The previous reviews can be found here, PART 1 and PART 2.

The Flash issue 283 – Flashback

(Or Professor Zoom’s guide to romance & rejection)

In a quick flashback to the previous comic it is revealed that during his journey back to the 1970s, Barry Allen aka the Flash has worked out who killed his wife Iris. However, just as he gets back to his own time he is caught in an explosion. Zoomy (as in Eobard Thawne aka Professor Zoom / Reverse Flash) is waiting for Barry to arrive to watch his demise. There is a massive explosion and Zoomy believes that he has won, finally kiling the Flash.However he notices a film projector. Not expecting Barry to own one he investigates and finds the surveillance film that shows Iris’s death. He comments on how desirable Iris is and so steals a picture of her for later use, then runs off to cause more mischief in the city.

Turns out that Zoomy is behind the sudden rise in the drug trade. He is manufacturing heroine to create a nation of junkies that can work as his slaves.Yeah, cause junkies are so incredibly reliable. Apparently his reason for all this is simply because he’s bored as there is no crime in the future. Amusingly his drug making minions think that he’s crazy.

Ok this is where stuff just gets creepy… Zoomy gets his minions to kidnap a woman, dose her with ether and then hands her over to a plastic surgeon so that he can transform her into Iris. Yeah… because that isn’t creepy as fuck! But apparently he’s still in love with Iris, so that’s what he’s going to do.

So with his soon to be love undergoing surgery, Zoomy sits down to voice record his diary. I’m not sure why there is a name change but he calls himself Professor Adrian Zoom, (The writer, Cary Bates was unaware that John Broome had already named him Eobard in issue 153. It gets retconned back to Eobard later). Zoomy had actually removed the records that previously existed of what he had done in this time and for some unknown reason now feels the reason to replace them. He reveals that his plan was to escape the boredom of the future by coming to the 20th century, being a crime lord, kill the Flash and then take his wife. He regrets that the last part didn’t happen.

He explains that many months ago he went to visit Iris when she was alone and confessed to her just how much he loved and admired her. He went on to pour out his heart, including his plan to kill Barry so that he’d have no competition. Zoomy obviously doesn’t quite understand how love is a two way thing. Iris laughs in his face and rejects his offer thus he offers her an ultimatum. Either she dumps Barry or he’ll kill her and she has 24 hours to decide. He wipes her mind of their conversation and then disappears. 24 hours later Iris is at the heroes and villains Whitlock masquerade party and Zoomy is stalking her. He gets a dance with her, tells her who he truly his and then asks her out again. Iris slaps him and that seals her fate.

Barry has been injected with Angel Dust by this point and so is all woozy. Iris goes to get Barry some water and walks into the room where Yorkin aka Beast-man is (I have no idea why he is hiding out there). Anyway, Zoomy is hiding behind the door. He vibrates himself invisible and in what he calls a crime of passion, he vibrates his hand through Iris’s head, killing her. He leaves the body there, allowing Yorkin, who is known to be violent to take the blame.

Zoomy stops his diary recording there, or as he calls it, ‘the Professor Zoom chronicles’. He’s all emotionally drained from talking about Iris and decides to take a nap, claiming that he’ll record about his killing of the Flash tomorrow.

Meanwhile, the factory where the heroine is being made suddenly starts to tremble and falls apart. Back at his hideout Zoomy is woken up to the voice of the Flash stating that he knew that Zoomy had killed Iris cause only another speedster could be invisible on the film. He then goes on to explain that the explosion didn’t kill him but as it tore him apart he gained control of his molecules and moved them a few hours into the future and very slowly reconstructed himself. Yeah, I know, a very silly explanation, but all this old stuff is full of silly explanations.

So obviously they both fight. Zoomy claims he loved Iris more. Barry just gets more pissed at him. Zoomy thinks he’s lost Barry after knocking him into the ocean and so goes to get in his time machine. However, Barry swam after him and gets to the time machine too, and knocks Zoomy out. He sets the machine for the future, hoping that they’ll reinstate the death penalty for Zoomy’s crimes, however they start going back in time instead.

Zoomy reveals that the time machine is booby-trapped and that it will go back and self-destruct if anyone uses it but him. Barry decides to get out of there, despite Zoomy saying he’ll never outrun the time shock wave. Barry leaves anyway as Zoomy begs him not to let him die alone.

The next issue I’m not going to review as I’m only reviewing Zoomy centric comics. But I will tell you that Barry travels through his own timeline, eventually getting back to the present where he decides that he now must get on with his life without Iris. What happens to Zoomy is not revealed, he’s presumed lost in space and time, probably dead.

This is the first part of a 3 part story line revealing the circumstances around the death of Iris West. Part 2 is HERE and part 3 is HERE.

The Flash issue 281 – Deadly Games

First of all a little background. Barry went to a fancy dress party with Iris in which he got injected with a massive amount of the drug Angel Dust, and Iris was murdered.

This issue starts with Frank Curtis, a detective friend of Barry Allen, a.k.a. The Flash, calling him from a phone booth claiming to have undeniable proof that Clive Yorkin, a.k.a. Beast-man, didn’t kill Iris.  Anyway, gun shots ring out and the phone goes dead. Frank fights for his life against 2 hitmen whilst Barry tries to work out where he is. The sound of clock chimes gives away the location and the Flash gets there in time to save Frank and get him to hospital.

The next morning Frank’s body has been reported missing, much to the despair of Chief Paulson, Barry and Frank’s boss. Turns out that he was behind the hit! Both Frank and Barry Allen were working on a narcotics case, which the hit seems to be related to. After a conversation with Barry and finding out that Frank is alive but in hiding, Chief Paulson panics, muttering to himself that Mr. Zyx wouldn’t be happy that the hit failed. So he tries to set up another hit. It must be great being police chief.

Frank is hiding out at Barry’s place which isn’t a big surprise. He has found security footage from the Whitlock masquerade party at which Iris was murdered. Obviously Barry is a little reluctant to watch the tape, but it shows what happened. Iris, dressed as Batgirl because it was a fancy dress party, finds Clive Yorkin (a.k.a. Beast-man) prowling the Whitlock house. At first Yorkin seems startled by the Batgirl costume, but then Iris looks behind her, also spotting something. It appears that she is struck, and that whatever is behind her is what Yorkin is watching and terrified by as he doesn’t even watch Iris drop. Yorkin runs off as soon as Barry arrives, dressed as the Flash.

Seeing the tape brings Barry understandably to tears, both at seeing his wife die again and also knowing that her killer is still at large. Barry send’s Frank away whilst he spends the night re-watching the tape. He knows that there is something wrong with it but can’t work out what. In the morning he goes to Iris’s grave and vows to catch her killer. On his way back, the police radio goes off alerting Barry to a shootout. Barry quickly becomes the Flash and dashes to the scene.

Once there he notices something odd, the policemen are being thrown about by an invisible force, well invisible to them but not to the Flash. It is none other than Zoomy (Eobard Thawne aka Professor Zoom/Reverse Flash). Four years in the comics since their last encounter. Barry threatens, Zoomy claims boredom and then a fight breaks out. Barry stops the gun fight first, saving the cops before taking on Zoomy.

Then one of the most hilarious fights I’ve read so far happens. Barry leads Zoomy out of town, goes to attack him, grabbing his shoulder and Zoomy literally splits in half. I just can’t even express how silly this is so I’ll just leave you with the picture below.

Anyway, Zoomy leads Barry on a round the world chase which leaves Barry super exhausted and he passes out in the desert. When he awakens, Zoomy is standing over him, having given him a gift whilst he was unconscious; heavy matter boots. These are so dense that Barry can’t vibrate out of them and so heavy that they will keep Barry sinking till he hits the earth’s core. Zoomy gloats as Barry sinks, claiming that being from the future he has seen the history records and knows who killed Iris.

The comic stops there, to be continued next time.

Oh dear….Iris is being objectified yet again….

Barry Allen, a.k.a. The Flash is secretly being watched by Dr Fate and the Flash of Earth 2 as he tries to find his wife Iris. She’s been missing for two weeks now and so he is off to the 30th century to see if she is with her parents. For those that don’t know, Iris is actually from the 30th century and her real parents are there. Not quite sure why he waited a full 2 weeks, surely it couldn’t of taken him that long to look everywhere else, and plus wouldn’t you check her parents place first??

Anyway, in a sudden telepathic bit of storytelling, Barry knows that Doctor Fate of Earth-2 saw that Earth-1 was doomed and Iris was the cause. He had Jay kidnap her, explain things and after the whole Justice Society tried to sort out her energy fluxes they decided that the only thing they could do is send her to the 30th century in the hopes that they can cure her. Otherwise they need to separate Iris from Barry forever. Barry suddenly understands and stops just before he can grab Iris, knowing now that if he did then the world would fall apart.

However he got a little too close and a huge storm starts, destroying everything. Flash tries to save the day but is failing until Zoomy (Eobard Thawne aka Professor Zoom/Reverse Flash), turns up and stops the storm instead. The Flash wants to know what he is doing there and Zoomy confesses that it is because he is going to marry Iris! Flash is understandably pissed off at this and makes threats but Zoomy reminds him that if he doesn’t let his wife go then the world will end.

Zoomy claims that he alone knows the secret of the destruction and how to stop it. Iris has already agreed to marry him in exchange for him keeping the world safe. Barry is quick to point out that she is already married to him, but according to Zoomy that’s just in the 1970’s and 30th century law is different.  I have to confess that my favourite bit is how Zoomy has sewn a wedding outfit for Iris. I’m not sure if it is just future fashion or Zoomy being lusty but it is rather low cut in the chest and short in the skirt with a corseted waist, rather sexy overall for a wedding dress, it isn’t white either.

Anyway, Zoomy explains that when he was last impersonating Barry (see my last review, tag zoomy comics) he implanted the seeds of this energy flux in her and thus this whole thing was inevitable. He was also the one who tipped off Dr Fate. So Zoomy picks up Iris and rushes off to the other side of the planet where a minister and legal documents await to authenticate their marriage.

Suddenly Barry has a eureka moment and realises that Zoomy has been vibrating his hands, something he thought was a distraction, but actually has to do with the whole energy flux thing. Barry rushes after them, grabbing Iris back just as Zoomy is confessing how much he’s been dreaming of marrying Iris. The Flash and Zoomy fight whilst Iris watches. And then in a winning move, Barry throws Zoomy into a cactus! (rofl)

The world is about to end as Barry and Iris reunite, however Barry starts to vibrate his hands in the same way that Zoomy had been and it neutralizes her energy flux. Apparently after a few treatments the effects would be permanent. They turn round and find that Zoomy is gone and so all go home to have a nice family dinner.

(Someone’s desperate to get laid…)

So it starts with Iris nagging Barry Allen, a.k.a. The Flash about all the chores he’ll have to do that day. They are looking after Stacy, a dead friend’s 18yr old daughter whilst she attends college in Central, giving her a lift to the dentist.

They are half way down the road when a weather warning says that a group of twisters are going to hit the city. Barry speeds out of the car, grabs a mannequin, places it in the road and pretends it’s an injured person. He thus has to stop the car, gets Iris to drive on to find a phone to call for help. Iris is totally wise to his games though.

So the Flash runs off to sort out the twisters, but the third is suspicious and he gets sucked into it. Turns out it is a death trap, set up by none other than Zoomy (Eobard Thawne aka Professor Zoom/Reverse Flash). Trapped in the tornado the Flash is barraged by cosma-spurs (whatever the frick they are), but they are draining Flash’s stamina. Zoomy explains that cosma-spurs are a new deadly type of energy that was recently discovered in his time. So obviously the first thing he did was travel back 500 years in time to inflict them on the Flash. And it seems that he succeeded as all that is left is the Flash’s burnt out suit with no Barry in sight!

The news reports that the Flash is dead and Iris is understandably upset. That is until he appears at her window, apparently fine. He explains everything that happened and how he vibrated out of his suit to escape. However, when Iris suggests he goes and corrects the news about his death, he says no, claiming that pretending to be dead will smoke out Zoomy. So they spend their day as previously planned, but every time Iris needs picking up, Barry is 20 minutes late. She gets more and more annoyed at him. She snaps at him when he compliments her on her new hair style, claiming that Barry is acting strange and that her hair has been like that for months. So she demands to see his watch, finding it to be at the right time. This annoys her further cause she had worked out that Barry was always 25 mins late and set his watch back that amount to make him on time. This lead to her working out the truth; that this isn’t Barry!

Yes, it is Zoomy, trying to get into Iris’s pants yet again! So as she figured it out, he’s gonna have to kill her. Apparently Zoomy did a mind probe on Barry hence why he knew what their schedule was. Mind powers again…  Iris is confused as to why Zoomy is going to all this trouble and so he explains. Apparently its love, because that is the only thing he can think of as a legitimate reason for wanting to murder Barry and marry Iris which just makes him sound crazy. And it is on those grounds that Iris rejects him again and Zoomy decides to kill her instead. Yeah, true love that is… So he demonstrates how she is going to be sliced to death by him twirling a metal yard stick at speed and cutting up a banana.

But suddenly out of nowhere something strikes him, knocking him out. Iris can sense that it is Barry, even if she can’t see him. Barry then reappears and explains. He vibrated himself into non-solid invisibility, but the radiation from the cosma-spurs was preventing him from becoming solid again. So he followed Iris around in the hopes that he’d be able to save her, which he does. So with a passed out Zoomy on the floor, Barry and Iris make out as Stacy walks in.