When I bought The Flash: Time Flies, the clerk reminded me artist Seth Fisher had recently died. I wasn’t actually buying the book for Fisher, but because John Rozum wrote it. I’d never read a comic illustrated by Fisher before, so I was curious I suppose, but mostly I was just happy to find some more John Rozum writing. Together, Rozum and Fisher create half of a great comic book. Time Flies introduces the Flash in a (no pun intended) speedy manner, setting him up for this specific story, not expecting the reader to really know anything about him. Because the story involves the Flash going to the future, he has to explain himself to the future people and that explanation catches the reader up as well. Rozum’s hook for the story is also excellent, tying itself into both DC comic book lore and the general, real-world knowledge of the reader. In many ways, Time Flies is a textbook example of how to make a finite superhero comic book adventure work. Anyone could pick up Time Flies and get it and, for the first half, I’d almost recommend it to anyone.
In the second half of Time Flies--and there’s a visible break, as if it was originally intended to be a two-issue comic series--gets way too involved with the villain and not enough with the journey. Fisher and Rozum create this fantastic, biomechanical future world and do nothing with it after a certain point. Even the hook of the story, the time travel hook, takes back seat to the fight. Rozum still spurts out some conversation relating to it, but it’s all confusing, all meant the story make some kind of sense. Way too many words and way too few things--the fight’s in an enclosed space--for Fisher to illustrate.
Part of the story involves another guy with the Flash’s super-speed and Time Flies offers an analysis of superspeed by an already super-speeding guy. It doesn’t seem like a big deal, but Rozum’s already established Time Flies in a physical dimension for the reader and I’ve never really thought about how cool--while reading a comic book--the Flash’s powers could be. Rozum doesn’t even have him do anything fantastic, just be really, really fast. There’s even one scene where the Flash, watching the other guy, realizes how cool his powers can be.
While Fisher’s artwork is real nice, I’m not thrilled with a few aspects of it--the Flash’s eyes are weird looking and somewhat distracting. His storytelling skills are first-rate--he and Rozum really fill the pages with story--and the whole thing's a beaut of a future world. It’s a nice read, even if it fails to live up to the first half.