The Flash #17

Recap
THE FLASH FAMILY MEETS THE WARLORD! As The Flash races to contain damage to Skartaris, forces both below and above ground make their move to grasp power. The Flash Family vacation leads the West clan to meet the one and only Warlord!
Review
The Flash #17 picks up with the Justice League approaching the large tower Irey discovered as Doctor Occult and Inspector Pilgrim arrive to investigate the magical elements. Meanwhile, The Flash’s copy self continues to explore Skartaris with the rest of his family as Warlord escorts them to his fortress. This arc has been very different from Si Spurrier’s first, with a lot more humor infused, and a much less complex, esoteric story. This issue reveals who the real villain is behind everything, tying both of the main stories together that were previously, seemingly disconnected. This really helps tie it all together and also presents a great way to tie this all into the All-in initiative, utilizing the Flash as a member of his family and the Justice League concurrently.
The comedic elements of this issue definitely add a breadth of levity to the overall story, using the humor as a dichotomy for the extreme science fiction jargon that gets thrown around. This is definitely Spurrier saying that the events going on are important, but the ridiculousness of them is surely present and that is not to be ignored. Especially compared to the previous arc, this allows the story to flow in a very logical direction without getting too ahead of itself. This is like the best of both worlds for The Flash, and will definitely be the kind of storytelling that fans love for this character.
Getting into some spoilers here, the villain of this arc gets revealed as no other than Eclipso. Spurrier takes a similar approach here with Eclipso, using him in both a serious and humorous sense, allowing the ridiculousness of his scheme to come across without it all feeling like stereotypical comic book nonsense. In some ways, that is really the point, especially in the subtextual sense of what Wally is doing here. He is literally splitting himself in two in order to have an adventure with his family while also serving the Justice League. Despite this, Eclipso has brought these two parts back together, showcasing Wally’s inability to just separate these two parts of his lives. This is the ridiculousness and the seriousness coming together to create the thing that Wally truly has been trying to avoid, the reality of the situation.
While this is all going on, there is still the lingering plotline from the previous arc that comes in the way of the West family dog, who is also the Speed Force incarnate’s child, born into the manifestation of a dog. This is Spurrier at his finest, infusing these larger than existence, cosmic ideas into something that can very easily be seen, while not so easily explained. There is a lot to love here with how this is done, and Spurrier keeping this in the background for now shows that he plans on paying this off later down the line, but for now it serves as a connecting tissue between these arcs, and more so, between these publishing initiatives.
Final Thoughts
The Flash #17 is a prime example of how fun this character can be when the creative team knows how to meld the ridiculousness with the heart and moral of the story.
The Flash #17: Fascinating
- Writing - 9/109/10
- Storyline - 9/109/10
- Art - 9/109/10
- Color - 9/109/10
- Cover Art - 8.5/108.5/10