Let me begin by saying that I'm very new to the (non-manga) comic scene. I've been reading manga regularly for almost 15 years. In the past year, I've collected several Image/other indie volumes (Saga, Wayward, Low, etc.), but I've always been wary of getting into DC/Marvel comics--beyond seeing the movies and accruing a general knowledge of various characters while growing up--because I'm a bit of a completionist. I felt like I'd need to start with the first issue of everything from the 30s and move forward from there. I also just didn't want to miss out on anything. Daunting, yes, just about impossible, also yes.

After finally starting the Arrow and Flash TV shows, I decided to look into the whole Rebirth thing. There seemed to be a consensus that, no, it's not a total reboot of the DCU, but it works well as a starting point for new readers. I also read up on the Flashpoint and the general idea of what happened with The Flash's time travel beforehand.

Wally's narration in this volume is great because, not only does he do a great job of recapping what happened and how he got stuck (from what I can tell), but he also makes the whole "stepping into the DCU after it’s been around for 80 years" thing much less daunting, more approachable.

The art is wonderful. Coloring all of the lightning and Speed Force energy(?) has got to be exhausting, but it looks great, so I really appreciate the effort put into it. I liked seeing the various new/updated costume designs, as well as some sketches and ideas for them that were presented in the back of the book.

One thing that stuck out to me was the lack of overused bold text. I read a volume of Fable a while back, and I’ve flipped through some other comics, and seeing every other word in bold drove me nuts. It’s fine for emphasis, but you don’t really need to emphasize 6 random words in a sentence. This seems like a really nitpicky thing, but to me it’s distracting when it’s done that way, because I read it with that emphasis in my head.

Overall, I think this volume acted as I hoped it would—a stepping stone into the DCU, with some extra guardrail support. There were one or two things that I didn’t really have any background on, but I think the storytelling did a good job of keeping me from getting lost. Marvel seems to have been taking over the various forms of comic-related media for a while now, but most of the characters I really knew in my childhood were DC, and I feel as though I made the right choice in jumping into all of this on the DC side. ( )

Interesting & glad they're undoing the bleak New 52 but it's too many reboots (no matter what they call them) in too few years. Not exciting enough to make me a loyal reader again ( )

This seemed to be quite the lead into Rebirth. I mean, I already knew that I'd be reading the Rebirth storyline(s), but this got me even more excited to do that.

It has Wally West, the one with red hair that everyone has forgotten. He keeps going from person to person trying to get them to remember. So we get to see a good portion of the DC storylines through his eyes.

And then I actually didn't see the twist in the middle coming, I thought it would go another way. But it was still very cool.

Onto Rebirth!

I got this advanced galley through Netgalley on behalf of DC Entertainment. ( )