Flash #20 Review – More Women Woes
Barry Allen was warned. His Dad warned him. Kid Flash warned him. He needs to tell Iris who he is. His old girlfriend Patty knew he was the Flash. His very short-lived girlfriend (pun totally intended) Dr. Meena Dhawan knew who he was. Now Wally the Younger knows as well as Wally the Elder. It wasn’t going to take long before Iris was going to be suspicious. She is an investigative reporter. She knows how to put two-and-two together, and I bet she does it better than Lois Lane.
(What is up with DC love interests being reporters?)
Why is this all important? Well issue #20 happens to be told from Iris’ point of view, giving us a front row seat to her mind piecing together the fact that Barry is definitely hiding something from her.
First of all, the cover art is probably the most misleading cover I’ve seen for a book that wasn’t a fantasy novel from the 80s. I’ll concede that this may have been the entire point of the cover, to be as misleading as Barry Allen is, but I’m personally exhausted from this comic version of clickbait.
So, yes, spoiler-alert, Iris is not an agent of the Black Hole. However, she does pose as such an agent all in the name of scooping a story. Well, that’s not entirely fair, as that paints her like Lois Lane from Superman II. She was investigating a lead, but she suddenly had to improvise before getting caught and possibly killed. Someone has been robbing the graves of Godspeed’s victims, and thanks to Iris connecting the dots better than the CCPD, she found it to be the Black Hole organization.
In case you need a bit of a refresher, Black Hole is the same organization that funded Dr. Carver and his research, which created the speedforce lightning storm and thus Kid Flash and Godspeed. And of course we all remember the speedster from STAR labs, Dr. Meena Dhawan.
It turns out she’s not dead or trapped in the speedforce or whatever else we imagined from her last appearance. We have no idea if she’s turned evil, if she’s simply mad Barry didn’t try to find her, or if she’s playing Black Hole all-together. I have no idea if we’ll even find out next issue, as that is supposed to start the crossover with Batman regarding the infamous button. That said, the seeds are definitely planted, for both Dr. Dhawan and Iris. Regardless what happens, it won’t end well for Barry. Sad Flash will probably be sad once more.
Only thing making me sad is the face art for Barry and Iris. Everyone else looks great, but I’m not sure why these two constantly look like they were pencilled and erased.
Our Rating: Yep
Author: Joshua Williamson
Artists: Neil Googe and Ivan Plascencia
Publisher: DC Comics
Publish Date: 04/12/2017
Acquired via Purchase
