With thanks to David for pointing this news and interview.

Its not been a huge secret. Since DCU #0 its been pretty heavily hinted at that Barry Allen was coming back. Grant Morrison made it known that his initial pitch for Final Crisis used Barry Allen from one of the other Multiverse worlds and he was then given the go ahead to make it the Barry Allen. But the question still remained. Was he back for good, or was this another time travelling visit (such as at the end of the Blitz storyline)?

And now its official. Barry Allen’s back full time. Of course, The Flash title has been struggling ever since Infinite Crisis. At the time the series was on a high. Coming off of Geoff Johns’ hugely successful run, the Flash was enjoying a new lease of life. And then the decision was taken to kill off Wally, and replace him with Bart (whether this was originally intended as permanent, or what we finally got, I don’t know).

This just seemed to put a bullet through the series. Wally fans took badly to him being removed from the stage at (arguably) the height of his popularity. Bart fans disliked the new direction for Bart, and felt he was just even more removed from what had made him popular back when he was Impulse. After 13 issues, Bart was killed off, and Wally and his family returned over in JLA.

However, by this point, it seemed the damage had been done. Not even the return of Mark Waid, one of the most successful Flash writers (up there with Geoff Johns) managed to reinvigorate the franchise. As they had done for many years, rumours of Barry Allen’s return started circling, and this time they seemed more believable. Sure it would blow possibly the last meaningful death in DC comics out of the water, but since everything else from Crisis on Infinite Earths was also being slowly undone (after 20 years, in fairness), perhaps the time was right to shake up the Flash franchise by bringing back Barry.

Following on from their phenomenal re-invention of the Green Lantern franchise, DC’s gone with the very safe move of getting in Geoff Johns and Ethan Van Skiver to produce Flash: Rebirth. Its a bit of a no-brainer for DC, and pretty much guarantees that this is going to sell bucket-loads.

I’m really intrigued to see what route they take with the franchise. I came on board during Mark Waid’s run on the title, and I loved the family atmosphere. Unlike the GL’s who’re space cops all working together, this is a group of people who are truly a family. This is something I really hope they capitalise on.

Like Green Lantern, this is one franchise that’s thrived by having multiple heroes with the same name. Unlike Superman or Batman, the Flash is one of DC’s primary legacy books, and with Wally and Jay both sharing the Flash name for many years, there’s absolutely no reason why we can’t just up the number of active Flashes to three (although admittedly Wally and Barry sharing the same costume will get confusing).

Granted, it seem obvious that Barry will become the “primary” Flash. He’ll get his seat on the JLA back, while Wally can hang out with the Titans, and Jay remains in JSA. I’m looking forward to this. If it takes a similar approach to GL: Rebirth, which I thought did a pretty good job of pleasing everyone (or at least, trying to), then this could be a very good thing for The Flash.

Of course, what happens after this mini will be interesting. With Geoff Johns writing so many of DC’s monthlies, will he return to the Flash franchise full-time?

Is it just me, or are the main Avengers titles tie ins to Secret Invasion becoming more missable? Or am I just starting to hit crossover burnout?

After the missable Hank Pym issue of Might Avengers, I decided to just skip the Elektra-focussed issue of Mighty this month, as I’m more interested in the ongoing storyline of Secret Invasion. While the die hard Marvel fans will no doubt appreciate that level of extra background, as someone who’s just come onboard for this event, its not of much interest to me.

Whereas this month I was looking forward to the continuation of the Spider-Woman storyline and seeing how the Skrulls influenced House of M, having really enjoyed the first part of the Spider-Woman story, instead this month’s New Avengers was entirely focused on the Skrull Captain America in the Savage Land. To me, this was even more missable than the Hank Pym issue. At least Hank’s switch was a big part of the story. This was a one-off character. I’m not even sure I followed the logic of the Skrull plot in this instance either. So all these Skrulls are completely brain-washed to believe they are the genuine article? Why are they not similar to the other substitute Skrulls we’ve already seen? The simple fact all these duplicates have turned up together has casted suspicion on them. Captain America’s already dead in the Marvel Universe, and didn’t turn into a Skrull, so they know he was the genuine article. I’m just not sure how this Cap was supposed to successfully infiltrate as some deep cover agent. The invasion was already underway, the heroes were going to be on the lookout for Skrulls, so this Skrull Cap never really had a chance of infiltrating in the same way as Skrull-Jarvis.

I’d have much rather had the second part of the Spider-Woman storyline.

Meanwhile The Initiative continues to rock. This , Captain Britain and Fantastic Four have been the best tie ins so far for me.

In this issue we see the events of Secret Invasion #4 from the point of view of the Initiative, as they’re all rushed to the battle in New York. Poor old 3D-Man doesn’t do well in this issue, but I’m not convinced that his story is quite over yet. Instead this issue focused on Crusader, and his struggle choosing between his adopted homeworld (we see him being sent to Earth, and slowly “going native”), and his people, as he’s forced into the middle of the conflict.

Its a cracking issue, and a nice character piece. And it adds some nice depth to the New York fight we’d seen previously.