No no, not the arc from several years ago. I'm talking about the Flash: Rebirth. Though, surely he's not being "reborn," as I understand it, like Hal was, but returned to the present continuity. In fact it should be called Flash: Redux.

But I digress. I was wondering if anyone else thinks Flash: Rebirth is yet another way to reinvigorate the Flash Mythos? I mean, look what we've had in the past 5 or so years with Flash:

Johns on Flash: Title does very well.
Johns leaves Flash: Title is cancelled.

Bart Allen as Flash: Title survives for 8 or so issues. Writers kill
Bart Allen and resurrect Wally West. Old
numbering restarts.

Wally West as Flash: Waid writes for a few months, leaves. Now plans
are to remove Wally as Flash (again!) and bring
back "Barry Allen."

If Johns stays on, writing Flash, the title will probably continue to do well. However, I must wonder if Johns or some other novel/hot writer or artist were on the book, might it also do well? For that matter, was it really necessary to kill Bart and replace him with Wally, whom DC seemed to think was a failing idea and good enough to kill during Infinite Crisis, anyways?

Thoughts? Ideas?

Frankly, I thought it was brilliant to have Bart Allen be the next Flash, making his time as Flash be a nod to early Wally years, but also have him taking up Barry's legacy. To have the Flash character now go backwards, first to Wally (whom DC seems ready to give-up again), and not to Barry, seems abysmal. Also, making Barry Allen into a CSI, while not really different from what he did before, but given the context that the idea has now with the popular tv show, this title will change dramatically. It's going to be really dark, and not at all what Flash was when Barry Allen was a CSI. I should wonder if the rogues gallery are going to be revised as well. Can you imagine some of those characters showing up in any of the CSI shows? Basically, short of his name being the same, this is going to be a totally different character. I see Flash:Rebirth as yet another shot at making Flash work; i.e., new concept, new character.

Further, at least five years of comic book time has passed since Barry "died." He's going to have to relearn everything. I hope Johns acknowledges that. I don't buy the, "he's the Flash, so he can learn faster" nonsense. Just because he can read faster and maybe think faster, doesn't mean that his mind stores concepts any better.

Anyways, curious to hear what others think.

Battlin Jack