Trial by (Flash) Fire
Sterling Gates Writer
Pete Woods and Fabiano Neves Pencillers
Sean Parson and Fabiano Neves Inkers
Brad Anderson Colorist
Carlos M. Mangual Letterer
Brett Booth, Norm Rapmund and Andrew Dalhouse Cover
Kate Stewart Assistant Editor
Brian Cunningham Senior Editor
Just when we thought we were done with Brett Booth, he comes roaring back with this foldout cover. Believe it or not, DC actually dubbed this gimmick "WTF" covers (ostensibly to stand for "What The Fifty-Two" ... sure ...). Every comic published in April 2013 had a foldout cover with a "shocking reveal." Whatever. I guess the occasional gimmick is necessary and mostly harmless. Same with this particular cover. It's fine. Booth normally does a fairly decent job on covers.
So apparently in addition to managing Belle Reve Prison and the Suicide Squad, Amanda Waller also runs the government organization called A.R.G.U.S. and her own team of heroes called the Justice League of America (not to be confused with the regular Justice League). I have no idea if this issue is supposed to happen before or after the Teen Titans broke into Belle Reve, and the creators of this comic don't seem at all concerned with matching up with any continuity in the Teen Titans series. For all intents and purposes, this is a completely different Amanda Waller.
Anyway, Waller has recruited Vibe with the express purpose of taking down the Flash, so she's decided to give Vibe some training by pitting him against Kid Flash. Vibe is sent to Manhattan with a handful of A.R.G.U.S. troops, and they quickly locate Kid Flash apparently searching for something in the subway tunnels. Vibe immediately blasts Kid Flash with a "vibrational burst" as he calls it. This really throws Kid Flash for a loop, and he promptly retreats.
Vibe manages to separate himself from the A.R.G.U.S. guards, and tracks Kid Flash's energy trail. Once he's alone, Kid Flash grabs him, demanding to know how he effected his speed in a way that no one else has ever before. But when Kid Flash touches Vibe, he sees images of his past that don't really tell us anything we don't already know (or had already suspected). On the plus side, though, there weren't any major contradictions from the tiny bit of information Scott Lobdell has slowly been leaking out in Teen Titans.
Vibe also saw these flashbacks, and is surprised to learn that Kid Flash is a human from the future. Kid Flash tries to retreat again, but Vibe blasts him again, demanding to know why this "criminal" doesn't go by a more villainous name like Anti-Flash or Reverse Flash. Kid Flash insists he's not a criminal, and manages to escape when a fortuitous subway train passes by. Vibe keeps tracking Kid Flash, though, and finds him examining an odd hole in the ground with the Flash symbol on the bottom of it.
Kid Flash says he's dreamed about this location and believes it was where he was sent to from the future — although he still has no idea who sent him back in time or why. Vibe decides to try to help out by touching Kid Flash again, hoping that a more controlled view into his timeline will give him the answers he's searching for. But when he touches him this time, there's a large electrical discharge that destroys a bunch of the electronics back at A.R.G.U.S. headquarters in Detroit for some reason. Kid Flash is infuriated by this, saying he can't risk letting Vibe and his cohorts learning more about him. He knocks Vibe down, tells him to stop working for the bad guys, and runs away for good this time.
This wasn't a bad issue, but it wasn't particularly good, either. I was a bigger fan of it back when I reviewed it for my New 52 Flash blog, but now I'm rather indifferent toward it. Mainly because I know this story isn't going to go anywhere. We're most likely never going to see Vibe again, and when we finally do get to Kid Flash's origin, I doubt it'll have anything to do with this mysterious hole under the streets of New York. So what was the point of all this? I mean, other than providing a ridiculous excuse to knock out the power of A.R.G.U.S. to advance the plot in Vibe's book.
Kid Flash acted completely different here than he does in Teen Titans. And Amanda Waller's involvement with both the JLA and Suicide Squad is insane. How many secret organizations can she run at a time? Maybe if she focused on taking down the Teen Titans or the Justice League, she'd actually succeed, instead of splitting her time between so many teams and secretive organizations. Just saying.
Channel 52 reports that Catwoman has been kicked out of the Justice League of America and sent to Arkham Asylum.
Next time, we return to Teen Titans #19.
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