Review: The Flash Vol. 7- Savage World

Quick Summary

Pros: The first half of the book has some decent tension and shows a cool, new world. The artwork looks good in most places.

Cons: One story arc feels like a generic rehash of a concept that has been done far too many times. The other story arc leaves its biggest positive attribute unexplored. Both arcs have disappointing conclusions. Characters continue to act in ways that feel out of place.

Overall: This collection sees The Flash series continue to get worse. It combines lackluster story arcs, poor character interactions, and disappointing conclusions in a way that makes the entire read less fun to go through. There are moments where the book ends up being fun, but these moments are rare. Instead, the book feels like an even less satisfying repeat of its predecessor’s mistakes. Longtime readers may get a kick out of pieces of this book but new readers are advised to check out something else.

Story

The Flash Vol. 7: Savage World, by Robert Venditti and Van Jensen, manages to be slightly worse than its pretty lackluster predecessor. At first the book presents an interesting premise; it depicts a story arc with some neat tension and another one with a whole new world of possibilities. Then, as things progress, predictable and generic storytelling ruins the tension and the world of possibilities is left unexplored. Finally, both arcs end with poorly executed conclusions. Along the way, there are also problems with how characters are written and even a plot hole or two. All of these problems make this a hard book to get behind and make for a subpar reading experience.

(spoilers start here)

Like its predecessor, Savage World is split into two main story arcs. One of these arcs takes place in the present and deals with a future version of the Flash taking on the present-Flash’s life. The other takes place within the Speed Force and has a powerless present-Flash attempting to find his way back to the real world.

The future-Flash story arc is one about deception. Most of the tension in this portion of the book comes from the knowledge that future-Flash has no qualms with killing criminals. Watching him fool everyone around him while he goes out and kills people makes for some decent suspense. However, it all also feels incredibly generic as the entire ordeal feels like something that has already been done in numerous forms of fiction.

The other major story arc is about a lack of knowledge. The present-Flash shows up in a world that is a mashup of people, animals, and objects from all different time periods. It makes for a creative narrative landscape that goes frustratingly unexplored. This lack of exploration takes away the one key draw to this story arc and leaves it feeling boring.

Then, just like in the previous volume, the story in Savage World goes on to detail two disappointing conclusions. Future-Flash’s story has him going from completely sure of his convictions to disregarding them entirely simply because he had a moment to rethink things after his hand was blown off. This change of heart is so weak and so poorly explained that I had to go back and reread that portion of the book multiple times to even understand what exactly took place.

The conclusion to this major story arc then immediately propels forward a conclusion for the other major story arc. Future-Flash decides to sacrifice himself to solve present-Flash’s problem, despite knowing absolutely nothing about this problem or seeking alternative ways to solve it. Future-Flash even has banter with the villain and makes some personal insults, despite not having met this villain at all before. It is a poor conclusion to a book that was already struggling to begin with.

In addition, characters are written poorly at random moments throughout Savage World. Wally’s dialogue almost always makes him seem insufferable and gives him little opportunity to endear readers to his character. Future-Flash’s freak-out towards Iris makes little sense. Patty’s annoyance over Iris’s article conflicts with the otherwise good-hearted nature of her character. Finally, Patty’s decision to immediately dump Barry feels incredibly rushed and makes their breakup feel like a cheap way to get rid of her character, rather than something meaningful.

(spoilers end here)

Art

The artwork in Savage World ends up being one of the book’s most consistent attributes. The vast majority of the book is penciled by Brett Booth and inked by Norm Rapmund. This duo is able to depict some of the book’s more bizarre locations in a way that helps bring them to life. This creativity can also be seen in some technology from the future, which looks really cool when used in this book. Plus, fight scenes play out well and ensure that there is some dynamic energy in the battles. My only complaint is that the artwork’s colors make everything feel very washed out and don’t really complement the tone of the story. In general though, the artwork here is solid and makes the book look nice.

Continuity

The Flash Vol. 7: Savage World continues the story from The Flash Vol. 6: Out of Time (Review).

The story here continues in The Flash Vol. 8: Zoom (Review).

This volume also makes references to other comic books, detailed below:

• The fallout from the climactic events of Forever Evil (Review) (Reading Order) is still felt throughout this volume.
• The Rogues’ defense of Central City is mentioned a few times. This is mostly shown in Forever Evil: Rogues Rebellion (Review).
• Mirror Master mentions that Captain Cold has been doing something else recently. This is shown in Justice League Vol. 6: Injustice League (Review).
• The mystery behind the death of Nora Allen is explained by the events of The Flash: Rebirth.