Product Description: As The Flash, Wally West may be struggling to find his place within the ranks of the JLA, but he knows he has one great advantage over every trial he has ever faced: he is the Fastest Man Alive. Now, for the first time, he has met his match. A scientist has created something that can move even faster than Wally Westand it's killing people in Keystone City. Forced to battle the one foe who can truly stay one step ahead of him, The Flash soon learns that the consequences of the creature's actions reach far beyond Keystone and threaten the future itself with annihilation.
In GraphicAudio...A Movie in Your Mind with Full Cast, Narration, Cinematic Music and Sound Effects. GraphicAudio sets the gold standard for full-cast dramatizations, and new listeners will become instant fans. - Audiofile Magazine
A suprising drama I recieved a copy of this CD set from the original author. If you think that makes me biased consider only that it takes time to listen to this as well as to praise it and it's far easier to ignore mediocre efforts even from good friends. I have many reviews and I treat this one no differently than for those of complete strangers.
I do not like books on tape for one very big reason: I like to read. I like to put my own voice to those tales. It's a point of fact that in a lot of cases our inner voices excel because they are ours, with our inflections and characterization based upon our own experiences. This book on a set of 6 discs has changed my mind the way no previous spoken word book format ever has. From the start the production values are both dynamic and very well suited to the material. The sound effects alone are nothing like I could, or at least, would have come up with in my own head. Then the different actors' voices seemed to match the various characters so well that imagining better voices for each of them was moot. These people earned their pay. Okay, so the quality of drama was good and special sound effects and characterization were better than spot on. So what? There's still the story to deal with, right? After all it's just a silly superhero tale about a character who is often seen as being a weak link among such titans as the Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and the Green Lantern (even GL as played by new guy and illustrator Kyle Rayner). Well, now I have to back up because the Flash is actually a very interesting character and Mark Schultz and this story go a long way explaining why he deserves the focus. We learn a lot about the Flash in this story because prose and this spoken drama have allowed the time needed to flesh out this overlooked character. In comics complexity is often overlooked or ignored because the visual medium requires dynamic panels filled with action to move the story along. Not since those great Carmine Infantino rendered comic panels 40+ years ago has the Flash been more interesting and the prose is the reason. I now know what it's like to try to fill the former Flash, Barry Allen's shoes. I know about the doubts that this relatively new member of the elite heroes has to confront, knowing he has so much to learn at the feet of these giants. Best of all I know now why being the Flash, a master of speed in all it's layers is both a great responsibility as well as something of a liberation. Then there's a rather puzzling problem revolving around a set of odd, disturbing killings in the Flash's home town that seem to defy conventional investigative procedures. There's his dealing with local law enforcement and the questionable goings on at Star Laboratories that might be connected to the events that the Flash and the police are investigating. There's Wally West's aunt, the widow of Barry Allen (the original Flash) who also figures into the strange events as well as odd demensional shifts in space which are having profound effects around the globe and continuing to heighten the alert status for all the JLA in dealing with them. There are plenty of great subplots and the way Schultz' story ties all of these together with the touching details of Wally's relationship with his wife and his aunt, Iris West, are so masterfully done that the listening is more than just a treat. I found this story to be almost essential to understanding why the superhero genre has lasted as long as it has.
I hope there are more to follow. I also hope this prompts someone to make Mark Schultz an offer on another novel. He's a first rate storyteller. This dramatization of his novel proves this once more.
Super Reader The first two pages were very bad, but it was all uphill from there. It got better and better as it went along, much like the Green Lantern part of this series, although the end of this was better than that. A faster than light universe wrecking serial killing super beast - how do you stop it, that is the problem. This novel cleverly involves his aunt Iris, the Justice League, and The Flash. It is really intriguing to see a writer delve at length into what he is thinking while superspeeding, which you can get in comics, but only in tiny, tiny parts.
Oh, and a new term for the geeks - cryptospeedsters, that was great.
Just too goofy Was it Wally West portrayed as a greater whiner than even in his most whiny days in the comics?
Was it the awful characterizations of the other JLA members, speaking and acting not at all like their comic (or cartoon) counterparts?
Was it the big deus ex machina at the end that helped defeat the villain, change DCU continuity, and resolve all of Wally's character woes?
Was it other odd continuity gaffes, like suggesting that Iris Allen has never actually met Batman?
Was it the Flash, in the very first sentence of the book, "flying" through the air at superspeed and duking it out with meteors?
I have no idea. But this is probably the weakest of the DC JLA novels I've read to date. Mark Schultz has written some good stuff in the past, but this isn't representative of it.
Great Super-Hero Novel The Flash was the first of the every-man super-heroes (i.e. what if a regular guy had an accident and got super powers), which includes characters like Spider-Man. In this story Wally on an almost spiritual lever, like Luke Skywalker. The villain is a high-tech Frankensteinian creation of science gone awry. I hope that there will by more novels of the Flash as good as this one.
Deus ex Quantumachina Were it not for the horrible ending, this book would have been a solid four stars.
Following up on Mythos, the Flash gets his solo effort in the JLA novels. The author does a good job focusing on the Flash without ignoring the other members, or going out of the way to remove them from the scene so the Flash can take center stage.
The Flash is nicely presented as a younger hero, very powerful yet insecure against the legends of the JLA, and the otherworldy antagonist is effectively creepy and interesting.
After building up the powers of this extra-dimensional SuperLuminal in anticipation of the final encounter the author does the unforgiveable. From out of nowhere another hero summons the Flash to Quantum-Paradise and gives him godlike powers, temporarily, and advice on how to defeat the entity as well as a healthy dose of quantum physics hand-waving to explain the powers of the Flash. Afterwards the new powers go away, and so does the convenient savior albeit with a "shock revelation"
So much promise with what had been a good character driven novel focusing on the Flash and his civilian and superhero life just thrown away by this Deus ex Machine ending.
Anything Goes Trivia
Megaton Man
Trevor
