The Flash #790: Who Can Outrun the Fraction?!

This is the storyline that Jeremy Adams has been building to since he started on The Flash. The group known as The Fraction have arrived on earth and are about to start a war that only the speedsters can fight. With the events of Dark Crisis winding down, and the West’s anticipating a new baby, none of the speedsters are ready for the war they are going to have to fight. 

Since this is the start of a new, giant story arch, this issue features a ton of setup. This more or less is just Adams telling us what all of the earth’s speedsters are up to and how they will factor into the story. Issues like this are great because fans of The Flash who aren’t caught up on this run can easily use this as a jumping on point. This may also be a strong selling point for Barry Allen fans who have missed him since Wally took over the book. Nonetheless, this issue caters to a lot of fans, new and old.

That being said, fans who have enjoyed Adam’s run so far may be disappointed that this issue doesn’t feature Wally as heavily as they’d like it to. Since this arc is about a speedster war, it makes sense that Wally’s personal story may be put on the back burner, but hopefully further issues in this arc will tie back into the main story that we’ve been following since issue #768.

Roger Cruz takes over the penciling this issue and it’s a mixed bag. The characters are all over the place, often looking disproportionate. Wally is drawn with more build then he’s ever had. It’s almost jarring when he first shows up. This all feels a bit odd since we see Barry later and he’s drawn a lot more slender. Wally’s build unfortunately just becomes a distraction and is hard to overlook in the grand scheme. Another issue I had with Cruz’s art is how he draws eyes. Every character is either squinting or shocked, and there is rarely anything in between. This is yet again another distraction from an otherwise enjoyable story. 

Outside of the character work, there is one particular splash page that feels unfinished. The page depicts a projectile hitting the earth and is drawn with almost minimal detail. Any debris from the impact just looks like sand and the buildings look lifeless. This is just another example of an element of this story losing any gravitas due to the art. Any sort of impact is greatly diminished by the distracting lack of detail in the page.

This issue marks the beginning of Flash’s bimonthly release schedule so get ready for a lot more Flash over the next several months.