Saturday, September 15, 2007
Comic Art
Every family has a black sheep. Why should be speed driven Allen family be any different? Therfore, I give you the inevitability - Inertia.Now. like must always be the case in comics, the black sheep must exist, but the blood lines cannot be tainted, so, Inertia is not born of Allen, but is genetically engineered of Allen DNA. Which to my mind raises one of the more fantastic questions in the speedster legacy. If their speed is a result of tapping into the "speed force" ("Use the force Luke" he said with a snicker) why is its use genetically transmitted. Particularly when we find that some like Johnny Quick manage to tap it by other means.
And come to think of it, the Star Wars analogy is not so far off. How long before we find the Allens have a high "mitichlorian" count? And is Inertia therefore he who will bring balance to the speed force as Darth Speedy? (yes, it's true, I have spun off into utter inanity.)
Anyway, Inertia exists primarily to be the current Flash's arch enemy. Sort of a Reverse Flash with out the whole "reverse" thing. I am about to date myself tremendously. I realize the whole reverse thing is considered trite and cliche and old school, but dog-gone-it, can't an old fart enjoy stuff like that without it having to be reinvented?You know what I really miss, the innocence. The first cover I ever saw with Reverse Flash on it just blew my doors off. Yes, it looks hokey by today's standards, but that means today's standards need so much more to make a bad guy a bad guy. The Reverse Flash was the comic version of the good guys wear white hats and the bad guys black ones - and the good guys always found a way to win.
As comic characters become more complex, more gray, less black-and-white. I enjoy them less and less. Comics should be about escapism. For me, they were an place where as I child the world was safe and predictable and protected, my heroes larger than I - that I could rely on. I realize comics are largely read by adults now and they need more complex story telling.
But I wonder if we are not robbing kids of something in the process.
