I've been a convert and evangelist for this title since the early days of Johns and Kolins's run, so I'm a little sad to see them breaking up the team, especially as the buzz around the book seems to have gotten louder. I'm especially disappointed since this final story has had a few elements that didn't work for me, which extends to this issue. However, this issue does have all the action I've been hoping for from this finale, along with a "gathering of troops" moment reminiscent of some of Waid's strongest stories on the title, as well as Kolins really pulling out all the stops to show off a superspeed battle between Wally and Zoom. More to the point, while this is a capstone to the Johns/Kolins run, it is also the beginning of the Johns/Dose run, and the epilogue in these pages, leading in to the prologue to #201, has me anxiously awaiting the next issue.
One of my complaints about this story has been that it's a little too dark for my tastes. Perhaps it's just that the loss that Wally and Linda suffered hit a little too close to him for this recent dad, but I had a hard time finding any enjoyment in the book after the damage that Zoom caused. It's sort of hard to come back from that, and while Johns doesn't play down the importance of it, I did feel like it was too much of an afterthought, not the devastating blow that it should have been, for much of the issue. If nothing else, Wally seems a lot more level-headed and calm than anyone, even a super-hero, should be after such a heinous act by a villain.
One of my other complaints has been that the promising battle of two speedsters really boiled down to Zoom just kicking everyone's ass invisibly, but happily, that complaint is more than nullified with this issue. Johns, Kolins, Hazlewood and Sinclair serve up some amazing action in this issue, with some of Zoom's moves very much echoing the climactic final battle between Barry Allen and the original Reverse Flash and Kolins really capturing the sense of movement and time-distortion going on with the interaction of these powers. The sequence where the two of them battle across the world in the blink of an eye is especially effective in conveying how fast these two characters move, although the shot when Flash skids to a halt, having overshot his mark with Zoom, is also terrific.
Something that Waid brought to his run on The Flash and Johns has played down is the sort of family that surrounds Wally West. In a lot of Waid's big stories, it almost seemed like the book was about "Team Flash" rather than just one character, and while I liked that Johns sort of got away from that, I thought he did a good job of bringing Flash's friends and allies in for this one. One character in particular, a JSA legacy who I've always liked, gets a very important role that lets her serve as a crucial ally without taking the spotlight off of Wally. Johns also pulls in a couple of big surprise guest stars at the end, and while some of the time mechanics involved pulled at my suspension of disbelief, overall it was some powerful, emotional stuff that really made this issue feel like the end of an era for Flash that it is.
However, while Flash #200 is the end of an era for the Johns/Kolins collaboration, it's the beginning of the Johns/Dose collaboration, and it contains a fairly major change in status quo for the Flash. What's nice is that though this is a radical change of direction for the Flash, something we haven't seen since before the Mike Baron days of the book, it's not so crazy as to upset the apple cart and inevitably be reset for marketing/licensing purposes. What Johns gives us is a "soft reboot" of sorts, and while now might be the perfect time to jump on The Flash if you've been curious, it is a rare case where a jumping-on point isn't also a jumping-off point... I'm as curious about where The Flash is going now as I have been throughout the last few years.
