The Flash, Vol. 17: Eclipsed

With Wally West now fully ensconced as the Flash, we here get a series of rising challenges, starting off with Heatwave, and then escalating as a dangerous magical artefact turns up in Central City and West is catapulted into Gemworld to face a galaxy-threatening villain. What's good about this particular collection is the way that it contrasts the superheroics with West's mundane life - struggling to pay the bills in the first segment, and then interspersing the main story with what his wife and children are doing back home. (The children, mainly; Linda doesn't get to do a lot other than homemaking, although she does at least reference being a journalist a couple of times). Even Heatwave, in the first part, is facing a problem that's all too real-world - although it will probably be dealt with quickly enough elsewhere. Indeed, this sort of thing is probably the strongest point, since, taken on their own, the superhero stuff would be kind of dull; there's precious little characterisation of most of the villains.

There's also a rather pointless interlude between the Earthbound and Gemworld segments that breaks the fourth wall by literally making West a comic-book character. It doesn't do anything special with the concept, and feels as if it's trying to be clever for the sake of it, but it's really the only major weak point in what's otherwise a good mix of superhero action and the everyday.