About a year ago, the new Reverse Flash, Hunter Zolomon, was pissed at Wally and decided to teach him a lesson by, among other things, attacking Linda Park. In the process, he killed Linda and Wally’s two unborn children. Afterward, Wally was understandably upset and the Spectre offered to erase everyone’s memory of the fact that Wally West was the Flash (this, unfortunately, included Wally himself).
So now his fellow heroes, family, and friends know, but villains and the general public don’t know who he is.
I got the issue, too, and I was a little dissapointed that it didn’t add a whole lot new (although I read Flash anyway, so it’s not like I bought it just for IC). I did like the bit with Kyle - “We probably would’ve been married by now” - because I don’t think his experience with Alex has been brought up in IC.
Also, if Nightwing is behind everything like some people theorize, it’s probably not a good thing that Oracle will, in all likelihood, relay the information of Linda’s whereabouts to Wally through Dick.
Didn’t they learn from the backlash to DKR2 that Dick Grayson is not a villian? If he is behind this it lame-o with a captial LAME. Nightwings certainly not hias usual self lately, but it’s a long jump from letting Tarantula kill blockbuster, the man who destroyed nearly everything Nightwing loved, to flipping out and killing Superhero wives. If anything, Nightwing should empathize a lot with Ralph, since Blockbuster had a bunch of Dick’s civilian friends killed.
I don’t think Nightwing really LET Tarantula kill Blockbuster. He was there when it happened, but his reaction immediately after shows that he was not onboard with the idea, and felt really responsible.
I’m with Fenris on the battle with Deathstroke. Wally I can accept; he was foolish and fell into a trap. Zee is plausible also; it takes her a second or two to speak her spells. The rest? Uh uh. It only works if they attack one at a time, Enter the Dragon style. These people know how to work as a team and coordinate attacks; they’re not the Teen Titans.
Ollie can notch and fire a couple of arrows a second with pinpoint accuracy; by the time Deathstroke takes out Z, GA would have an arrow in him.
The laser pointer thing would work only if Atom had zero mass. He reduces his mass to near zero so he can effectively fly when tiny, but not entirely zero.
Hawkman, as established in this very title, has superhuman vision. Add this to his superhuman reflexes and knowledge of team battle tactics, and there’s no way he positions himself where Ray gets knocked into him (you don’t position yourself with a teammate in your line of fire in a battle)
Kyle doesn’t go hand to hand; it’s just not his style, or for that matter, any GL but Guy.
This isn’t to say the battle wasn’t cool; it was, but I don’t buy it for a minute. Batman might be able to take out the JLA members one by one, by all at once, it ain’t gonna happen. And Deathstroke ain’t no Batman.
My favorite moment so far: The security measures being described as being a combination of Martian, Thanagarian, Apokolytian and Kryptonian technology, plus the “Scary stuff Bruce thought up”.
And though it’s not a big spoiler (no killer’s identity involved), according to one blurb I’ve read,
Batman solves the mystery in the final issue.
I’m going with Luthor being involved somehow, and possibly Captain Atom (having somehow survived or reconstituted himself after his encounter with the kryptonite meteor) as one of his agents. This would explain bypassing the security, and the burn marks on Sue.
The fate of Firestorm. This doesn’t appear to have anything to do with the rest of the series, and I’m kind of surprised it was done here instead of in the new Firestorm book, where it’s only seen in dreams/told to the new Firestorm by the JLA.
Captain Boomerang’s son has super speed. I’m guessing this ties in to whatever Barry Allen reveals to Wally West in next month’s Flash. All we know right now is that Golden Glider isn’t Boomerang Jr.'s mother.
Jack Drake and Captain Boomerang bite the dust. Pretty much everyone saw one or both of these things happening, so it’s not a huge surprise. I thought it was done very well, though; very suspenseful (although at this point, you have to wonder what Robin or any heroes are thinking leaving their loved ones with only a JLA signal device for protection, especially since said devices havent’ been effective once in this entire series).
Whoever the real murderer is either set Captain Boomerang up (which seems likely, because how else would he know who Jack Drake was) or at least knew what he was planning to do and armed Jack Drake accordingly. No idea what to make of this right now.
Also interesting:
The murders still have absolutely nothing to do with the JLA’s mindwiping of Dr. Light or any other villains.
The Lois Lane death threat is only touched on once and pretty much nothing is done with it in this issue.
And extended scene of Ray Palmer and Jean Loring that ends with them kissing. I’m still leaning toward the whole Jean being evil theory, so this might be there just to make it more poingant when it does happen.
What the hell happened to Kyle Rayner? It looks like Deadshot shot him right in the face, but then he appears to be fine in the next panel.
I haven’t had time to process everythign and I have to run off to class right now. Let’s hear what everyone else thought.
I think Kyle’s ring at this point protects him from mortal harm, so all the shot did was blind him with the flash. I can’t be certain though. Also, I like Deadshot.
That’s what I thought, too. But isn’t the fact that Kyle’s ring doesn’t automatically protect him from mortal harm one of the ways in which it differs from old GL rings?
Snooping around online it seems like some people think that in GL #150 when Kyle restored the Oan Battery his ring picked up the ability. I don’t know, really.
I liked the issue too, and nothing contradicts the “Jean’s th’ killer” theory–she tries to get rid of Ray, the box with the gun suddenly appearing in Jack’s apartment could easily have been deilvered by her at microbe size and then suddenly re-enlarged.
I was disappointed that we didn’t learn how Cap. Boomerang got lured to Jack’s place.
I also think we veered a hair towards the “idiot plot” by not having the JLA smart enough to either have a few super-speedsters on call or someone ready to teleport to any signal alarms. I mean, regardless of how much they want to catch the killer, this is the JLA–protcting the innocent is a far higher priority for them than catching the guilty. So you leave a heavy hitter or two behind where the can teleport in times of danger and really, overkill is fun and all for the artist to draw, but you don’t need GL, Flash, Hawkman AND GA to take on a semi-loser ('cause he’s nuts…see his mini-series) like Deadshot, a semi-loser like Merlyn and a mondo-loser like The Monocle. Green Lantern should have been able to take all three of them out in seconds–(how? Easy. Put an airtight bubble around the house. Now expand the bubble to 2 miles in diameter. Poof-instant vacuum. They all pass out from lack of oxygen. It’s not like Monocle’s laser could cut through the bubble. Meanwhile Flash and a few others hang back and wait for someone to push the JLA alarm button.) The idea of an unstaffed 911 number really bugs me.
Why’d getting cut make Firestorm explode? It didn’t when he’s been cut before (the um…Hyena? Jackal?..no Jackal’s Marvel…the scavenger animal type) gutted him a couple of times and so did one of the Female Furies, IIRC. If it’s 'cause Justin’s sword was magic…well…maybe…but I don’t see how/why.
Ok, in FIRESTORM, they just said that it was the special properties of the magic sword that did it, not just being gutted. I think it’s silly but at least it’s internally consistant, so disregard that criticism.
Damn. Well, I take back all my earlier arguments about the former, and the latter… That sucks. Captain Boomerang is one of my favourite villains (though I have no idea WHY).
It’s gotta be that guy who’s Captain Boomerang’s kid. And I’m betting that he’s secretly Amazo, or some new form of Amazo created by Professor Ivo.
Think of it: Amazo can duplicate the powers, weapons and abilities of anyone he wants (to an inconsistent degree…at one point, the duplicate-ee had to be a member of the Justice League, but no doubt this issue can be finessed). He duplicates the powers of the teleporters, of Doctor Light, of Slipknot, of Captain Boomerang (come on, no one is born with an affinity for boomerang-throwing), and of the Flash. Uses Jonn Jonzz’s shape-changing powers to look different and telepathy to find out the heroes’ secrets. And has a vendetta against the entire JLA.
The only thing that doesn’t quite fit is Jack Drake, as Tim’s not a JLA member. But maybe that’s his idea of striking against Batman.
Backing up to Issue 4…Black Spider is clearly black (if a little on the light-skinned side) in both panels in my copy. Perhaps you’re being fooled by his gloves?
Also, in the array of Suicide Squad photos Black Canary and Flash are looking at, who is the woman to the left of Captain Boomerang and Penguin? She looks familiar, but I can’t place her. Same with the man in the mask to her left.
Also, it strikes me as interesting that the only Suicide Squad member that Batman and the rest of the League have different pictures of (when their picture is visible in both sets) is Captain Boomerang. (At least I assume that’s him at the top right of BC/Flash’s set.) Not sure if it was meant to know anything, but it’s interesting.
I tend to agree. When I was reading the Jack Drake/Boomerang thing, even I was thinking “someone call the Flash, someone call the Flash!” Considering how many heroes in the DCU could have gotten to Jack Drake’s house within seconds (call Wonder Woman, for Pete’s sake! She’s not doing anything in this story!), it seemed weird to me that Oracle would even bother calling Robin first.
Regarding Boomerang Jr., I’m trying to think of female speedsters that could possibly be his mother, and I can’t think of any except Jesse Quick (which, obviously, would make no sense). The only other thing I can think of is that he’s going to end up being Barry Allen’s son and that… well, they’d have some 'splainin to do.
I also think it really sucks that Firestorm died, but that might have something to do with how lame I think the new Firestorm series is, and I liked how they had started using Ronnie again the last couple years.
Also? Rags Morales impresses me more every issue. In just a couple panels, I thought he drew a great Captain Marvel (and Wildcat, and Superman). And for a story that relies a lot on the emotional impact of what happens to a few characters, he really delivers. The look on Firestorm’s face when he realizes he’s going to explode is just painful, as are the expressions on both Robin and Batman when they’re trying to get to Jack. I’m about this close to picking up his Hawkman issues.
Check the next issue of Flash. The last one ended with Oliver Queen giving Wally a letter Barry wrote him long ago that will detail something Barry kept secret, something that happened a long time ago but which Wally as bound to hear about eventually…
Yeah, I’m pretty excited for the next issue, actually. Still, Barry having a son he never told anyone about would be really weird. Also, Boomerang really seems to think of himself as the kid’s father, and he didn’t have anything to do with raising him, so I’m actually doubting the Barry-as-father theory for now. Of course, I also have absolutely no other theories as to what’s in the letter Ollie gave to Wally.
Spoiler for upcoming issue of Flash:
The cover of an upcoming issue (I think the issue after next) shows Boomerang Jr. and a bunch of rogues at a funeral gathered around the coffin of, presumably, Boomerang, so I’m guessing Boomerang Jr. is going to stick around for a while.