is that? So we go from satire about the media and yellow journalism with the underlying story being Wally's joblessness to a story about mystical monkey healers and the kids' aging problems.

Why am I gonna bother picking up the next issue, then? Aside from the fact that I must clearly hate myself, but I do want to see the ending of this travesty and I do want to see whether or not Iris stays dead. Of course she won't stay dead, but it would be cool.

Regrettably, what used to be one of my favorite DC titles back in the day is one of the best examples of wasted potential. Really, it makes me wish that DC hadn't killed Bart Allen. The CSI angle was really cool, and that had potential. They kicked Bart to the curb in order to tell a bunch of limp wristed stories about...what, exactly? Nothing interesting is happening in this title. The Flash is one of DC's A-list characters, serious shit should be going down and so far...nothing. I should write to DC...

Dear DC,

Kill the Flash's fucking kids. Please. It's the only way to be sure.

Thank you.

So much money down the shitter with this book.

Damn.