DCU Holiday Bash! #1 (Flash)

DCU Holiday Bash! #1 (Flash)
“Present Tense”
Writers – Brian Augustyn & Mark Waid
Pencils – Paul Ryan
Inks – Dick Giordano
Colors – Tom McCraw
Letters – John Costanza
Editors – Mike Carlin & Darren Vincenzo

It’s December 6th… which, is one of those days on the calendar that’s always stuck out for me.  Some thirty-five years ago, when I was in first grade, we had our Christmas Field Trip on December 6th… and, for whatever reason, it’s remained as sort of a touchstone day in the countdown to Christmas ever since.


Weird stuff ya remember…


—

We open twenty-minutes before Wally and Linda’s Christmas Party, and the former has just set up the Tree.  He’s overly pleased with himself, not only for that, but because this year, he’d found the perfect gift for his girlfriend: The Fastest Microwave Oven on Earth.  Woof.  C’mon, dude.  Anyhoo, as he’s just about to wrap his gift, he overhears Linda on the phone with her mother.  She excitedly reports that this year, she told Wally exactly what she wanted… and she’s sure to be getting just that.  Our man is absolutely gobsmacked… as he doesn’t remember any such discussion having taken place!

And so… he suits up, jams out, and tries to figure out just what this perfect gift might’ve been!  First stop, Boone’s Department Store downtown.  Inside he sees the second ugliest sweater in this story (Wally’s own sweater from earlier might’ve just edged it out).  He decides the gift Linda wanted must’ve been… a scarf.  He buys the thing, only to realize it’s 100% cashmere… which Linda is allergic to.  Imagine that, a cashmere allergy?

Since shops are about to close up for the night… Mr. West must go west.  Next stop, Poccini’s in Beverly Hills.  There, he sees the same ugly sweater… and flashes back to the chat he and Linda had about gifts.  The discussion just so happened to have occurred right in front of these nasty sweaters… only problem being, for the life of him, he cannot remember what she said!  He decides here to buy her an expensive cosmetics case.  When the shop-girl asks what Linda does for a living, he tells her that she’s on the TV news… to which, the girl informs him that, Linda’s got a half-dozen people prettying up her face, the last thing she’ll need is a make-up kit!

Rushing through the time-zones, our next stop is Hawaii!  Wally stops at a Curio Shop, where… hey, wouldja lookit that, the ugly sweaters are there!  Wally winds up choosing a piece of jewelry… which is all well and good, until he learns that it’s a wedding band.  Whoops.

And so, further West we go… so far West, it become East!  Flash arrives in Hong Kong… and nearly buys some scary statues for his lady love, before thinking better of it.  Defeated, he heads out of the shop and slumps against the wall.  When he looks up, he sees the Wong Fu Factory Outlet… which, just so happens to be filled to the brim with, say it with me, those ugly sweaters!  Again Wally racks his brain to try and remember what Linda asked for… and, it finally comes to him!

We rejoin Wally at the Christmas Party, where Linda has just opened her gift.  Heyyy, it’s the ugly sweater!  She’s, uh, not entirely sure what to make of such a grand gesture.  Wally informs her that this isn’t for her to wear, but as a reminder of the conversation they had in front of the display at the store… about what Linda really wanted for Christmas.

Turns out, Linda didn’t want nuthin’!  She was telling Wally that she has everything she could ever need… and gifts don’t prove anything.  I mean, that begs the question as to what she was telling her mother over the phone earlier… but, whattayagonnado?  Wally and Linda embrace, and prepare to share a long winter’s nap.

—

This was cute.  Sure, we gotta kinda twist some things to make it work… but, it’s still a cute story.


I’m not the biggest fan of making Wally into a sorta clueless sitcom dad/husband.  I mean, a microwave oven?  C’mon, dude.  I’d expect a bit more from him than that… especially from the fellas who write his monthly adventures.


Second, Linda’s conversation with her mother.  Why wouldn’t she have just said, “I told him not to get me anything” rather than, “I told him exactly what to get me…”, when that thing is… “nothing”?  Nobody talks like that.  It just doesn’t make any sense.  Least it served its purpose by getting this story off and running (pun!).


The story overall was pretty neat… gave me some “warm fuzzies”, which I suppose is good enough.


Tomorrow: A new version of the same Batman Christmas story we’ve seen a dozen times already!