#i read infamous like . 2 years ? ago ? and recently reread it and man its so good . so so good

[valentineveils]

damn chaos anthem ur lead singer color coded as fuck !

[roguelov]

Fastest Woman Alive (PART 4)

PART 1 , PART 2, PART 3,  PART 5

Tags: @horsiegirl998, @book-lover-like-no-other, @mellow-delight, @cisramon

‘Has Central City Changed?’

-          Almost a year ago the infamous STAR labs launched its first ever particle accelerator stating that life would never be the same, in a sense they spoke the truth. The accelerator unfortunately exploded. However, since that fateful night it seems that Central City has become a beacon for the unbelievable …

‘Who Is This New Hero?’

-          With the recent allegations of a shift in the atmosphere of Central City, a new hero has emerged. Which can only be described as a red blur, although some have claimed it to be a woman in a red suit …

‘Woman in Red Recuses People from a Fire’

-          At a complex fire, witnesses talk again of a red blur, of the woman in red. The woman who, without hesitation, ran into the building recusing all of its residents. The woman who defies logic running at speeds unimaginable continues to save those in need …

‘The Flash Saves a Family in a Car Crash’

-          The Flash was last seen at the scene of a runaway car. Brake pumps malfunctioned causing the car to only gain speed while cruising down a hill. Passing red lights, stop signs, the family could only wish for the best as the car’s speed continued to increase. Until the Flash arrived. The Flash successful save the entire family …

BY: Iris West

You read and reread all of the articles by Iris. It was a knife to the stomach. Slowly twisting. It hurt that you haven’t told Iris or Joe. You wanted to, however, you decided to keep it a secret. To protect them from the ‘unimaginable’ as Iris wrote. Central City has changed. More chaotic. Criminals, or wannabe criminals, granted with abilities. You were the only one out there trying to stop them, the only one who could. Yes, you believed in your fellow cops, but they can’t go up against a man who can replicate himself or a man who can create weather phenomena. You were the shield. The first line of defensive for the innocent. For now, you would wait. Wait to tell your family. It was daunting to think how they would react, or how you could actually tell them.

Hey, some people have been given powers and I am one of them. I can run at super speed and I’m the crime fighting hero, the Flash. Isn’t that amazing?

“Hey, (Y/N).” You flinched and exited out of Iris’s blog. You looked from behind your computer to see Joe leaning in the doorway to your lab. “We have a call, come on we need you for this,” he explained.

“Right, I’m coming.”

Hitching a ride with Joe and Eddie, you all arrived at this restaurant with multiple bodies scattered about. Immediately you went to work. Putting on gloves, you started assessing the bodies.

Joe walked over. “You got anything, (Y/N)?”

“Signs of histotoxic hypoxia which is a fun way of saying the cells in their bodies were unable to utilize oxygen. It’s similar with exposure to a poison gas.” You answered pulling off your gloves.

“What kind of poison?”

You shrugged. “I would need to take a lung sample to see if I can narrow it down.”

“The only other exit was bolted from the inside,” Eddie explained walking towards the two of you. “They were trapped. I was thinking someone pumped gas in from the outside, but witnesses say the street was empty.”

Joe scrunched his face. “So it was from the inside. That means there should be canister or a container left behind. The gas just didn’t come in by itself.”

“Or maybe it did,” you stated. The pair stared at you confused. You forced a laugh, “Ha, just messing with you guys.” You cleared your throat as you picked up your kit throwing the strap over your shoulder. “I’m just going to go. Maybe I can go to STAR labs to use their high tech equipment and see if Barry or anyone has an idea on how this could happen. Okay, see ya bye.” You rushed out.

You scrambled over to STAR labs. You explained everything to them from the lack of evidence of an inside job to the way the bodies were positioned. As if they were killed off one by one. Immediately, their eyes lit up as a new puzzle emerged. They started rattling off how this meta-human could do it. Do they control poisonous gas? Create it? Is it part of their DNA? Mysteries laid out waiting for the truth to be discovered. Yet, your mind wasn’t there. Your mind still stuck on this morning, on Iris articles, on lying to Joe moments ago. Your guilt slowly rose.

Should I tell Joe and Iris? Am I wrong to keep them in the dark? Would they be mad at me? How do I even began? I always tell them everything, especially Iris. And now with her blog I should definitely tell her, yet … I’m terrified. What if it puts them in danger? What if me telling them will attract crazy people to them? What if someone tries to hurt them to get my identity or simply hurt them just to get to me? What if –

“(Y/N).”

Your head snapped to the direction of your name. It was Harrison. You shook your head, “Sorry, I was lost in thought. Did you say something?”

Harrison leaned back in his chair with his arms crossed. “What’s on your mind?”

“What? Oh, nothing. Just thinking about the case.” Everyone stared at you. Eyebrows raised with a knowing expression. “Really, I swear!”

“She’s lying,” Barry pointed out. “She’s fidgeting.”

You tsked about to retort when you realized you were moving. Swaying on your feet and your arms couldn’t decide on where to stay. Crossed? At your sides? Behind? In front? They didn’t know.

“Now, she’s avoiding eye contact,” Cisco added.

You were. Your focus on the floor. You huffed and crossed your arms and stared directly at the group. Slightly glaring.

“And now she’s defensive,” Caitlin stated. “She’ll fold in a second.”

You gasped. “Wh-what? No, what? I have no idea what you’re talking about. Me? Lying? I think not, I was just, uh … okay, I was lying.”

“There you go! You know the first step is admitting you do have a problem,” Cisco joked.

“Ha. Ha. Cisco.”

“So, what were you really thinking about?” Barry asked.

You inhaled and exhaled loudly. “Just about being the Flash. I don’t know if I should tell Joe and Iris.”

“You haven’t told them!” Caitlin exclaimed.

You frowned. “Yes, Caitlin, I haven’t told them.”

“But, why? You’ve been the Flash for what? A month or so? And you haven’t told them how you can now move faster than the speed of sound.”

You sighed and run your fingers through your hair. “Yeah, I know. I should have told them by now but I’ve been so busy lately and all of this” – you gestured in a circle – “is a lot. I’m just worried how they will react and what they’ll say. Did you know that Iris has a blog about me! Now, how do I explain that one?”

“I know, her blog is pretty sweet and she talks about all of the metas. She’s a good reporter – and this is all irrelevant, so please ignore me,” Cisco said.

“For now, I say we focus on this meta who is killing people by using poisonous gas,” Harrison stated trying to wrangle the conversation back in. “After we capture this person, I think it may be best to tell your family, (Y/N). You are out there risking your life. Better to tell them then continue to lie about where you run off to.”

“You’re right,” you mumbled.

“I know I am, but now let’s get back to work. We don’t want anyone else to get hurt.”

Kyle Nimbus was the man responsible. A hitman betrayed by his own people. His DNA was altered when the particle accelerator exploded during his state execution. Thankfully, you were able to stop the man and locked him up using cells in the accelerator. It was a tiring day. But, you still had one more thing to do. Something you’ve been putting off.

A buzz sounded from in front of you. Peering over the desk through the glass window, a man walked through a door on the other side. A policeman followed behind him. You smiled at the man. He smiled back. He sat in the chair across from yours. Both of you picked up your designated phones.

“Hey, dad,” you said.

“Hey, (Y/N), how’s it going? You look pretty beat up.”

“I’m good just work … so, uh, I heard something crazy happened to you today. A man made of poisonous gas tried to go after Joe when he was visiting you?”

He nodded. “Yeah, it was so strange. But the weirdest part had to be this masked woman in all red. She zoomed in and gave Joe a shot and he was fine. Whoever she was she’s a hero.”

“The Flash.”

“What?”

“Sorry, her name is the Flash.”

He hummed, “Catchy.”

You nodded. You didn’t know what to say. So many things to be spoken, yet the words couldn’t form.

Luckily, your dad decided to take a hold of the conversation. “You know she stared right at me. And you know what? It was like I knew her.”

You perked up. “Really?”

“Yeah, it was just a gut feeling.”

“Huh. Weird.”

“Must be scary to be this Flash. Going around trying to save everyone sounds pretty dangerous and exhausting.”

“Yeah,” you mumbled. Tell me about it.

“I just wish I had a second to talk to her and tell her to breathe.”

You stared at your father. His eyes unwavering. In that moment, you knew that he knew. Words didn’t have to be said. A father’s intuition. You opened your mouth, but he cut you off. “I would say to breathe and to always take a moment to breathe. Just a moment, just a single breath, can clear the mind and remind you of life. A reminder to cherish it. A reminder of your purpose. And although some are not as fortunate and that you can’t save everyone, you shouldn’t dwell on those negatives. That those unfortunate people are probably more thankful to know you captured the one responsible. And that those people would be thankful to know their friends and family are alive and are able to take another breath. I would tell her to take a moment to appreciate everything and to never stop being a hero. The world needs more people like her and although it can get hard just to keep breathing. Keep fighting. Keep reminding yourself why you live.”

Tears welled up in your eyes. “Yeah? Is it really that simple?”

“Yes, it is. I do it. Locked up in here I always take a seconds to breathe and think of you and know you’re doing well so I can keep moving forward.”

You sniffled wiping away a loose tear. Your father’s advice was something you didn’t know you needed until this moment. But, there was still one reason why you wanted to visit him. “You won’t be in there much longer, I will get you out of here. I promise. I feel like I actually have a new found hope. I found something. I just need time to figure out how it connects.”

He smiled sadly. “(Y/N), I don’t want you to keep doing this to –“

“No, I want to do this, I will does this. You will walk away a free man. You will breathe fresh air again. I swear.”

He sighed. “Okay, okay. Just promise me you won’t let this consume you. You have a life. People who need you. Like Joe and Iris. Like Barry. Say, how are you two doing?”

You chuckled once. “We’re fine, dad.”

“He still treating you good?”

“Always have.”

“Good, that’s good. Give him my best along with Joe and Iris.”

“I will.”

“Good, now, I should probably head back. I love you.”

“Love you too.”

[knifeonmars]

Tales From My Bookshelf

For the past couple of months, as I’ve languished in a state of apathy and ennui, I’ve finally been taking the time to go through my bookshelf and read some of the preposterous amount of comics I own. I figured I’d write about a few of them.

Hell Yeah

This one had been sitting on my shelf, generally ignored and overlooked for some time before I picked it up and remembered why that was; It’s really not very good. The story is plodding, constantly building up with a sense that something is about to happen, only for nothing to actually happen, even by the time the actual climax of the one and only volume of this story ends. Had it actually led with the interesting stuff, maybe this wouldn’t have ended up as an orphaned series. The main character is the kind of utterly tedious serial screwup that always pops up in these kinds of stories, surrounded by a bunch of competent and capable women who would be much more interesting main characters if only they weren’t utterly flat. It ends with a decent hook for the never made second volume, which only makes the fact that the first volume was wasted on ultimately irrelevant setup even more annoying.

Then there’s the art, and I’m no technical expect, but it’s real bad. It’s got a second generation descendent of Frank Quitely look to it which would generally work for me, but the character designs are uninspired and the female figures are just awful. Like, distractingly bad. Every single female character in the book, including the main character’s middle aged mother, is rendered with the same giant doe eyes, wasplike waist, and improbably body hugging clothing of a thirteen year old’s confused fantasies. This stands in somewhat upsetting contrast to the male characters, who are generally dressed and built in ways which make sense for who they’re supposed to be, a consideration which the women don’t get.

Overall, I rapidly remembered why I hadn’t bothered to revisit this series in years, Hell Yeah elicits anything but its titular exclamation.

Amazing Spider-Man: Learning to Crawl

Dan Slott’s run on Amazing Spider-Man has never really been for me, he’s interested in aspects of the character which I’m really not, but Ramon Perez’s involvement with this book was enough to make me pick it up when I saw it on the shelf way back. It’s a thoroughly gorgeous book and a fun story going back to the early days of Spider-Man as a teenaged underdogn which is both always fun and somewhat necessary given how far the character’s status quo has drifted over the years. It feels like a logical updating of the Ditko era, in that of course Peter Parker would be sent to a guidance counsellor after his uncle dies and he starts flaking on classes, of course there are resources and groups like the AV club that nerdy kids can join and enjoy. Even the way the Clash gets woven into Spider-Man origin story, as someone who posts Spider-Man public debut online, feels fresh without being an overly coincidental way of tying him in. The whole relationship between the two strikes a good balance between the Ditko era sensibility of Spidey’s rogues being unrelated criminals and the later convention of a preposterous number of Peter Parker’s friends and associates being supervillains or supervillain adjacent.

Unfortunately, rereading this book now, my problem with it remains what it’s always been: It’s a shaggy dog story. Slott is hemmed in by continuity here and so can’t have it retconned that Peter Parker had this previously unmentioned but hugely important to him support network in high school, so at the end of the story the whole thing effectively gets chucked out the window. All of the characters who were introduced, all of the ideas and the relationships, are taken apart because they don’t fit with prior continuity and thus can’t be carried forward. It feels cheap and unsatisfying, and left me disappointed as a reader.

Learning to Crawl is a generally a really fun book and the kind of thing which I’d like to see more of, but it feels hamstrung by its inability to be more important. Honestly, as much as I don’t care for Slott’s writing direction, these ideas felt better suited to an Ultimate Spider-Man style reboot than an unfortunately inconsequential mini.

Magneto Vol. 1: Infamous

As a reader, one kind of book which I tend to enjoy is propulsive, ultraviolent action, stuff like the Ellis/Shalvey/Bellair Moon Knight, and so I have a great amount of affection for this book. Basically, the series repositions Magneto as a kind of mutant Punisher, going after the enemies of mutantkind. The whole concept strikes an excellent balance between Magneto as a villain who audiences want to root for and the unfortunately toothless characteriszation of Magneto as X-Men elder statesman. The art duties bounce around in this series, but Gabriel Walta takes on the bulk of them, and his shadowy, low key take on the proceedings looks wonderful, as does minor but welcome revamp of the main character’s costume to consist of just the helmet and an overcoat. Some occassionally overwrought narration aside, I like most of what this book does with Magneto, turning him into an unrepetent wrecking ball of a protagonist with a warped idea of justice.

Unfortunately, what liked about this book was not to last, and the very next volume saw the series sucked into Marvel’s highly unfortunate and highly forgettable Axis crossover event for several issues, and then recentred around Magneto trying to rebuild Genosha. What follows is'nt altogether awful, but it lacks the simplicity of this first volume, and I can’t help feeling that this book would have been much better off allowed to putter along on its own without interruption or retooling. What could have been a last reinvention of the character ended up as an unfortunately shortlived experiment.

Sabretooth Swordsman

This is a short one, but about a month ago I was talking with a friend of mine about comics and cartoons and thought of Sabretooth Swordsman as something which would probably appeal to him as a Rick and Morty fan. So the other day I picked it up again for a reread, and it really didn’t disappoint. It’s utterly bizarre and totally singular and totally up my alley as a reader. It’s grotesquely violent, goofy, gross, and more than a little influenced by the conventions of videogames.

It’s a comic which I would recommend to someone without provision, provided they’re into that sort of thing. It’s just so joyous and silly, and I love it completely.

Casanova: Acedia Vols. 1 and 2

I found myself rereading the previous volumes of Casanova recently and decided to get caught up on the most recent iteration of the series. I’d started reading Acedia in singles, but fell off somewhere around issues five or six during a period of intense malaise. Some things read better collected though, and I was feeling a touch nostalgic, so I picked up both volumes of Acedia on a whim.

Even for a series as consciously weird as Casanova, Acedia is odd. The titular character finds himself amnesiac in a parallel version of Hollywood which may or may not be our own, based on the ending of the previous series, hunted by strange extradimensional occultists and encountering a cast made up of analogues of his old associates. The series has always jumped around timelines and realities, but this story left me more consciously confused than any of the previous ones. Casanova’s mentor figure/boss has a backstory which seemingly ties back into the world of the previous three volumes, but the rest of the supporting cast is made up of characters who are parallel universe versions of his old friends, and the series’ new bad guys appear to be led by the long absent Zephyr Quinn, who had seemingly ended her feud with her brother.

Acedia is also a lot less concise than the previous iterations of the series, which restricted themselves to a volume each. Not only is Acedia twice as long, but it also doesn’t have an ending to speak of, it just sort of stops. We’re introduced to the characters and finally find out who the villains are if not why they’re coming after Casanova, and then the whole things just ends. I legitimately found myself googling and checking the Image Comics website to find out if I’d accidentally missed a third volume on the shelves or if there were uncollected single issues I was missing. They weren’t, the whole endeavour was unceremoniously abandoned. Just like this review.