The Flash #759: The Man Who Would Be King

Josh Williamson’s grand Flash finale begins here with part one of “Finish Line.” After languishing the last couple of issues in “been there, done that” territory, Williamson gets down to business without hesitation. Everything he’s been building towards for ninety-eight issues now is coming to a head.

“Finish Line” starts off in familiar, time-honored trope territory: the hero is possessed by his greatest foe. Sometimes these types of stories take the form of a body swap rather than a straight-up possession, but the end result is always the same: the hero is behaving out of character, and nobody generally notices for far too long. Williamson wisely side-steps this cliche, and it doesn’t take long at all before the least likely person figures out the truth: Impulse, who, despite his juvenile demeanor, is generally smarter and more observant than anyone realizes. After witnessing “Grandpa Barry” brutally defeat the Trickster, he immediately knows this isn’t his grandfather, and off the story goes. By not messing around too long and getting straight to the heart of the story, Williamson does a terrific job of immediately setting up the stakes, creating a sense of urgency that the reader feels right from the start.

“Finish Line” is also about putting all the toys back where they belong, too. Impulse is back. Jesse Quick and Max Mercury are seen hanging  out in the Speed Force. That stunner of a last page (sorry, I’ll never tell). A major push is being made to re-establish the extended Flash Family after nearly a decade of continuity hell has banished many of them to publication limbo. It’s about re-establishing that the Flash isn’t just another hero, he’s part of an extended family that stretches all the way back to comics’ Golden Age. The only member whose presence is (so far) unaccounted for is Wally West, but he’s in a very, very strange place right now in terms of his role in the greater DCU, so his exclusion at this juncture can be forgiven.

The art is a little bit of a hiccup this issue, though, specifically in the pages by Scott Kolins. Kolins’ style is unique and has a sort of elementary vibrancy to it that usually pops, but also lends itself to the appearance of laziness depending on how much he leans away from details. This is one of those times. Fortunately, is sequence is only four pages, but it’s a four pages that really strains to keep the reader form falling out of the story. The remainder of the issue, by Rafa Sandoval, is top-notch. The contrast between these two artists could not be more profound; I understand the want to use a different style for the scene in the Speed Force, but in this instance, the change-up is distracting. And honestly – four pages of Scott Kolins at less-than-100% is still more unique than most other artists out there. For all the crisp, clean lines in Sandoval’s pages, it would be a lot harder – for me at least – to pick his art out of a crowd.