Look, there are a lot of comics out there. Too many. We can never hope to have in-depth conversations about all of them. But, we sure can round up some of the more noteworthy titles we didn’t get around to from the week. Today, Mark, Spencer, Patrick, Shane, and Michael discuss The Flash 42, Gotham by Midnight 7, Prez 2, and We Are Robin 2.

Mark: It’s a motley crop in this week’s DC YOU round-up. With nary a mainline Superman or Batman title in sight, some of DC’s smaller, up-and-coming, or perhaps lesser loved titles take center stage. Weird that in a world where The Flash can have quite the renaissance in one medium this year, The Flash the comic book can feel like such an afterthought. But here we are!

The Flash 42

Spencer: Any complicated situation can be made even more complicated by throwing family into the mix; in Robert Venditti, Van Jensen, and Brett Booth’s The Flash 42, an otherwise routine jailbreak is thoroughly complicated by the inclusion of Barry’s father, Henry Allen. The entire jailbreak has been masterminded by Henry in order to escape Zoom, but Barry refuses to believe it — in his mind there’s just no way his father can be involved, and that’s that. Family is a glaring weakness of Barry’s, and it’s one echoed throughout the rest of the issue; Iris lies to Wally to keep him safe, Girder’s grandmother doesn’t care at all that he’s a criminal, and the Iron Heights guard is willing to let Henry and his crew escape if it means a cure for his wife. Fortunately, Barry at least seems to come to understand his blind spot for family by the issue’s conclusion.

It’s encouraging that Barry’s love for his father ultimately doesn’t override his compassion or commitment to justice, and that he’s able to recognize his own weaknesses reflected back at him in that guard. I’m curious to see now how Barry will handle his father when they finally meet; will he be able to approach Henry with compassion and understanding without immediately overlooking his role in the jailbreak?

Mark: The Flash 42 is the first issue of this arc that doesn’t feel like a retread to me, for the reasons you mention, Spencer. It’s not really fair to Venditti and Jensen, but with The Flash TV series on at the same time, all of this Henry Allen and Dr. Zoom talk feels like freshly well-worn territory. I will say the part of the issue I’m not sure about is Booth’s pencils. While individual moments are well executed, as a whole I find the pages to be too busy. Is that a conscious choice because it’s The Flash? Either way, it’s too much for me. Take as an example the panels above. They could be an entire page unto themselves, but they’re only a small part of the whole:

It’s just too much. I find it difficult to know where to focus my attention.

Gotham By Midnight 7

Patrick: The Detectives of Precinct Thirteen, Detailed Case Task Force are a troubled bunch. Obviously, Jim Corrigan, who moonlights as the living embodiment of God’s vengeance on Earth, has to wrestle with the most literal baggage of anyone on the team, but issue 7 starts to explore the various demons that are haunting the rest of the team. First there’s Sam, who discovered his father’s dead body shortly after he shot and killed himself. Writer Ray Fawkes and artist Juan Ferreyra haven’t made it super clear how this is effecting him just yet, but we do get glimpses into his past, followed by Sam wanting to talk — presumably what what we’ve just seen. The reason we keep being pulled away from his emotional breakthrough is that Kate keep refocusing him on this I.A. investigation. Intriguingly, that investigation is turning up someone else’s demons: back in her Narco days, Detective Drake shot and killed three people, and she conspired with… someone to cover it up. The C.I.’s description of her accomplice is “tall guy, red hair” – that could be Jim Gordon. In fact, Fawkes and Ferreyra make a point of putting a flashback in the issue with Gordon in it (and explicitly labeling him as Jim Gordon) just so his physical attributes are on our mind. As much as it might be tempting to trace all of Precinct Thirteen’s problems back to Corrigan’s Spectre, but it seems like there’s actually a case mounting against former Gordon. Of course, it’s not like he’s disappeared: he’s the goddamn Batman now.

Fawkes is so good at seeding little clues as to what might be important in the future of this series. The last issue was a nice open-and-shut case about a haunting at Powers Technologies, but there was this interesting little runner about the demon-plant-thing that was killing people in this issue. I wonder if the Powers stuff itself was something of a tease too, as Batman’s current tech is all Powers-related. I’m veered off into wildly speculative territory, but the mystery that Fawkes has set up is so rich, and the spaces so darkly realized by Ferreyra, that it’s hard to keep my mind from wondering: if this is true what else is true?

Shane: This new done-in-one approach to Precinct Thirteen’s cases has really let Fawkes and Ferreyra get inventive with how depraved Gotham City’s supernatural underbelly can be, and for a fringe title like this, that’s essential: the audience, just like Internal Affairs, needs to be sold on why this after-hours police division exists. The over-arching mystery helps weave everything together into a notable threat, certainly, but I think this issue showcased pretty tidily that it’s not the supernatural that the team has to be worried about. After all, they have the Spectre on their side, at least in the abstract: the title has done a great job of showcasing God’s wrath as a force of nature, and I don’t think I’ve ever truly been sold on that until Juan Ferreyra got his hands on the character.

That’s raw unrestrained power leaping off the page, and although we know Jim Corrigan can’t control the spirit inside of him, it’s pretty easy to accept this as our literal deus-ex-machina to fight Precinct Thirteen’s battles. But when I.A. comes knocking, you can’t just unleash the Spectre on them: instead, I think we’re about to see another DC force of nature, Kate Spencer, go all-out in their defense, and even if she succeeds in defending them, it’s becoming clear that there will be plenty of secrets dug up in her campaign, not the least of which is Detective Drake’s secret crime (and until you mentioned it, Patrick, I assumed that the red head was Corrigan–involving Jim Gordon is a fascinating notion, especially with the implications towards the broader Batman narrative). And as old readers of Manhunter know, once Kate Spencer starts to go down the rabbit hole, it’s very difficult to make her stop…

Prez 2

Shane: It’s pretty rare to get a comic that has snappy writing, great art and says something meaningful, but Prez manages to collect all of those great attributes in one tight 20-page package. We’ve jumped forward to the near future, taking current social media trends to the extreme, and even as last issue saw Beth Ross nominated for presidency by Twitter, this issue takes that chaotic notion to the next level by addressing a major flaw in even modern day politics: the notion that one’s political career is spent paying back favors. In this issue, senators jump back and forth between candidates, playing the field to sell their vote for presidency to the highest bidder. At the same time, the issue points out just what could make Beth Ross such an intriguingly dangerous Presidential candidate: she doesn’t owe anybody anything, and as such could be the rare politician not struggling to match the popular opinion. It’s not uncommon for a politician to go all out once re-election is off the table and they essentially have nothing to lose–even right now, President Obama is making headlines for some pretty ambitious and polarizing moves. Given that, and that the comic also strips Beth of everything she’s cared about, just before giving her unmatched responsibility, I think it’s safe to say that we could have an absolute wildcard of a President let loose in future issues.

Spencer: I got a real kick out of most of the jokes in Prez 2. The satire is broad and goofy, but more than funny enough to make up for picking on easy targets; perhaps even more importantly for the success of this issue, this time around they come backed by some real emotional investment. The conversation between Beth and her father is beyond poignant, and grounds this otherwise supremely over-the-top story with some genuine emotion. Of course, even some of the sillier jokes stuck a chord with me: I’m from Delaware, so now I feel like I’ve got a personal responsibility to see Beth through her new job. Go Beth!

We Are Robin 2

Michael: Lee Bermejo grounds this latest tale of Gotham exploits with hip kids and their smart phones, but there is still the over-the-top premise of a bunch of teenagers taking orders from a faceless stranger. The We Are Robin crew doesn’t seem particularly interested in who their “mysterious benefactor” is; much like how the Joker doesn’t care who Batman is under the mask. I however am ALWAYS curious who is behind the mask; or in this case who’s behind the goatee and glasses. We Are Robin 2 seems to place our rag tag group of Goonies in a chess game of good and evil between two mystery figures – one of which may or may not be Batman himself. With the spooky figure at the end of this issue I’m wondering if Bermejo will dive into the more mystical waters of Gotham a la Gotham at Midnight.

My experience of Lee Bermejo is primarily as an artist so it is interesting to see him write a comic book for another artist. You can see a couple instances where Bermejo the artist takes a backseat and allows Jorge Corona to tell the story and build the tension visually. The best example of this is the “interrogation” that Duke Thomas goes through: watching Duke try not to go crazy as he waits to be released, only to find he’s not in a police station and he has a new ride waiting for him. If you took away all dialogue and narration for that sequence you would still get the same story.

The conversation doesn’t stop there, because you certainly read something that we didn’t. What do you wanna talk about from this week?