I must admit, I think the initial run of three mini-series that tied into Blackest Night had an advantage over these later entries.  With the first 4 issues concerned only with Black Lanterns attacking and building up to Nekron’s return, they were freer to tell a story within themselves, unshackled by any other events in the main series.

However, of these later series, Flash and Wonder Woman are directly impacted by the main series, and so each issue ends up reflecting a different part of the status quo (for example, in Wonder Woman #1 she’s just battling Max Lord, in #2 she’s a Black Lantern, while in #3 she’s a Star Sapphire).  Granted, this allows them to expand on these events in more detail, but I’m not sure if it makes those miniseries more satisfying within themselves.

Blackest Night: Flash I found to be a bit of a conflicted story.  There were two main strands: Barry during Blackest Night, sounding the alarm and learning to be a Blue Lantern, and the Rogues, travelling to Iron Heights to do battle against the Black Lantern versions of their fallen comrades.

Really, the Rogue story could’ve been a mini-series within itself.  Final Crisis: Rogues Revenge was well received, and made for a good read, and I’m convinced the same could’ve been done here.  However as the story was sharing pages with the Flash tale, I felt it ended up a bit more rushed when it could’ve easily supported three issues on its own.

The Barry Allen story I was less fond of.  With Barry being a major figure in the main Blackest Night series, my immediate feeling was that it might’ve been interesting to use the tie-in to focus more on the Flash family, so we could see what was happening with Bart and Wally.  We finally got this in the third issue, and for my mind that was part of what made the third issue the most satisfying to read of the three.

Issue 2 however was more focused on Barry and the Blue Ring.  Now in fairness, this is an obvious choice to make.  Given the Blackest Night #6 cliffhanger, ignoring the opportunity to expand on those events would’ve seemed odd.  However my problem is that I’m not really buying into the idea of Blue Lantern Barry.  I find the Flash interesting enough on his own, and with Barry only recently returned I was enjoying his spotlight and seeing him using his speed powers in creative ways.  Given a blue ring, he feels like he becomes just another ring slinger, and less interesting as a result.  The constant (or at least it felt like it) repetition of the new Blue Lantern catchphrase “all will be well” throughout the issue started to grate as well.

Another aspect to Barry being a ring-slinger is that it seems to undermine being a Lantern somewhat.  Johns went to lengths to show in Rebirth and in the Sinestro Corps Wars that not just anyone can use a ring.  Sinestro had his recruits transported to Qward for extensive training, and Green Arrow struggled to make even a basic construct in Rebirth.  By having Barry running around, mastering his blue ring so easily it seems to devalue that power somewhat (more-so when you consider that Saint Walker had to sacrifice his entire family before being deemed hopeful enough to be able to handle a blue ring, although granted this is a ring issued under emergency circumstances).  I’ve found the Scarecrow and Luthor recruitment more successful as that seems more in tune with their characters, and is adding to them, although in fairness with at least Scarecrow you can also make the argument that he’s using the ring far too easily.

There’s some interesting events here as well.  We discover that Professor Zoom is locked up in Iron Heights (a disappointing scene given it slightly spoiled Zoom’s fate from Rebirth), and I liked the way the two Zooms confused the Black Lanterns.  I have to wonder what Geoff’s plans for Captain Boomerang are now though.  Owen as a character has always flitted between good and bad, but here he’s made pretty irredeemable, and then finally killed by his Black Lantern father.  I do wonder if this means we’re going to get an all-new Captain Boomerang?  If so it’ll be a shame that Owen was never fully capitalised on.  His origin as Bart’s half-brother was never explored, and the idea of him being a twist on a speedster supervillain likewise was never really used.  However given what he does in this issue, I can’t see him being brought back in any kind of sympathetic way.  Unless he gets brought back and set up as a (pardon the phrase) rogue element, with as big an axe to grind against the other Rogues as the Flash.  As a much darker character that’s after everyone, he could be interesting.

Overall, I found this series a bit of a mixed bag, but I did enjoy the last issue.  Its a pity we couldn’t have had more time donated to the Rogue story in a separate miniseries and more focus on the Flash family as a whole, but when we did get it, the story really kicked off.  I loved the scenes between Barry, Wally and Bart, and the way Barry brought back Bart worked well.  Its nice to see both Bart and Connor’s Black Lantern takeovers dealt with in tie-ins though.  Adds a bit more weight to them, and you can see that neither would really have affected the main series much (as its got a lot more going on).