The Flash #160

Brian Augustyn, Writer
Scott Kolins, Pencils
Jon Holdredge, Inker
Gaspar, Letters
Tom McCraw, Colors
Joey Cavalieri, Editor

Steve Lightle provided this cover of a happy picture of Wally and Linda riddled with bullet holes. This does give us a good idea of what the story's about — Wally and Linda are happily married, but someone is not. And for Lightle's standards, this is a halfway decent piece of art. Could be better, sure, but I'll take what I can get.

Our story begins with a news report about the wedding of Wally West and Linda Park. This news channel had a talented photographer with a super telephoto lens that was able to get a really good shot of the wedding and all its famous guests.

And that's the only glimpse we get of Bart Allen in this issue — him in his boring brown suit and weird ponytail. So, let's quickly run through this, shall we? Wally and Linda finally get to enjoy their honeymoon in Paris, which was rudely interrupted when Wally was suddenly turned into a 13-year-old boy (although this issue sadly fails to mention Sins of Youth). Of course, you know it can't ever be that easy for the Flash. His romantic evening with his newlywed wife is interrupted by the attack of a strange mechanical airship.

Wally quickly fights off the attackers, then whisks Linda back home to plan a new honeymoon location with his travel agent. But at their new destination, in Hawaii, the couple are attacked once again. And so the whole process keeps repeating itself. Wherever Wally and Linda book their vacation, they're attacked by large, strange machines. Finally, they decide to allow themselves to be captured so they can figure out who's been chasing them all around the world.

Turns out, a familiar foe was behind all this, Kobra. He suddenly remembered Linda after Abra Kadabra's spell wore off, and remembered how Linda played a key role in stopping him all the way back in Flash #100. Flash easily defeats Kobra once more, then takes Linda back to the travel agency in one final attempt at salvaging their honeymoon. But they find out his travel agent was actually another familiar foe in disguise — Lady Flash, whom we last saw with Savitar during the Dead Heat crossover.

Lady Flash had been informing Kobra of each of Wally's honeymoon destinations so that Kobra would kill Linda and Christine could have Wally all to herself. Wally easily defeats her, however, by using his new ability to steal her speed. And finally, FINALLY, Wally and Linda are able to enjoy a nice, relaxing honeymoon on a deserted island.


This was a pretty fun issue. It was nice to have some old villains return, as well as seeing Wally and Linda actually get to catch a break for once. This issue is one of the handful of transitional Flash issues between the Mark Waid/Brian Augustyn/Paul Pelletier run and before the Geoff Johns/Scott Kolins run. So it was kind of neat to get another preview of Kolins' work. I'm not the biggest fan of his style, but he is rather detailed and consistent, which is more than you can say about many other artists out there.

So, this concludes our review of Impulse-related issues with a May 2000 cover date. Heading into June, we'll start by finding out what the other speedsters were doing during Wally's honeymoon in The Flash #161.