Absolute Flash #14: House of Mirrors

Last month’s Absolute Flash #13 ended off on an interesting hook. Mirror Master has entered the Absolute fray and is targeting Wally and Linda for unknown reasons. Jeff Lemire makes sure that all eighteen pages of issue #14 actively work towards fulfilling Mirror Master’s role in the story while also giving time to both Wally and Linda to set up their respective story arcs.

This is a highly character-driven issue that doesn’t stop to tease readers or rely on page turns for its tension. Instead, all of the tension is baked into how the characters are written. Their actions and reactions drive the plot, not the other way around.

Linda Park is written well. She’s not there to slow Wally down, she’s more like a sidekick who contributes to each scene with her own bits of narrative that Jeff Lemire weaves into Wally’s story. Lemire does so without taking time away from Wally; instead, their stories are brought together and overlap believably.

Sam Scudder, the infamous Mirror Master, is portrayed in a unique way that could only happen in the Absolute Universe. By turning his “mirror clones” into opposites, or mirrors, of the master himself, Scudder’s abilities are given that “Oh… that blows” touch that the Absolute Universe practically specializes in. He is also cleverly positioned as a mirror of Barry Allen. Barry helped Wally without any strings; he was a friend. Scudder, on the other hand, his help is transactional, and that is an excellent narrative device to push narrative threads down the road while still building out this intricate world.

Haining really plays with messing up panel transitions as an element of storytelling. It’s chaotic, much like the fragmented mirrors in the mirror dimension. The art is literally turned upside down, on its side, and just about every direction you can imagine. What’s surprising is how readable it all is. The art moves from one page to the next, guiding the reader with the colored lightning trails the Flash generates when he runs. It’s very clever and keeps the experimental art style from tossing the issue off track. Certain scenes are more visually dense than others, which makes page turns feel deeper than just the next moment in a slide show of panels and action.

There is something to be said for how difficult it is to color consistent lighting on a page that is actively twisting and turning itself in different directions. Adriano Lucas uses strong contrasting colors that sharpen Haining’s precise linework and makes the anime-adjacent art style pop off the page. The specific toned give Wally and Linda a sense of depth from their environment while using different color palettes for each of the scenes shown in the reflections of the mirror dimension.