Lightning in a Bottle Part Five: Missing in Action
Danny Bilson & Paul DeMeo Writers
Ron Adrian Penciller
Alex Lei & Rob Lea Inkers
Pat Brosseau Letterer
Richard & Tanya Horie Colorists
Rachel Gluckstern Asst. Editor
Joan Hilty Editor
Cover by Ken Lashley
Our cover has absolutely nothing to do with our inside story. And it's not a particularly good cover, either. It really bugs me that people are taking pictures of the Flash, but none of the pictures line up with the image of the Flash right in front of them. But it bugs me even more to see a credit error on the cover. Sal Velluto, who drew part of last issue, did not draw any of this issue. You'll also note that Ron Adrian was not described as a guest penciller, essentially signaling the approaching end of Ken Lashley. And yes, this is our fifth different art for this five-issue-old series.
Our story picks up right where last issue left off, with Bart now dressed as the Flash, racing back up the skyscraper to continue his battle with the Griffin. Unfortunately, Bart runs a little too fast and zooms right past his former roommate and is soon airborne.
Bart flies so high in the sky he can see the Earth's curvature before finally beginning to fall. He hastily creates an air cushion to brace his fall in the middle of the Keystone Zoo, but it's still a pretty rough landing. When he comes to, he's so dazed that he mistakingly believes he's being attacked by Gorilla Grodd. But it's just an ordinary gorilla named Princess. Suddenly, Cyborg arrives and takes Bart away.
The former teammates return to Griffin's apartment, but find it empty. Bart wants to immediately begin searching for him, but Cyborg advises him to recover a bit first. Vic explains that he heard Bart had grown up while he was offline for the past year, and he decided to come visit the former Teen Titan in person. He visited Bart's apartment first, found he wasn't home, then went over to Griffin's, only to see Bart flailing wildly up in the sky.
Cyborg says Bart is having a hard time controlling the Speed Force, and Bart realizes that Vic has been talking to Jay. Vic admits this and says it's weird to see the formerly impulsive Bart so scared now. Bart recounts to Vic how he raced back to Earth to warn everyone of Superboy-Prime's escape, but claims he doesn't remember most of what happened before that. He says he was gone for less than one year, but somehow aged four years in that span. Bart admits he's scared, but says he feels like his old impulsive self whenever he's with Val. Cyborg gives Bart some clichéd advice about facing his fears then leaves.
Instead of heading out to search for the extremely dangerous and unstable Griffin, Bart heads off to what must be a very late night double date with the Garricks and Val. (The sense of time in this comic has always been screwy, and this is definitely one of those times, as Bart makes it clear that this is all happening on the same day.) Val was supposed to meet them at this restaurant, but she's running late, which is making Bart nervous. Jay and Joan, however, are thrilled to see Bart finally show some enthusiasm in something after a solid year of moping.
While they wait, Jay brings up the Griffin, and Bart casually admits that Griff almost killed him about an hour ago. Jay says Bart needs to give the city the hero it deserves. Bart says he doesn't want to let Jay, Max, Wally and Barry down, but then he suddenly bolts on the conversation by running off to find Val. Joan happily comments that this is the more impulsive Bart she remembers.
When Bart reaches Val's house, he finds it completely empty — like, there's not a single piece of furniture or scrap of clothing in the entire building. The only thing he can find is a note addressed to him saying, "Bart — Sorry, but I just can't make this work right now. I'm heading West to start over. — Val." Bart returns to the outdoor table with the Garricks and lies about Val, saying she got "tied up or something."
Jay can sense something is wrong, but before he can press Bart, Griffin zooms by in his sports car. Jay immediately takes off after him. Bart hesitates, but Joan urges him to go, reminding him of how dangerous Griffin is and that Bart is the fastest man alive. Bart quickly catches up to Jay running alongside Griff's car. When Griffin sees Bart, he mistakingly believes he's Wally and he criticizes him for being M.I.A. for a year. Griffin says the cops are pinned down at 5th and Main, and he's the only hero Keystone needs. He then hits Bart with a blast of green lightning and takes off.
Jay stops to help Bart up, who quickly recovers and tells Jay where Griffin is headed. The Flashes arrive at the police standoff before Griffin does, rushing right past Detectives Morillo and Chyre and into the building. Bart and Jay quickly disarm the three gunman and make them peacefully surrender to the police. Griffin arrives right as the suspects are taken into custody, and he loudly complains that this is his city and his crime to stop. All the police officers openly mock Griffin for whining like a 5-year-old. This isn't a good idea, though, since Griffin predictably lashes out in anger, knocking the Flashes down with his lightning and causing a police helicopter to crash. Griffin escapes while Bart and Jay deal with the crash, and they finally decide that it's way past time to bring Griffin in.
We then cut to Val waking up in a small, dark room. The last thing she remembers is her energy-based father touching her and causing her to black out. She begins banging on the door demanding to know what her father wants. A voice from the corner tells her Mota is out at the moment but should be back soon. Val recognizes the voice as Bart's, but when she turns around, she sees Bart's long lost evil clone. He introduces himself as Tad Thawne, aka Inertia.
Back in Keystone, Griffin stumbles across the perfect underground lair for himself — a conveniently abandoned subway station with running water and electricity. In another lucky stroke of convenience, this place also has a computer containing information about Jay Garrick and the machine he helped S.T.A.R. Labs build to measure increments of the Speed Force. Griff realizes that Jay looks a lot younger than he really is, and he theorizes that Jay and this machine might be able to help Griffin stop rapidly aging.
We find out that Val is being kept in the Gila Canyon Test Site, and her father assures her that she won't be kept her long enough for the residual radiation to affect her. Val demands to know why she's been kidnapped, and Mota explains that he currently lives between the membranes of the physical world, constantly struggling to not completely dissipate. But with Val's genetic material, he can be restored to what he was. Val doesn't believe such technology exists, but Mota says it does in the future, which is where Inertia comes in. Inertia says he and Mota both want to wipe the planet clean of all speedsters — except for him, naturally.
Later, we see that Griffin has done a much better job of stalking Jay than Jay and Bart have been at searching for him. Griffin figures out that Jay likes to take a walk every morning, crossing a metal bridge over the canal in the nature preserve. So Griffin sets up a simple trap for Jay and electrocutes him.
Meanwhile, Bart has headed over to S.T.A.R. Labs to ask Dr. McGee if she knows where Val is. McGee says she only received a vague email from her that mentioned a research project out West, but didn't provide any information beyond that. Bart brings up the fact that Val has said Mota's been stalking her, and McGee agrees it sounds suspicious, but says they can't really do anything about it since they don't have any evidence. She then tells Bart that the Speed Force Analyzer has been stolen, which is odd, since more valuable equipment was left untouched. Bart then gets a phone call from Joan, saying that Jay has been missing since this morning. So Bart immediately takes off in his Flash suit.
We see that Griffin has taken Jay to his underground lair and strapped him to the Speed Force Analyzer. Jay tries to explain that he's not connected to the Speed Force anymore, and only has super speed because he's a metahuman. Griff demands to know what's been keeping Jay young, and Jay says it must be a side effect of his previous connection to the Speed Force. But Griffin doesn't believe Jay, nor does he understand the machine he's stolen, so he turns it on, causing Jay a great deal of pain. Meanwhile, Bart quickly discovers the scorch marks on the bridge where Jay was kidnapped, and he vows to search this entire city to find him.
Well, I guess Bart's officially the Flash now, right? All it took was five issues. And even then, he's still extremely reluctant to do anything and completely lacks a sense of urgency. Of course, the same could be said of just about everyone in this comic. Let's start with Cyborg. During Infinite Crisis, he went out into space, was severely injured, and went offline for a year. When he wakes up and learns that Bart has grown up, he goes to quite a bit of effort to track down his former teammate. When he arrives in Keystone, he sees Bart flying wildly out of control. Cyborg pulls him out of a gorilla pen, learns that Bart was in the middle of a battle with a legitimate villain, but refuses to let Bart pursue that villain. And instead of helping him track down the extremely dangerous and unstable Griffin, Cyborg just gives Bart a quick pep talk and goes home. Seriously? There is a very powerful maniac with little regard for life out on the streets right now and you're just going to walk home?
But Bart and Jay are the same way. Instead of tracking down Griffin, they sit and talk about his relationship with Val, then choose to publicly embarrass Griffin instead of actually taking him into custody. And when Griffin gets away, they don't even bother going looking for him. And even though Bart claims to only be passionate about Val, when he sees she's been obviously kidnapped, he barely does anything to look for her. At least he expressed a tiny bit of emotion when he heard Jay has been kidnapped. But man, what a painful journey it's been to get Bart to that level.
I'm still not sure what I feel about Inertia's inclusion here. On one hand, it makes perfect sense to bring back Bart's greatest villain of all time for his new solo series. But on the other hand, this appearance really comes out of nowhere. We last saw Inertia at the gate of the Speed Force, torn between the lies and programming he'd been fed by President Thawne and the true joy he felt by being heroic and loved. He was unable to completely trust others and join a loving family, but he also had realized the Allen-Thawne feud was a ridiculous waste of time. So he ran off to who knows where or when. And now we see him here, choosing to work with the most obscure of former Flash villains in order to kill Bart because ... ?
All I know for sure is that this comic book series falls below DC's standards. It's quite embarrassing, really. Well, let's check out the new ads:
A hero will fly again. Batten Kaitos Origins for GameCube.
PSP theater presents Greatest Hits.
Wonka Sour! Nerds, SweetTarts Squeez and Laffy Taffy. (Wonka had a total of five ad pages in this comic.)
The New Frontier: The Absolute Edition.
Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut.
The DC Nation page teases a new series of Year One titles.
Well, that's it for the year 2006. Next time is our Year in Review.
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