"When Bad Girls Go Good!"
Writer: Matt Wayne
Artists: Dario Brizulea, Heroic Age(c)
Publisher: DC
Giganta has come to Central City to look for the Flash. Purpose? Dating.
The artwork by Dario Brizulea only goes off model with a chunkier Flash. The other characters look perfect, and he skillfully scales Giganta. Brizulea captures the action and the emotion in the story with great ease, as does letterer Mike Sellers who with a small font creates an illusion of under-the-breath speech.
Matt Wayne consolidates the attitude and the voices of the artists associated with the characters in Justice League Unlimited to the pages. When I read Giganta's dialogue, I hear the soft and sweet tones of Jennifer Hale. When the Flash speaks, Michael Rosenbaum's fun delivery comes to mind. Susan Eisenberg gives Wonder Woman's cameo appearance extra gravitas.
Wayne must further be commended for accepting the idea that some may not have seen the episode of Justice League Unlimited which established the concept of Giganta being perhaps interested in the Flash. Wayne recaps the gist of the episode in Giganta's dialogue, and does so with enough aplomb that it doesn't read like exposition. Wayne's story however made me very uncomfortable because I really sympathized with Giganta. I'm not sure if I was supposed to feel such emotion.
The reader kind of knows from the start that Giganta and the Flash will not work out, but the way in which the Flash unwittingly belittles her and his lack of empathy when he finds out how she feels about him left me very conflicted. Throughout the story, the Flash calls Giganta "Corn-Fed" and "Kong." This is when she's on his side. Wonder Woman refers to her as "Jumbo" and "Yeti," but in her eyes, Giganta is merely a villain to be stopped. Wayne makes Giganta also a woman who is willing to change her spots for the Flash. The Flash doesn't notice her, but when he does he doesn't seem to care. There's no attempt to address her feelings. Frankly that's just a little unfair because Giganta really did try to be good, and she deserves a little respect. She isn't after all a cold-blooded killer and can possibly be redeemed.
I'm left with the conclusion that Giganta is correct. Linda is "smug," and the Flash just seems like a callous jerk. Very Hal Jordan, not Wally West. An attempt at winking humor also falls flat because the change is so mercurial and a far cry from the more honest emotion seeping through book, if taken from the point of view of Giganta. I do not believe the reader is supposed to question the ending. Instead, I think the reader is supposed to take it as a triumph of good over evil. That doesn't quite work due to the complexity of the emotional content.
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