Summary: <br> The Flash’s power is out of control and the wonky artwork isn’t helping.<br> Affiliate link include.<br> Transcript below:<br> Another volume of The Flash is out. Does that mean more sorrow, suffering and anguish for Barry Allen. Find out as we look at The Flash: Volume Five Negative, straight ahead.<br><br> <br> Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.<br> The Flash is the comic series that I’ve been reading the longest. It was actually the only series I regularly read during DCs New Fifty-Two era, and I liked a lot of the ideas Josh Williamson came up with in the early Issues of the series. But it seems like the series has taken a slightly more negative turn with Kid Flash breaking away from Barry. Of course, Kid Flash – in this case the the younger Wally West – and in the last volume he faced Reverse Flash and ended up winning, but Iris learned his secret identity, feels very betrayed and at the same time he received powers from the Negative Speed Force – thus the title of this volume and of the first Two-Issue story. Barry Allen’s life has been off kilter – in fact, all he needs is to have a dog that dies and he’s a country music song. <br> I was hoping that this volume would mark a turn for our hero, a sort of recovery from all of the negativity. But that doesn’t happen in the first two Issues in this book, Issues Twenty-Eight and Twenty-Nine Negative, which focuses on his inability to control his powers and his increasing frustration with it. There is a certain grittiness to the story that some people will like, but this is a case of should The Flash really be gritty? And the answer is, not on a regular basis. Plus Barry’s kind of the focus of this is, you’ve got these villains – The Road Ravers – who are not much of a challenge at all, which whether you’re looking at comic books or you’re looking at television a popular tactic with The Flash is when you want to focus on a character you give a real lead-a-lot white super-villain. bBut the problem with this book is it’s not so much character-focused as navel gazing and Barry, I’m sorry to say, comes off as a bit whiny as the story progresses. He and his team at Central City P.D. are also tasked with looking into some theft of blood evidence from the evidence lock up, though little progress is made on that until the next story, Bloodwork, where he does find the villain behind the lab thefts after a scene where he just absolutely blows up at his team. It’s a real prima donna moment and not really fun to read as it’s just totally the antithesis of the character. <br> But I will say that in Bloodwork there is a sort of turning about for Barry as one of his coworkers, Kirsten, confronts him and tries to calm him down and is concerned because she had a friend who went through a bad breakup and committed suicide. And even the super-villain fight here – I will give Williamson some credit because the fight really does create a situation where Barry has to confront his own demons, because much of what the super-villain who is behind this or who is created by this is doing calls to mind a lot of Barry’s issues. The super-villain isn’t the greatest but I think it’s clever and it does give this character a relatable origin story. <br> The series also features the young Wally West stepping up and offering to put aside his differences with Barry to help train Barry to balance out the Negative Speed Force powers so that Barry can use his powers without them ripping apart the city, which had been kind of a problem with his inability to control them. So, I like that and I like the general direction that they’re taking the young Wally West character. The final Issue in the book, The Full Story,
