The Flash #224

Rogue War Chapter 5

Geoff Johns – Writer
Howard Porter – Penciller
Livesay – Inker
Pat Brosseau – Letterer
James Sinclair – Colorist
Michael Wright – Assoc. Editor
Joey Cavalieri – Editor

Our cover by Howard Porter shows Zoom battling Flash on the Cosmic Treadmill. Last issue showed the Reverse Flash (Eobard Thawne) showing up on the treadmill, but as we'll soon see, Hunter Zolomon will also take a turn on the time machine. As a whole, I find this cover rather underwhelming, especially with the background. A high-speed journey through time should look a bit more exciting than this.

Our story picks up with Wally in an interesting dilemma. On one side, a bunch of the Rogues are lying unconscious on the ground, courtesy of Zoom, who currently is holding Kid Flash by the throat. On the other side, Eobard has just appeared on the Cosmic Treadmill, with Jay Garrick chained to the machine. Bart can't believe that that's the real Eobard Thawne. Hunter reveals that he had trouble controlling the treadmill's precision, but by siphoning Jay's speed, he was able to send it to the right moment to set up this elaborate death trap for Wally. Zoom asks Wally if he's willing to go as far as the Rogues to protect his family.

Wally immediately charges toward Eobard, who says the last thing he remembers is racing Barry to kill Iris on their wedding day. But before Barry could snap Eobard's neck, Hunter recruited him to help in his battle against Wally. To Eobard's surprise, Wally ducks his attack, rolls between his legs and frees Jay. Wally then throws Jay's helmet like a frisbee straight at Bart's head, trusting him to do the one thing he can do that Zoom can't — vibrate.

Bart does vibrate, and Jay's helmet hits Hunter square in the face. Eobard and Wally exchange a few punches, and Wally asks Hunter what he wants, just as Eobard brings down a building on top of him. Hunter repeats his old refrain of how he wants to educate Wally and punish him for refusing to travel back in time to prevent him from being paralyzed. Jay tells Zoom to stop dwelling on the past and learn to deal with the misfortunes of life, as he takes on Eobard and Bart battles Hunter.

Hunter says he's learned from Eobard that Bart, the son of Thawne's descendant, Meloni, will betray his lineage. Bart insists that Allen blood runs through his veins, so Hunter asks to see Bart's blood. Hunter and Eobard manage to hurt Bart and Jay just enough to buy themselves time to grab the unconscious Wally and take off on the Cosmic Treadmill. Wally quickly comes to and begins battling Hunter, while Eobard guides them past several key moments in Wally's life, including him joining the Teen Titans and Barry Allen sacrificing himself in the fight against the Anti-Monitor.

We then cut to Wally's house, where Hunter had dropped off his wife, Ashley, in front of a perplexed Linda Park and Pied Piper. Ashley blames herself for not being with her husband when he needed her, causing him to turn into a super villain. Pied Piper wonders if Hunter dropped her off at Wally's house to try to keep her safe. Linda suddenly doubles over in pain, clutching her stomach.

Our time-traveling trio cruises past an old fight between Captain Boomerang and the Elongated Man, and then a scene of Bart Allen before he got his Impulse mask. Wally gains an upper hand in the fight, knocking the treadmill slightly off course. This sends a bolt of pink lightning at the young Captain Boomerang, causing him to go tumbling through the time stream. He ends up sometime in the future, coming face to face with Meloni Thawne. And the time travel appears to have given Digger temporary amnesia, as he is unable to tell Meloni who he is.

Hunter manages to pin Wally, freeing Eobard up to guide them to the exact moment Hunter wanted to revisit — the first time he fought Wally. Hunter forces Wally to watch and relive the pain of seeing Zoom injure Linda badly enough to cause her to miscarry her twins. After witnessing the horrific scene, Hunter asks Wally if he'd do anything to change that one second, and if he does, then he'll understand why Hunter wanted Wally to change his past so badly. Hunter then has Eobard "rewind" the scene to show it to Wally again. But before the tragedy can be replayed, Barry Allen suddenly arrives right next to them on his own treadmill.





So it seems like the Rogue War is now over, making way for another showdown between the Flashes and Reverse Flashes. This would have been a great opportunity to bring back Rival and Inertia, but I guess we'll just have to enjoy what we were given. I was very happy to see that Johns remembered Bart's vibrational ability, although Porter did draw it very strangely. Sadly, Bart didn't do anything after that vibrating trick. There was a setup for an interesting conversation on how he's half-Thawne and half-Allen, but that was dropped as soon as it came up.

Speaking of Thawnes ... I do have a major complaint with this issue. In Identity Crisis, we learned that Captain Boomerang had an adult son, Owen, whom he had never met. After Digger tracks down Owen and teaches him how to throw a boomerang, we see that Owen has limited super-speed abilities. It's heavily implied that these abilities come from Owen's mother, but Digger doesn't tell him who his mom is before he's killed by Robin's father, Jack Drake. Well, here we have finally learned the convoluted truth. As a young man, Digger was inadvertently sent to the future, met Meloni Thawne, and somehow impregnated her before returning to his own time. And instead of raising her son, Meloni somehow sent him back to the 1980s, where little Owen grew up a troubled youth in foster homes.

I have so many problems. Did Digger fall in love with Meloni? I know he temporarily lost his memory, but Meloni should have recognized him — he was wearing his full Captain Boomerang outfit. Didn't she ever go to the Flash Museum? So either Meloni did know that Digger was a villain and chose to still sleep with him anyway, or Digger forced himself on her. And I don't want to go down that road. In either case, I want to know why Meloni sent Owen to the 1980s. And did she have Owen before or after Bart? Before or after she married Don Allen? These are important details. Also, how did Owen get super speed? Meloni doesn't have super speed. Her dad, Thaddeus Thawne, doesn't have it. You'd have to go back quite a few generations in the Thawne family to find someone who could pass that trait down to Owen. None of this makes any sense. I don't know if this was Geoff Johns' idea or Brad Metzler's, but it certainly feels like it wasn't thought through at all.

Next time, we'll take a quick look at Superboy's recovery in Teen Titans #26.