The Flash #228

The Summoner

Joey Cavalieri – Writer
Val Semeiks – Penciller
Livesay – Inker
Pat Brosseau – Letterer
James Sinclair – Colorist
Harvey Richards – Asst. Editor
Stephen Wacker – Editor

Our cover by Art Thibert shows Wally holding his twins, protecting them from some unseen threat, while his good pal Nightwing has his back. Both the twins have red hair, but later in the comics, Wally's son will actually grow black hair. Our heroes are standing in a graveyard that has tombstones for Wally, Barry, Jay and even Linda (who sadly was not buried next to her husband), but no Bart. This is a rather confusing cover that has little to do with the story inside. And I'm not the biggest fan of these facial expressions.

Our story begins with Wally heading to the Flash Museum to retrieve an item called the Summoner to help the critically ill woman he met last time. On the way, Wally has another nightmare, this one about Mirror Master trapping him forever in the Mirror World as he can only helplessly watch his children live a life of abuse and neglect in an orphanage and on the streets. Wally's awaken from this nightmare by the arrival of Flash Museum curator Dexter Myles, who happily leads the Flash to the secret room containing all the most powerful weapons and the Summoner. But to his and Wally's shock, the Summoner is gone.

We then check in with Bart and Jay. Apparently it's been hours since Wally stranded Linda, her parents and the twins at that church, so Linda has called in these speedsters to go find her husband. Jay accuses Wally of not embracing fatherhood, but Bart points out that Jay must have let some dinners go cold while he was battling the Fiddler. As Bart talks, he stops to help a pretty girl pick up her schoolbooks, but Jay drags him away, saying, "Focus, son. Focus."

Wally has another nightmare, this time of his adult son, who has taken the Allen name for some reason, locked in a psychiatric ward, frantically talking about the Thawnes trying to kill him and his sister. After he shakes off that nightmare, Wally brings in Nightwing to investigate the weapons room and try to find out what happened to the Summoner. But Nightwing bluntly tells him the device wasn't stolen, but was confiscated by Cyborg.

Nightwing and Flash meet Cyborg in S.T.A.R. Labs in San Francisco, where Cyborg is trying to figure out what the Summoner does. He said he took it because he learned that somebody did try to steal it and activate it, but failed. Now he and Nightwing agree that Wally's plan to hand over a device with unknown powers to a group of unknown individuals is an incredibly stupid idea. Wally even seems to agree that this is a stupid plan, but he's mad at his friends for not telling him about the attempted theft of the Summoner, and he's certain these people can help his twins, so he takes off with the large, bulbous staff thing.

When Wally gives the Summoner to the church's congregation, he quickly learns that there was no dying woman or utopian society for super-powered individuals. Just a bunch of illusions. And the reverend of this congregation is Vandal Savage, who has discovered that giving others a transfusion of his own blood grants them superpowers. And, long story short, Savage is building an army for one last holy war to cleanse the Earth. He holds Wally in place with a threat of a bomb and the reveal that he has already captured Jay and Bart.

This is a weird story. We're watching Wally very slowly walk into an obvious trap, and it's a very frustrating experience. His nightmares are interesting, but perhaps Wally's motivations would have been better explained if those nightmares were balanced out with visions of his children living in that utopia he thought he was taking them to. Besides that, I want to know why Cyborg and Nightwing knew about an attempted theft at the Flash Museum, but didn't tell Wally about it. And how did Vandal Savage capture Jay and Bart so quickly off page? Hopefully some of these issues will be resolved by the end of this filler story.

Next time, we'll find out what the Titans were fighting at the start of Infinite Crisis in Teen Titans #30.