When Barry Allen ran toward the reader on the cover of Showcase #4 (1956), it signaled the end of the Golden Age of Comics even as it ushered in the Silver Age. The landscape of the world had changed, comic readers changing right along with it, becoming an audience that wanted new and different heroes. Sure, the old heroes had served their readership well, being fondly remembered and no doubt trotted out for their victory lap every couple of years or so, but suddenly the readers wanted more science and less magic. We started to want impossibilities to be rooted in fact, even as the comic industry began to give us heroes who could be us, the insecure, the misunderstood, and the broken.
Viv Vision is a new generations Barry Allen, the perfect fusion of curious teenager and the technology that dominates their lives. As much as I love the Vision, easily one of my favorite characters, it's wondering what will happen to Viv that really makes me excited to open up a comic, because it's clearly her turn to save the world a whole bunch of times.
I'd like to see her get to at least 38.
Highly recommended.