New Comics!: The Flash Edition (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

The Flash #10:  I thought the two-month gap would have a more significant impact than it did on the story.  But, I was mostly able to follow what happened.  Hot Pursuit, an alternate-universe version of Barry whose powers are derived from his uniform, may, or may not be, killing people connected to the Speed Force in order to fuel his "cosmic motorcycle" and chase down "time-traveling rogues" who are destabilizing the time stream.  Yup, pretty straight-forward.  Johns actually does an admirable job making that all seem pretty logical.  I have to say I'm more excited about the upcoming "Flashpoint" event than I was before reading this issue, when I was on the verge of canceling the title.  (Manapul's pencils are beautiful as always.)

The Flash #11:  OK, so, one of the problems in reading "Flash" as a new reader is that he's got a pretty convoluted back story, as do all his supporting characters.  I'm vaguely aware that the Reverse-Flash is a bad guy, thanks to the ret-con issue a few issues ago, though I don't entirely understand his connection to Barry.  Based on his comments at the end of the book, he appears to be somehow connected to Hot Pursuit (who, of course, is an alternate-universe version of Barry), who may or may not be stealing years from people to fuel his cosmic motorcycle.  It's all still a little unclear.  Johns doesn't dwell too much on these sorts of metaphysical questions, though, giving us some emotional grounding in the form of the intervention staged by Iris, who's trying to get Barry to connect with his family.  (If I remember correctly, Barry feels estranged from them due to his fear that he'll be responsible for their deaths, something connected to seeing his mother in the mirror during the first arc of this series.)  I'm sure we'll get some answers next issue as we segue to the full "Flashpoint" series.  I miss Manapul's pencils here, but Scott Kolins does an admirable job keeping up the high quality of the art in this book.

The Flash #12:  Johns wraps up the ongoing "The Road to Flashpoint" arc here, though I still unfortunately have a lot of questions.  As noted above, it initially seemed like Hot Pursuit may have been responsible for ageing the victims to power his suit.  However, we discover that it's actually Reverse-Flash doing so.  So, what exactly was Hot Pursuit doing to those people?  Also, how does Hot Pursuit go so quickly from knowing that Kid Flash is the "floating paradox" (so much so he's willing to kill him) to suddenly realizing that it's Reverse Flash?  Reverse-Flash's motives are also a mystery here.  First, he tells Patty Spivot that he's going to remove the Flash from his "historical equation," but then he tells Hot Pursuit that he can't kill Barry Allen without destroying his own timeline.  Which is it?  I'm assuming the answer to this conundrum is the whole point of the "Flashpoint" storyline, but I can't say I'm really all that interested in it, to be honest.  I can't believe DC is pushing out 20+ issues of the cross-over in the next two months based on this concept.  I trust Johns, even though these last few issues have been spotty, so we'll see how it goes.