Plot: Barry Allen (The Flash) is at the cinema with his wife, Iris when a giant horse monsters starts destroying the building. He saves the day but can’t stop the creature so calls on Hal Jordan, a.k.a. Green Lantern. He can’t stop it either but they do get the collar which says the creature is from the 25th Century.
Once in the future they find the stable. Horses don’t exist in the 25th century, however people wanted something to race. The convict, Eobard Thawne (Professor Zoom/Reverse Flash), offered to create a racing creature from his workshop behind bars. They were so impressed with the steeds that they granted him his freedom.
The Flash and Green Lantern ask Eobard to help but he wants a priceless sculpture in return. As it isn’t for sale Green Lantern will have to steal it. He tries to do this but has to fight the future Green Lantern.
Meanwhile, The Flash and Prof. Zoom go to stop the steed. The Flash gets rightly suspicious of Prof. Zoom, thinking that he set the whole situation up. This is confirmed when Hal returns and a fight breaks out.
Plot: On the advice of his wife, Iris, Barry Allen (The Flash) takes a vacation in time. When he gets back he collapses, falling into a coma and is rushed to hospital.
Meanwhile, in the future, Eobard Thawne (Professor Zoom / Reverse Flash) is still in prison. He hears the disembodied voice of Sargon the sorcerer offering to break him out and bring him to the 20th century. Prof. Zoom agrees and finds himself in Sargon’s lair. Sargon wants to travel to the future to learn more about the occult. However, Prof. Zoom isn’t interest in helping him and runs off to kill the Flash.
Via an elaborate plan, Sargon fakes the Flash’s death to get Prof. Zoom to help him again. It works but Prof. Zoom tricks Sargon into being banished to another dimension. He then goes on a crime spree with a shrink ray.
Sargon is annoyed by all this so calls on the Flash. The Flash frees him, leaving him unconscious as he goes to deal with Prof. Zoom.
Plot: Barry Allen (The Flash) goes to stop Weather Wizard from attacking a power station. Superman turns up to help out, but the Flash isn’t happy about it. Superman claims the Flash called him but he denies it.
The next day the same thing happens in Metropolis, where the Flash claims that Superman called him. Everyone gets called to a Justice League meeting only to discover that they were summoned by Rokk and Sorban, rulers of gambler planet Ventura. They want Superman and Flash to race so they can bet on it. As an incentive they will blow up the home town of the looser, or both if they don’t take part.
As they race to the end of the universe, both heroes notice some odd events happening on planets around them. After both heroes help each other with a number of deadly traps, they confront Rokk and Sorban. Both demonstrate powers they shouldn’t have and upon being defeated it is revealed that the villains were secretly Abra Kadabra and Professor Zoom.
Plot: It is the day before Barry Allen (The Flash) and Iris West’s wedding. The Flash is fighting crime wondering if he should tell her he is the Flash. That night he feels strange/ominous when he goes to sleep.
Meanwhile in the year 2466 Eobard Thawne aka Professor Zoom/ Reverse Flash is being held in a radiation prison. Using the radiation he makes himself smarter, enhancing his mind powers. He deduces that Barry is the Flash and decides to switch bodies with him. He absorbs Barry’s memories as they trade physical places in space-time. Once in Barry’s house he modifies an electric shaver into a matter distributor to make his face look like Barry’s.
Finding Barry’s Flash ring he goes out for some crime fighting but can’t bring himself to return the stolen goods. Getting back he is roped into the wedding, not minding and seeing it as a perk.
Meanwhile, Barry breaks out of the future prison, gets back to 1966 and stops the wedding. He races the fake Barry out of there. Barry and Prof. Zoom fight but Barry wins due to Prof. Zoom not being able to walk on water. Prof. Zoom is taken away by the future police and Barry marries Iris.
Plot: In 2465, Professor Zoom (who is revealed to be named Eobard Thawne and also refereed to as the Reverse Flash) has been released from prison having fooled the cerebral scanner.
Whilst inside, he invented the science of ‘ultra-speed’. He creates a laser that can turn a person evil. It can also project to any time period so he tries it on Al Desmond (Mr Element). But the area Al is in is protected so the beam causes random people to become evil, creating chaos for the Flash.
Not getting the result he wants, Prof. Zoom builds his own cosmic treadmill for time travel. Much chaos ensues as he enters the present and uses his hypnosis and mind powers to cause chaos, commit crimes and corrupt Mr Element further.
In the end the Flash punches Prof. Zoom so hard that it sends him back to 2465.
Plot: In 2464, Professor Zoom has been freed from prison. Whilst incarcerated, he was looking for a way to get more permanent speed powers. He creates a speed element but it is unstable so needs Mr Element alchemist abilities to fix it.
Mr Element (Al Desmond) is currently (1964) an ex-convict, now reformed and living a happy life. Prof. Zoom astral projects himself through time and uses hypnosis to try and bring out Al’s villainous side.
Al doesn’t really understand what is going on, but finds himself back in his old lair, mixing chemicals. He doesn’t want to help Prof. Zoom and fights the hypnotism, leading to failed thefts of key ingredients.
The Flash intervenes, but is taken out by Prof. Zoom’s mind powers. The element gets completed. Prof. Zoom is fast again, going back to 2463 for crime. The Flash follows, they fight, but he gets the element away from Prof. Zoom, leaving him powerless and in jail yet again.
Plot: Dr Drake has created a time capsule that will instantly appear in the future. The Flash (Barry Allen) wants to contribute and so donates one of his suits.
In the future, year 2463, a wannabe criminal finds the suit. He’s bored of his day job and would rather commit crimes but just hasn’t had the means to do it. So he sets out to use the suit to recreate the Flash’s powers. He always thought the Flash had the best powers, but was wasting them using them for good. Using his mastermind level intellect and future science he modifies the suit so that when he is wearing it he has super speed. He also swaps the colour around, because he stands for the opposite of everything the Flash stands. Naming himself Professor Zoom, he starts a crime spree, going after fine art.
The Flash soon turns up in 2463 due to one of the capsule objects having become a bomb. But before he can defuse it he has to deal with Prof. Zoom.
A fight ensues, but experience wins out and the Flash strips Prof. Zoom of his outfit/powers and then saves the day, diffusing the bomb.
Ok so this issue is basically the end of one arc and the set up for the return of Eobard Thawne (aka the Reverse Flash/Professor Zoom) during a cross over with Batman comics. So this review is going to be short as the Eobard component of this comic is short.
Barry Allen (aka The Flash) and Wally West 2 (aka Kid Flash) are on an adventure with George “Digger” Harkness, the rogue commonly known as Captain Boomerang. After some fighting with other bad guys Wally finally gets a calm moment with Digger to ask him questions. Wally wants to know about Daniel West (aka Reverse Flash) because he was in the Suicide Squad with Digger. Digger doesn’t want to talk about it but on finding out he is Wally’s dad he decided to tell him.
Digger explains that Daniel West is dead, killed when he tried to save a bunch of innocent people from an explosion whilst on a mission. Wally is understandably distraught and runs off. Barry pursues him and they have a heart to heart chat. Feeling that it is the right time, Barry finally reveals to Wally that he is the Flash. However that doesn’t go too well as despite hugs, Wally calls Barry out for lying and runs off.
Meanwhile, in Iron Heights Penitentiary, there is a lightning strike in Eobard’s cell that destroys everything. Standing amongst the wreckage is Eobard Thawne, but not N52 Professor Zoom (silver hair, black and yellow outfit with red diamond logo). This time it is old school pre-flashpoint Eobard and we know this cause he says he remembers being killed by Thomas Wayne. I haven’t reviewed Flashpoint yet as I was trying to review everything in order, but I wanted to keep up with the modern stuff too. Anyway, I have no idea what happened to N52 Eo. Were they combined into one Eo or was he destroyed? I did like the N52 outfit though but it is good to see old Eo back and full of malevolence.
This is a full length review detailing the plot of the below comic, all spoilers!
This issue starts with Barry Allen and Iris at the cinema when suddenly a giant rampant horse monster charges in and destroys the building. Barry becomes the Flash and saves the day but can’t stop the horse creature. So he send out a distress signal and Hal Jordan, a.k.a. Green Lantern, turns up to help. He can’t stop it either but they do find a clue, its collar says it is a Syntho-Steed, created in the 25th Century. So the pair travel to the future and find a race course that has a steed missing. What they find is that horses don’t exist in the 25th century, however they wanted something to race. A convict offered to create a racing creature from his workshop behind bars, a convict named Eobard Thawne. Who the hell thought it was a good idea to give Eobard access to a genetics lab whilst in prison? I do have some serious concerns about future prison, especially as this project was so loved by the public that they gave Eobard a full pardon and released him. So Barry and Hal go to find Eobard who is living it up, wearing an outfit that Jareth from Labyrinth would be proud of.
Eobard agrees to help out by going back to 1973 and taming the steed, but in exchange he wants a sculpture. The sculpture however is not for sale and so Green Lantern will have to steal it. I do love how Eobard keeps stealing artworks. Green Lantern agrees as there is no choice and then power beams the speedsters back to the 70’s. I never knew that the Green Lantern ring had time travel powers…. So Green Lantern goes to steal the wings, only to be stopped by another Green Lantern, the future protector of the sector. However, Hal manages to outwit this newbie and flies off with the statue only to be power beamed in the back!
Meanwhile Barry and Eobard get back to 1973 just in time as the steed is about to trample a town. They go to attack it but the steed has some sort of field that prevents their powers working properly, leaving both speedsters running in circles. Barry has a eureka moment and works out that by vibrating together they might be able to take it on (yeah, I have no idea where the logic is there). This bonds the two speedsters together temporally back to back so they can both use their speed to be even faster. The plan works and it isn’t long before they’ve knocked the steed down. As it is an artificial creature Eobard admits that it will melt under great heat and so they vibrate and stomp their feet until the creature dissolves. All the while we are privy to Eobard’s thoughts revealing that this whole thing was a set up and he sent the rampaging steed back in time.
Hal returns with the wings but upon handing them over they dissolve as well, causing Eobard to both curse and blurt out that they had ruined all the hard work he put into the scheme. He manages to stop himself mid confession and tries to run off but Barry pursues him. Barry catches him and strips him of his outfit, robbing him of his powers (as they come from his suit still at this point). Barry knocks him out and drags him back to future jail.
In the end it turns out that the sculpture didn’t survive time travel with Hal cause it was yellow and he couldn’t protect it. Hal survived as he had programmed his ring to teleport him to Barry if he got hit by a power beam. They agree to replace the sculpture with some 20th century art and all is good again.
This review goes into detail of the plot and thus spoilers.
So in 1978, shortly after Flash issue 223, Eobard Thawne aka Professor Zoom, the Reverse Flash briefly appeared in the secret society of super-villains comics. It was during the last plot of the comic before it got cancelled. However it is kinda amusing and so I am going to review it anyway.
Issue 12 – The plunder plan
So this comic starts with The Wizard, an insane, overpowered villain marvelling at his own powers. His display alerts his fellow secret society members Plant Master and a Star Sapphire.
Star bitches that Wizard is basically just showing off and he threatens her, demanding respect. They used to have a leader called Flashman but the Wizard has taken over. Though so far he hasn’t actually hatched a plan to plunder the riches he had promised.
Meanwhile, in the city another secret society member, Copperhead is fresh out of jail and stealing stuff. He is stopped by hero Captain Comet. Apparently Comet is a mutant from the future with flight, strength and psychic powers. He takes out Copperhead but discovers that he has some psychic shielding given by Grodd, as does the rest of the secret society. But Captain doesn’t have time to think about that because he is off to get laid as his alter ego, Adam Blake.
Later that night in Gotham city Plant Master is breaking into a hospital to bust out a big bruiser of a villain called BlockBuster. However Robin is right there and they get into a fight. He knocks out Robin and they take off. Though Robin contacts Batman. Turns out BlockBuster is one of the strongest villains they have fought though he is pretty mindless and just wants to kill Batman.
Back at the villain’s secret citadel The Wizard is calling a meeting. He wants to break into STAR labs though Star is unhappy about this as they were promised riches not tech. Wizard then introduces the newest member of their team, Eobard Thawne aka Professor Zoom. Wizard mystically called him from the future with the promise of riches as well. BlockBuster is all annoyed at the talk and goes berserk. But luckily Eobard is there is resolve the issue.
Wizard then explains his plan/back history. Turns out that he is from Earth 2 and was the leader of a group of villains called the Injustice Society. The Injustice Society always got beaten by the heroes and Wizard came to the conclusion that it wasn’t due to bad plans, egos or the inability to work together. No. It was cause it had become habit. His fellow villains had gotten used to getting beaten and thus were psychologically beaten (*facepalm*). So he got sent to Earth 1 to find new villains. He financed Funky Flashman’s villain’s for hire operation, waited till he had stolen a bunch of arcane power items and then took over.
Meanwhile Captain Comet is using his mind powers to locate
the society. He finds unusual brain waves and tracks them to STAR labs. He gets in a fight with BlockBuster who knocks him out for a bit.
The society are already inside looking for the machine to transport them to Earth 2. Wizard has convinced them that they are more powerful than the Earth 2 heroes and that plundering will be easy. Star raises some concerns but like so much of this comic Wizard shuts her down and puts her in her place by knocking her out.
I personally find the treatment of Star rather sexist as she is the only one asking sensible questions and is permanently punished for it. However it could just be to show what a dick Wizard is. Anyway, Wizard needed Eobard to be able to work the machine in the first place. He does so and they all disappear to Earth 2 with Captain Comet following not far behind.
Everything Eobard 