The Four Color Media Monitor

I found out that the New 52 Flash reiterates or regurgitates the same plot points that happened in the 80s Barry Allen stories (which is repeated with different characters time and time again):

1980s: Reverse Flash kills Iris West, thus riling up Barry and having him try to undo it (by going back in time).

1990s: Chillblaine kills Golden Glider, the sister of Captain Cold.

Early 2000s: Reverse Flash assaults Linda Park, the wife of Wally West.

Late 2000s: Reverse Flash goes back in time to kill the mother of Barry Allen (as the 2011 Flashpoint storyline was about Barry trying to undo her death).

2010s: Since the late 2000s plot device was reused for Barry's back story, there's a storyline involving Reverse Flash (the brother of Iris West) who went back in time to kill his father and this has both Iris West and Barry as Flashes.

FYI: In the older stories it was Patty Spivot who became a female Flash while Iris was intended to be his lover. Plus in that 1980s storyline where Iris got killed off, Barry was seen dating another woman in her place and we saw the introduction of Darryl Frye.

It looks like the New 52 Flash writers didn't learn any better from what has happened before.

When I mean by that, there's actually some kind of role reversal between Iris West and Patty Spivot in a way. But then Iris was Bart's grandmother so this would explain the myriad plot holes surrounding Bart's appearances. If Bart was originally both Iris and Barry's grandson, how come his relation to Barry hardly goes explained and explored?

It's like a repeat of what became of Supergirl following her late 1980s reintroduction (which has strong parallels to what became of Bart in the late 2000s). Both of them were introduced as otherworldly relatives of the big heroes sent to live with acquaintances. Both of them were killed off then revived in a different form. Both of them, following their reintroduction, were written as having almost no genetic relation to the big heroes.

Except that in Supergirl's case, there was a proper explanation and exploration for why she's like that and where she came form. Damningly, she was a clone of somebody else and was a sycophant of Lex Luthor for a while before becoming an angel after fusing with another girl. That kind of says a lot about how the writers should have done with Bart know that he isn't related to Barry.

But the closest we can get is a badly done one and where Bart demonstrates two entirely different personalities in two titles (as this has happened to Supergirl before): in Teen Titans, he's cheeky and in the Flash, he's behaviourally the complete opposite (moreso when one compares that to his lighter-hearted permutation in the Young Justice programme).

Not to mention the plot point where Barry Allen's mother gets killed, somebody getting framed for it and him being sent to live with someone else is a rip-off of a certain Fantastic Four story (replace Barry with Invisible Woman and Johnny Storm).

As for the odd parallels between Iris West and Golden Glider, both women's murders served to rile up Barry and Captain Cold in those stories and both of these women eventually came back in some other form or another.

To me, it's just proof (as well as the epiphany) that the New 52 Flash is a rerun of those (bad) storylines that has happened before. The newer writers didn't learn any better so they unintentionally find themselves repeating the same storyline all over again.

I should have said now.

FYI, there's a Flash storyline that involved the experimentation and torture of Barry's "friend" called Manuel Lago, who was then revealed to be the source of the clones called Mob Rule. The way to produce them is to have Manuel mutilated. (On the second thought, he's Cassandra Cain 2: Electric Boogaloo because both of them are Asians who were shown being under an evil influence, are affiliated with the big white heroes and then shown attacking the white heroes.)

They're all about recycling old stories, and making them worse than they were before. Ugh. DC is so far gone that I barely even recognize their heroes anymore.

And did you hear that Captain Cold was joining the Justice League?

Typical. Another line-wide crossover to "make an impact across multiple titles" and lure naive speculators who don't remember the big "death of Superman" sham of 1992. They can't come up with new stories, so they rehash older ones. And bad ones, at that. It's the comic book medium that is "doomed."

Probably the only reason the Red Skull and Doctor Doom haven't joined the Justice League is that they are owned by Marvel, not DC. ;)

For what it's worth, I do like Doomsday, even though, yes, he was a generic villain originally. And at the time, I can see why he had to be created, as Supes needed more muscle-bound opponents, back when. That said, I thought the Doomslayer arc right before New 52 sucked and I got bored hard. When I find Doomsday boring, despite his obvious flaws and there are good reasons why I really shouldn't like him, you got problems, DC.

Loved the Electric Boogaloo reference.

But I'll dislike it, as I'm not crazy about Pak's involvement. He's fine on Zod, but his Doomsday one-shot last year wasn't as excited as I thought it would be. And between him and Lobdell, what could go wrong? XD

My mother-in-law got me a bunch of "bargain bin" comics for Christmas and one of them was the finale of a Supes finally dispatching of Doomsday called "Hunter/Prey." He took Dooms to the "end of time" where the final universal entropy would kill him.

How'd he escape that??

You need to read the Doomsday Wars mini-series in '98, Hube. A lackey of Brainiac went back in time to nab Doomsday right before the entropy destroyed him, and then Brainiac body-jacked him. Trying to find the stories where Doomsday had brief sentience and even ended up fighting Magog.

Anyway, Hunter/Prey was actually quite good, too, but Wars was quite decent, as well.

I have both stories. They're not bad. At least those stories gave an explanation for Doomsday and where he came from.

Thanks for the info, Moth!

No problem, Hube. I think Hunter/Prey and Doomsday Wars worked well, as Dan Jurgens was very hands-on with the projects, as he created Doomsday. I'm sure he was aware how fans might have thought "oh, he's a generic Doomsday villain" and had to set-up why he is what he is.

And why Jurgens should be writing this, but no, of course not. Silly DC logic. XD

That was the nice thing about Hunter/Prey: Jurgens was allowed to expand on his character and explain just why Doomsday was Doomsday.

I just wish they'd (modern writers) write decent stories and stop with the nonsense.

Hey Avi, why do you think the story of The Death of Superman was 'terrible?'

Because it was just written for the sake of publicity, and killing off a superhero is no substitute for character drama. And as I'd noted before, a lot of speculators bought the story under the impression it'd be worth a lot of money in the future. Today's it's pretty apparent it'll never be.