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Rebirth is an fascinating word in the DC lexicon. Casual readers may see the Rebirth banner and think that it is going to be a story that simply brings back a fallen hero from the dead, like Green Lantern Hal Jordan or Flash Barry Allen, and makes them central to the DC universe once again. However, Rebirth has become a phrase for DC that means so much more. First, if you get Rebirth in the title that means you are getting DC’s best writer Geoff Johns. Second, if Johns is writing the character, he doesn’t only plan to revive the character but he plans to revive the whole damn franchise.

His first series under the Rebirth heading was Green Lantern. Not only did readers see the return of Hal Jordan, but they were also reminded that the Green Lantern Corps was a relevant and integral part of the DCU. Like Green Lantern Rebirth, his current Flash Rebirth is not just returning Barry Allen from his sacrifice twenty years ago in “Crisis On Infinite Earths,” but he is also jump-starting the floundering Flash title altogether. The character Flash has sat on the shelf as a odd mixture of iconic and obscure for quite a few years now. For many, it actually felt like DC had only been putting out a Flash comic because he was “The Flash.” Everyone knows and cares who the Flash is right? Wrong. The Flash was slowly becoming less of a legendary DC figure to being merely a second rate speedster.

Yet, Johns baulked at the idea that the Flash mythos is anything but exceptional, and with only one issue of Rebirth he clearly proved the Flash naysayers wrong. Flash Rebirth explores how all the DC Speedsters are connected to the speed force. By focusing on the speed force element of Flash history, Johns has tied Barry Allen’s return to a disruption in the speed force. Even though Johns uses Barry Allen as the central character, his effort with Rebirth is to revive The Flash as a franchise, just as he did for Green Lantern.

Arguably, this was the only way to give Flash the reboot it needed. No one heard fans clamoring to bring Barry Allen back from the dead. In fact, at least two generations including my own never even knew who Barry Allen was as a character. Wally West was our Flash, and his flaw of always living in the shadow of saint Barry Allen was all we needed for the character. Still, paraphrasing some of Johns own dialogue from Rebirth, the writer didn’t need him to come back but he wanted him to be back to launch a new Flash comic worth reading. Johns writes it with such fluidity and confidence that readers with no prior knowledge about the Flashes can jump on board in literally a “flash.”

Consequently, Flash Rebirth finds the former Kid Flash Wally West as a mature hero, passing the mantle of Flash back to his mentor as an equal. Bart Allen ( Barry’s nephew), finds his voice as an angry teen not understanding the hype surrounding Barry’s return. Most importantly, Barry Allen’s role as a forensic scientist has him questioning the safety of his fellow speedsters. Will he be the new death bringer to the Flash universe? With the series not even completed, Johns has made the three most recent Flashes more relevant than they’ve been in years. What a way to get readers hooked back into the speed force!

-Jon

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