The Flash: Year One TPB
by
Back when the Flash was repurposed for the space age in Barry Allen, heralding the silver age of comics in Showcase #4 in 1956, Carmine Infantino and Rob Kanigher set the titular Fastest Man Alive in an incredibly silly story (as they all are) against the slowest criminal in Central City – The Turtle.
Oddly placed in the continuation of his run, Joshua Williamson looks back at this first appearance and reinterprets it with a modern – and rather more exciting – look at this event, retrofitting the whole story for contemporary sensibilities. Although the villain of the piece still remains a little head-tilting even for the likes of the Scarlet Speedster, Williamson once again shows how much he knows Allen, humanizing his first steps in his yellow thunder-adorned boots with a look beneath the mask, giving us a Barry Allen who is wracked by self-doubt that stops him from progressing in life except with a single-minded obsession with his past and anxiety about the future as the world keeps on moving forward. Again, although the villain of the piece is still far from providing the perfect dramatic foil, the humanity and visual cues provided by Williamson make this a worthy read and just as worthy look into what makes the Flash the hero he is.
