Well, it's about time!The story is finally starting to move. Whether it's because Mike Carlin is now co-editing, I don't know, but it is an auspicious beginning to his coming on board.
So, the main thread this issue is the funeral of Bart Allen (Flash IV). He wasn't Flash for very long, but in his roles as Impulse, Kid Flash, and Flash, he was central to a lot of things going on within the DC Universe.
The Flashes are native to the Central City/Keystone City twin cities on the Ohio/Pennsylvania border (no prizes for guessing which lies within which state!), and they do seem to have a somewhat different relationship to the locals than pretty much any other super-heroes I can think of.
(On an aside, why don't se see the term "super-hero" much any more? Old timers are called "mystery men", and modern ones are "metahumans", but nobody seems to use "super-hero" nowadays.)
The first part of the issue is narrated by Jimmy Olson, who goes into some depth on the special relationship between Flash and the twin cities. Oh, by the way, isn't the Flash Museum in Central City? Or is this another of the 'discontinuities' that will be addressed in the series? (Kind of like the whole JSA/All-Star Squadron being transplanted to Washington DC thing?)
Jay Garrick, Barry Allen, and Bart Allen's identities are now a matter of public knowledge. Now the only Flash whose identity isn't known is Wally West. Ironically, originally he was the only Flash who was open with his identity. I know the in-story rationale is that most of the family and friends of the various Flashes are gone, but there's a few key persons left. Joan Garrick (Jay's wife), Iris (West) Allen (Barry's widow, Bart's Grandmother, and Wally's Aunt), and Linda (Park) West (Wally's wife) and Wally and Linda's twins. It's not going to be hard at all for folks to put two and two together and figure out that Wally is Flash III, and there are some nasties out there who would love a chance to do to the Flash's loved ones what they did to Flash.
The Rogues are still out there.
Two of them are at the funeral.
Pied Piper and the Trickster showed up. Piper, I suspect, really did show up to pay his respects. Trickster, moreso, because he's the Piper's friend. Nice thought, guys, but not the smartest move in the world.
Monitor (well, one of them) is there, with Donna Troy and Jason Todd. He wants them to take off right away to search for Ray Palmer (Atom II), who vanished (literally!) at the end of Identity Crisis. They know more about this than we do, but the basic idea is that Ray is the key to averting the "Great Disaster".
I'm not sure where the "Great Disaster" plot is going, but since in my (admittedly bad) memory it was supposed to have happened in 1984, I am curious to see how this all plays out.
One suspects that Monarch (aka Captain Atom) has a large hand in this, as will Sinestro and his all-new Sinestro Corps, especially as the leaders of the Corps seem to be almost anyone who's been responsible for a "Crisis" in the past decade or two. Including the supposedly dead-and-gone Anti-Monitor, responsible for the original Crisis on Infinite Earths way back in 1985!
On a (presumably) less cosmic note, Holly Robinson has been taken in at a women's shelter run by Athena (yes, the Greek Goddess), and is just starting to relax when she meets one of her fellow guests, a former psychiatrist named Harleen Quinzel. You might know her better as Harley Quinn, the Joker's girlfriend!
Definitely, the story has finally started moving forward. Hopefully now we can get some momentum going.
