The Ray #27

Time and Tempest Book III: Requiem

Christopher Priest – Script
Jason Armstrong – Penciller
Drew Geraci – Inker
Kevin Cunningham – Letterer
James Sinclair – Colorist
Alisande Morales – Asst. Editor
Brian Augustyn – Editor

The cover by Armstrong and Geraci shows Ray rapidly aging and disintegrating. This is a rather striking image, and it almost happens in the issue, but not quite.

If you can remember back to The Ray #25, you'll recall that in the year 2016, an adult Bart Allen, now the Flash, grew frustrated with Ray for being a big jerk and knocked him out. Unfortunately, Bart also left Ray's door open, which enabled some of his business rivals to come in and shoot him in the head. But what we didn't know then, was that Ray's energy was transported a few thousand years into the future to Warworld, which is inhabited by the survivors of Earth's demise, locked in never-ending conflict. Ray was brought there by the mysterious Tempest, who wants him to end the fighting, but he's not even sure where to begin.

After some fighting, and an unexplained and unnecessary transformation of Ray back into a 19-year-old, he meets Turon, the son of Tempest. He reveals that Tempest, who is the daughter of Captain Atom and Maxima, has been lying to Ray the whole time. Apparently she has been perpetuating the war and wants to absorb Ray's power.

So Ray uses himself as bait, visiting Tempest and allowing her to suck away his power. This causes Ray to rapidly age and shrivel up, similar to what we see on the cover, but it also creates an opening for Turon to attack his evil mother. Ray then recovers, becomes a 40-year-old again, and absorbs Tempest's energy, killing her once and for all. Ray then returns to his body in 2016 and finally dies in front of Flash, Triumph, and his girlfriend Gaelon.

We then return to 1996, where 19-year-old Ray is reunited with his father, who he thought was dead. And the story continues in a decidedly non-Impulse direction, so I'll just end it here.


I was disappointed by this issue. After The Ray #25 spent so much time developing this adult Bart, I was really excited to see him again. But he didn't do anything in this issue, which overall, felt rather worthless. I mean, who cares about the future version of Ray traveling even further in the future to defeat some vague villain? I sure don't.

There aren't any letters to the editor in this issue, but there are a couple of new ads:

Protector of the earth? Alpha Centurion. Story by Barbara Kesel and Stuart Immonen. Art by Dean Zachary, Wade Von Grawbadger, and Pam Eklund.

Watch This Space talks about New York Knicks center Patrick Ewing visiting the DC offices to promote the greatest movie of all time, Space Jam. Unfortunately, DC incorrectly listed Ewing's height as 6-foot-7, when he is a full 7-feet tall. But DC did announce a comic adaptation of that most wonderful movie, so I need to see if I can track that down. Watch This Space also announces a series of cross-overs with the Legion of Super-heroes, including Impulse.

Who says protecting the universe ain't no party? Superboy and The Ravers. By K. Kesel, Mattsson, Pelletier, and Davis.

Sex, bugs, rock 'n roll. Joe's Apartment.

Next time, we head to October 1996 for Impulse #18.