The Flash: The Fastest Man Alive #6

Lightning in a Bottle Part Six: Burning Bridges

Danny Bilson & Paul DeMeo Writers
Ken Lashley & Andy Smith Pencillers
Art Thibert Inker
Pat Brosseau Letterer
Richard & Tanya Horie Colorists
Rachel Gluckstern Assoc. Editor
Joan Hilty Editor
Cover by Art Thibert

This is our first cover not drawn by Lashley, and I'm pretty happy about that. Bart doesn't look dark and evil. The background isn't a vague mess of chaos. And the scene depicted on the cover actually happens in the story inside. Yeah, the guys in the car do look a little goofy, but everything else is pretty nice. Ironically, the children Flash is carrying look remarkably like Wally West's twins — who we haven't met yet.

Our story picks up with the Griffin ignorantly performing experiments on Jay Garrick in a desperate attempt to stop his rapid aging. While Griffin fiddles with the computers, Jay vibrates free from his restraints (which are completely different from what they looked like last issue). However, Griffin spots this before Jay is completely free and hits him with a blast of green lightning. At that same moment, Bart is actually conducting some good old fashioned detective work.

Bart returns to S.T.A.R. Labs to get more information about the stolen equipment from Dr. McGee. He then quickly visits the Keystone Water and Power Central Station to track down the isolated spike in energy the Speed Force Spectrometer would cause. He finds the spot on the corner of Anderson Street and Fox Avenue (named for Flash creators Murphy Anderson and Gardner Fox). Bart carefully vibrates through the street, making sure not to stretch the matter into taffy again, then quietly sneaks into Griffin's underground lair.

With Jay unconscious, Griffin has begun rambling incoherently to himself, complaining about how the city doesn't love him anymore (even though there has been no evidence to suggest this). Looking at an old poster of the bridge between Keystone and Central City, Griffin gets an idea to do something big to make everyone forget the Flashes. Bart decides he's heard enough at this point and whips up a cloud of cement mix dust and ties Griffin to a pillar with some cables. He then spots Jay and accuses Griffin of killing him.

While Bart tends to Jay, Griffin uses his green lightning to easily escape, making sure to take down the pillar he was tied to on his way out. Bart whisks Jay away to safety before the tunnel caves in, but discovers that Jay's heart has stopped. He begins to cry, wishing he could save his mentor, when suddenly a surge of lightning sparks from Bart's fingertips, giving Jay's heart the necessary jolt to start beating again.

We then head over to the Gila Canyon test site in Nevada, where Valerie has been strapped to a chair that presumably will break down her genetic material to rebuild her father's body. Val is remarkably calm and curious in the face of death, asking the question we've all been asking: What does Inertia have to gain by assisting Mota? Inertia mostly just laughs Val off, and Mota says once he regains his body, he and Inertia will proceed with their plans to take down the Flash. But Inertia thinks to himself that he's not seeing Mota in his plans.

Later, Bart and Joan are at Keystone General Hospital, waiting to hear how Jay is doing. Dr. McGee is also there, presumably to tell the doctors what that Speed Force machine did to him. McGee tells Bart and Joan that Jay was exposed to high levels of radiation and he's been moved to the ICU, but he has stabilized and his pulse is good. Bart tells them how Jay's heart was stopped when he found them, but he somehow was able to utilize the Speed Force to save him. Bart then realizes he should probably be out looking for the Griffin now, since he is an unstable homicidal maniac, after all.

Speaking of Griffin, he is currently carrying out his insane plan to regain the city's respect by sabotaging the Keystone Bridge. He destroys one of the bridge's support pillars, causing it to collapse with dozens of cars still crossing it. Bart hears the collapse from the hospital and rushes over there to find Griffin saving some people from the catastrophe he obviously caused. Bart joins him in rescuing more people, including the kids we saw on the cover. Griffin sees this and immediately attacks the Flash for stealing his thunder.

As the two fight, Bart randomly feels compelled to tell Griffin that he's Bart. Griff calls him a liar, saying Bart was weak. Bart notes the word "was" and starts spinning like a top for some reason. And then ... I'll just admit I can't follow this art ... somehow both Flash and Griffin end up underwater. I don't know if Bart knocked him down there and then jumped in after him or if he dragged him down there for whatever reason. But the important thing is Bart and Griffin are fighting each other in the river and Bart starts drowning. In this moment of extreme distress, however, Bart suddenly remembers everything that happened after he took Superboy-Prime to the Speed Force.

Griffin almost gets away, but he's suddenly hit by a huge piece of the collapsing bridge. Bart manages to dig him out from under the rubble and drag him to shore. Griffin weakly asks Bart why he bothered saving him, saying he's already a dead man. Bart coldly says if he knew the answer to that question then he might have actually been the hero he wanted to be. Griff tells Bart he was always the smart one, and he apologizes as he dies. And Bart just sits there and watches him die, making no effort to take him to the hospital or use the Speed Force to jolt his heart or anything.

The next day, Bart and Joan are visiting Jay in the hospital, who is reading the newspaper with the headline "Flash: Back" next to another headline, "Griffin meets a tragic end," indicating that Keystone still did love him. Anyway, the good news is Jay is healing fast and Bart is ready to tell him what he remembered. When Superboy-Prime escaped, Bart, Wally, Barry and Max followed his path to another Earth with an alternate version of Jay, who was unable to prevent Prime from stealing the Monitor Armor and taking off. Wally said they need to return to Earth to warn everybody that Superboy-Prime is returning, but Max realized none of them are fast enough to catch him.

As the speedsters discussed their dilemma, they agreed it would be possible, but incredibly dangerous, for Wally to absorb the entire Speed Force and be fast enough to catch Superboy-Prime. So Bart offered to go instead, telling Wally he needed to take care of his wife and children. So Barry gave Bart his suit, saying it'll protect him. Bart said he'll be OK since he'll have all of them with him, and he made his journey back to Earth, arriving just barely before Superboy-Prime did, essentially making his warning worthless. After Bart finishes telling Jay this story, Jay cheesily proclaims Bart as the Flash — the fastest man alive.




And so we come to the end of Griffin. I feel like Bilson and DeMeo really thought they had a big, emotional climax in this issue. But they failed to establish Griffin as a likable character, let alone Bart's best friend. If Griffin actually started out as a halfway decent guy, then his downfall would have had some emotional stakes. Instead, all we got was watching a big jerk turn into a bigger insane jerk with super powers. Instead of the final battle being an Obi-Wan vs. Anakin scenario, it was a dull, anticlimactic affair muddled by confusing artwork.

It also really bugs me that Bart made a point of saving Griffin to show him what a real hero does, only to idly sit by and watch him die. I'm fine with Griffin dying, but Bart should have at least tried to  revive him. However, this death scene was much more palatable than the Griffin on the CW Flash show, wherein our "heroes" deliberately planned on causing his death. But that's a complaint for a different blog.

The most exciting part of this issue was Bart randomly remembering everything that he supposedly forgot. But we really didn't learn anything new. From Infinite Crisis and 52 we already knew that Bart was given Barry's suit to run back to warn everyone because he was the only one who could do it. So I guess the only new bit of information we gleaned from this flashback was Superboy-Prime stealing the Monitor Armor from an alternate Earth. But now I want to know more about Prime's escape and the fate of Wally and his family. And I can all but guarantee we won't be getting those answers in this series. So ultimately, what could have been an eye-popping reveal fell flat. Just like with everything else in this series. Let's check out the new ads:

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The DC Nation page features Dan DiDio teasing the upcoming Infinite Crisis Christmas Special.

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Next in Flash #7, Bart goes West — toward a trap set by Mota and Inertia!