Flash #51

Even after nearly 60 years, the Silver Age Flash continues to excite audiences. Van Jensen's incorporation of The Riddler adds an element that will shake up Central City forcing the Rogues to reevaluate their moral codes. Read Full Review

THE FLASH #51 isn't a great comic, but it's an improvement over the previous issue. The Riddler's plan comes completely from left field, but the moral dilemma he places The Flash in makes the book a somewhat engrossing read and sets up a potentially explosive finale. Read Full Review

I am still enjoying this final arc of the Flash, even if this issue was a little off and mainly setup for the finale.  The cliffhanger does make things interesting and while I find the Riddler's plan to be a bit lackluster and far from epic, he does have the Flash in the palm of his hand.  The art is more cartoony than fans are used to, but by the end, I was actually enjoying it.  I will be back next issue with the hope that everything is tied up in a nice, neat ball. Read Full Review

On the plus side, we get a cliffhanger that I really didn't see coming. Although this wasn't the greatest of offerings, I'm admittedly interested to see how the next issue plays out. Read Full Review

Had this issue dropped earlier in the series, eyelids would barely be batted at the fun breather it provides from the often elongated sagas of decompressed storytelling. Yet with a looming "crisis" hanging over the DCU, and months of hints that Wally West is set to take up his fated mantle, this feels too comparatively lightweight for a series that has been building for something for so long. With an issue to go before "Rebirth," there's still a chance to see some of that promise come to pass, particularly given the monumental turn by the end of the issue. Read Full Review

Flash/Riddler should be an automatically interesting fight, as long as The Riddler's plot is clever enough. The problem with this story is that the execution isn't nearly as good as the concept, there's nothing clever about Riddler's plot here. Read Full Review

For not being a regular reader of The Flash, this was not a great introduction. You don't need the lead-in issue (No. 50) to make total sense of this, but this storyline will definitely continue into Issue No. 52 as this one ends with the Riddler in control of Central City and Flash at his mercy. That makes it sounds pretty thrilling, but Jensen's mostly served up a pretty vanilla premise, the stakes of which feel a little ho-hum. Maybe if you're a fan of the Flash you care about anonymous Central City citizens being threatened with assault drones, but I was mostly distracted by how silly the Rogues look in the modern world and how ill-used much of the panel layouts were. Read Full Review

What the hell did I just read? Flash comes off as weak and helpless for really stupid reasons. The Riddler's plan doesn't have enough teeth to make any sense either and it make it even worse it all ends with a shockingly melodramatic reveal. Read Full Review