Worst Moments in Comics

Flash: Blood Will Run TPB
Writer: Geoff Johns
Artist: Scott Kolins

Synopsis:
Wally West helps out some police who’re engaged in a shootout with a gang, and even has to stop a gang member who tries to blow everyone up with a bomb he’s got strapped to his body (this he does by grabbing it off and burying it beneath debris in a nearby junkyard before it explodes). He also discovers at least three more things: a] one of the cops clashing with the gang is a real-life counterpart to a crooked one he’d met in the mirror world featured in the “Wonderland” storyline, whose name is Fred Chyre, b] the second cop is an old girlfriend of his named Julie Jackam, who’s now working with the Keystone City police department, and c] Magenta turns up, providing a little help of her own. Julie wants to arrest her because of felonies she’s wanted for in town, but Magenta initially resists and when Chyre aims a gun at her, she rips his gold fillings out with her magnetic powers (and it results in a bloody mouth). She then decides not to resist, and goes cooperatively to the police station.

At home with her young son Josh asleep in his crib, Julie’s apartment is invaded by a knifer with a dagger emitting a form of electricity when used, who stabs her to death before she can get her pistol out, and slips away leaving her body streaming out blood as Josh wakes up and cries in misery.

The next morning, the landlady of the apartment has discovered the horror that took place and alerted the authorities, including Chyre. Wally soon finds out as well, and worse, as another officer named Jared Morillo, who’s pinpointed the motives, lets him know, it’s part of a rash of attacks committed against everyone possible whom the Flash has ever saved/helped.

Wally goes to talk with Frances Kane at the police station, and the conversation soon turns to violence as she goes ballistic and attacks him. Their scuffle soon ends up in the main offices with the other police officers, but not before she reveals to Wally that she’s part of the gang that’s been murdering people he’s saved, telling him, “we love you”. After chaining some of the officers present with her magnetism, she unearths a lightning-shaped key buried under the floorboards, and takes that along with an unconscious Wally to the hideout of the Cidada cult, the very gang in question who’ve been committing all these murders. Cicada, we learn, murdered his own wife (he doesn’t actually admit it; it’s just revealed afterwards, more on which soon) long ago and was later struck by lightning, believing himself to be living so that he could revive his wife by taking the lives of everyone the Flash ever helped. Soon enough, he even stabs the Flash himself with one of the daggers they use, and while it doesn’t kill the Flash, it still provides him with enough energy to use for the purpose of reviving the body of his dead wife.

Meanwhile, Linda Park West is heading back home from her reporter job, and discovers a bomb planted there, seemingly by Magenta but certainly by another cultist who’d taken notice of her. She is saved by Jesse Quick, who’s been kept only so busy back in her home state of Pennsylvania by both a supercrook and her own business, Quickstart Enterprises. They spot and stop the cultist from getting away, but he takes his own life before they can get him to talk.

Meanwhile, back at the Cicada cult hideout, the corpse of the leader’s wife has been revived, and is angry at him, because he’s the one who took her life brutally, and she wants nothing to do with him, and he puts her to death again (with what looks like a lightning-kiss?). Wally, who’s been kept stuck in a magnetic field by Magenta, finds a way to turn the tables on her, overcharging her with electricity, and then takes to disarming all the cultists of their own knives. Chyre and Morillo, who’ve tracked the location, come in and during a scuffle, Morillo is slashed by Cicada’s own dagger, making him all but invincible, as shown in a few later issues. Wally finally defeats Cicada and lectures him about how he’s trying to revive someone by taking the lives of others and how wrong that is, and doesn’t make things any better. The villain is then hauled off to prison.

Following this, Linda's parents pay her and Wally a visit, but the meeting is sidetracked when Wally spots a new villain on TV named Tarpit, very much like his name, who's currently causing a ruckus at the local hockey arena, and races over to deal with him (did I note that he finds his dad-in-law's financial conversations boring?). He gets a little assist from Captain Cold, who's attending the game with a hooker (yes, you read that right). The Flash eventually manages to stop Tarpit, who happens to be controlled by the younger brother of a local mobster, whom we learn has the ability to control inanimate objects by projecting his consciousness into them, at least until he got a hold of that tar material. But Capt. Cold manages to make off with the trophy cup of the hockey team.

Later on, at the funeral for Julie, Wally and Linda are introduced by Chyre and the landlady to Josh, and it's revealed that he may have a superpower within him, making them wonder if Wally is the biological father. As they head back through town from the graveyard, the Weather Wizard attacks the city with a giant tornado, among other feats with his wand, and Wally gets caught up in it too. While Linda and the others are taking cover in a movie theater, the Weather Wizard finds them and demands Linda hand over his son. Wally has freed himself from the tornado and tries to fight back against Mark Mardon, but doesn't succeed initially. Mark gets around to explaining how Josh is his biological son from a tryst he had earlier with Julie out of costume. However, while attemping to get hold of Josh again, Wally finally managed to get the drop on him, and causes his wand to overcharge with energy, forcing Mark to throw it away before it explodes. After knocking Mark senseless, Wally sees the Mirror Master/Evan McCullough in a store window display.

The last part of this is a Secret Files special, and features Hunter Zolomon arriving in Keystone. Meanwhile, we discover a few of the Rogues who were introduced in the Iron Heights special attacking a radio disc jockey station. Murmur has slaughtered some of the people on the floor, and tries to stab the disc jockey announcer to death in the recording room, but Wally manages to stop him in time. Then Magenta and Girder arrive and cause more problems, including throwing Chyre and Morillo out the window, forcing Wally to go and save them, giving them time to escape with the Mirror Master's help.

Comment:

Many years ago, as the reviews I wrote here in earlier times tell, I was stupid enough to think that Geoff Johns was a great writer. The thing is, when I began reading the Flash at the time, it was after this particular arc, so I hadn’t been fully up to speed on this story, which, whenever I think about it today, is really quite vile.

I think it was just before issue #213 of the second volume that I bailed (although I foolishly bought a later issue with Heatwave allegedly providing his background. That, and a tie-in to Wonder Woman were my last issues of both series in late 2004/early 2005), because I was revolted by the revelation that Johns would imply that the Turtle was willing to commit child molestation. How does that turn a supposedly “lame” villain into something better? On the contrary, it makes him revolting to read about. It was this kind of crap that began to change my opinion of Johns, and make me realize that he was no better than Mark Millar or Grant Morrison, or even Warren Ellis post-2000.

When I looked at Blood Will Run years after I’d first bought the trade in about 2003, I came away with a very bad taste in my mouth. This, I realized, was one of the most depressing, joyless, and worst of all, forced stories I’d ever seen. The bloodshed was of shock tactic quality, and the murder of Julie Jackam, followed by the sight of her young son crying miserably, were simply horrible. And even the showdown with Cicada was weak.

Most irritating about Cicada, aside from his being such a cardboard villain, was that he and his worshipers seemed suspiciously like a fanfiction-ish attack on comics fans themselves. Any potential Morillo, and especially Chyre, could’ve had, was wasted. Nor did there seem to be any point to this flimsy story beyond the bloodshed. And the artwork was nothing to crow over. Kolins may have once been a decent artist, but these days, his work is very iffy and uninspired.

Tarpit made for a very mediocre villain (and the part with the prostitute Cold was a customer of seemed tacky at best), and the battle with the Weather Wizard wasn't much better, although the main problem was how wobbly the premise of Mardon having a one-night-stand with Julie happens to be. She didn't recognize him out of costume? Okay, I can probably buy that she didn't recognize him because she was drunk, but beyond that, this was just too silly for words. And why did she keep all this a secret? Another fault was how it made her sound/look like a jerk, and this was 3 years before Joe Quesada and J. Michael Stracynski tarnished Gwen Stacy in the rock-bottom Sins Past arc in Spider-Man.

And lest I forget, the last story that republished the Secret Files special was also quite awful. The scene where Murmur, who looks like a reject from Edward Scissorhands, threatens the disc jockey with a bloody knife, was disgusting. While the Flash has had scenes of bloodletting and death before, a villain like Murmur has no place in a book like this. Nor in fact does Girder if his background involves a possible sexual assault, which was certainly forced. And it's just sad to see Magenta tossed into a role as awful as what she had here.

Regarding Johns’ very first story for the Flash, Wonderland, I never read the whole story, just saw some bits and pieces from it. But after waking up and coming to terms with how bad, overrated a writer he really is, I’m feeling glad I haven’t, and don’t intend to. Wally’s own depiction here was embarrassingly bad, making him look like some kind of a failure, whether intentional or not. Reading this again after such a long time has also changed my opinion about the subsequent Rogues, Crossfire, Run Riot and Blitz arcs.

I’d also add that even after Blood Will Run ended, the problems only just began, if the Secret Files special I mentioned is any indication: the bloodletting continued to run, and run, and run…right into a stone wall. And even when it wasn’t jarringly violent, Johns had a problem of making too many would-be continuity nods in the DCU, self-referential lines, and other awkward uses of nostalgia without being very creative. There was a very peculiar line in the Crossfire story about the thefts and black market set up in Central City supposedly helping the economy, which is absurd. And Johns’ introduction of a new Reverse-Flash was little more than a limp caricature. The last story he wrote on his first tenure here, Rogue Wars, was really embarrassing. But the straw that really broke the camel's back was when Josh Jackam, the infant mentioned here, was put to death by Inertia in Rogues' Revenge, a miniseries Johns wrote as a tie-in to Final Crisis in 2008. After I discovered what happened in that story, I will never read Johns' output ever again, and feel all the more embarrassed that I ever thought he was great years ago.

Johns may very well go down in history one day as the writer who ruined the DCU, all because he lacks the creativity to do something inspired. He certainly doesn’t seem to have much understanding of character drama, that’s for sure. Probably the only series he wrote solo where he didn’t do this badly was the one where he introduced the new Star-Spangled Girl, Courtney Whitmore. I’ll say in fairness that his work on JSA and Hawkman was decent enough, though even there, I’m beginning to have trouble with at least one story arc, Darkness Falls. But anything else he did solo was like turning gold into straw. He does not deserve to be a writer, and if DC can be wrested away from the likes of people like him and Dan DiDio, that will be a great mercy.

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