I like that Geoff Johns has grafted a motivation to Barry Allen. If you've missed it, it's that Barry's mother was killed by a blur, and his father was convicted for the murder and went to jail. So he became a forensic scientist because he's obsessed with solving his mother's murder.
But what I don't like about it, is that in the old 52 the blur was Eobard "Professor Zoom" Thawne, the Reverse Flash of the &$%rd century, who came back in time to kill Barry's mother to advance his evil plan, which was blah, blah, blah.
Time travel can give one a headache, but not from a story angle. If you want to tell a good story about time travel, you have to set up some rules. You have to negate all the problems that rob your story of drama and possibility. Like predestination. Or multiple timelines created by every decision. And so forth.
And now in the New 52 we have the same story applying, still without any story fixes to preserve drama, and this issue shows us a second scenario like the first. In this case, it's Barry Allen of the future coming back in time to prevent his present self from doing something that creates a terrible future.
Again, we have Manichean situation here in regard to story structure. Either what future Flash has meaning, or it doesn't. Either it can change things, or it can't. The writer needs to establish that the rules of time travel are such that future Flash's actions have meaning. He needs to establish that future people can't just try again and again until they get it right. He needs to establish that what present Flash does can change future Flash's present. Therein lies drama.
Without the writer setting up those rules, then whatever happens doesn't matter. In this issue, future Flash is killing all the supporting cast members and some Justice League members as he moves back through time to attack Present Barry. But the writer hasn't set up any rules, so the reaction has to be: So what? Those people aren't dead now, and they might not be in the future, because the rules haven't been established.
So I can't invest in this story, and I don't.
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I agree with what was said above. Another thing that has bothered me about this new storyline is that it is supposed to deal with something tragic that happens with Wally West, recently introduced in the New52. Yet, he hasn't had enough screen time in the comic to really care about him, and when he does show up he is an insufferable jerk.
Yeah, as big a Flash fan as I am, this story has pushed me away at almost every turn. I think Wally's development has been hamhanded, but I can live with that as long as we get somewhere interesting. But both the time travel story and the present-day mystery are both duds. And even worse, it's all saddled with Brett Booth's awful art.
I've liked Robert Vendetti's writing before -- his Demon Knights, to my mind, was even better than Paul Cornell's. Of course, there he was aided by the wonderful Bernard Chang. Here, he's got an artist dragging him down instead of lifting him up.
And yeah, I'm sick to death of time travel stories for Barry. Although his encounter with the future Trickster (I think that was in issue 33) at least had a little variety to it -- it was the best part of this story so far.