All Flash #1

Justice, Like Lightning

Mark Waid – Writer
Karl Kerschl: 1-3, 10-16
Ian Churchill & Norm Rapmund: 4-6
Manuel Garcia: 7-9
Joe Bennett & Ruy Jose: 17-22
Daniel Acuna: 23-24
Pat Brosseau – Letterer
Stephane Peru, Tanya & Richard Horie & Acuna – Colorists
Rachel Gluckstern – Assoc. Editor
Joan Hilty – Editor
Josh Middleton – Cover
Variant Cover by Bill Sienkiewicz

This comic hasn't been digitized yet — probably because it is its own series, not falling in neatly with either The Flash: The Fastest Man Alive or the returning Flash series starring Wally — so I'm forced to pull an image from DC.wikia.com once again. The main cover is bleak, dreary and kind of ugly. I can't tell if that's supposed to be Wally or Bart — either way he doesn't look good. It could be Wally stricken by grief, or a dying Bart running off to the great beyond. Simply put, I don't like it. And sadly, the variant I own is just as bad.

Is that Wally? Is that Bart? Why does he look 100 years old? Why are both these covers so bad? I have the feeling that this issue was a last-minute decision, forcing everything — from the cover art to the art inside — to be incredibly rushed. And that's a real shame because this is actually a pretty significant issue that certainly deserved better artwork.

Our story begins with a furious Wally West running to Los Angeles. He can now utter his famous catchphrase: "My name is Wally West. I'm the Flash. The fastest man alive." But now he bitterly adds an addendum: "And I'm still too late." As he runs, Wally briefly recounts the history of Bart Allen, admitting that although he initially hated Impulse, he gradually learned to like Bart. A lot. Especially after watching him mature and become Kid Flash. Wally says when he decided to retire with his wife and kids, he had no hesitation about giving the Flash costume and identity to Bart. And Wally always figured he'd eventually come back to just check up on Bart — not to catch his killer.

One hour ago, Wally and his family returned to this world (as we saw last time). Wally says they had actually carved out a nice life for themselves (although he won't say exactly where). They had broached the subject of heading home, but when the sky began to "vomit lightning," Wally's first reaction was resentment. His second reaction was that the lightning wasn't actually lightning, but the familiar pull of the Speed Force seeking him out.

Wally actually scooped up his family and tried to evade the lightning. But it quickly caught up with him, and he soon found himself at the bottom of a crater, looking up into the shocked faces of Jay Garrick, Superman and Power Girl. Wally didn't know anything of the Legionnaires' little stunt, but he did feel a massive disruption in the Speed Force that drew him back. Despite the jarring nature of the whole ordeal, Wally is happy to see his wife and kids are alright and to be surrounded by friends. He introduces his children, Iris and Jai, to Superman, who awkwardly says when he last saw them, they were newborns, which wasn't that long ago. The Wests spend the next hour catching up with the super-hero community, until Batman calls in the bad news from Los Angeles.

Fifty-nine minutes ago, Captain Cold, Heat Wave, Weather Wizard, Abra Kadabra, Mirror Master, the Trickster and the Pied Piper are standing around in disbelief at the horrific action they just performed. Valerie Perez is crying over Bart's body, begging Iris Allen to help him. Iris tells Val that Bart is gone, then she tearfully turns to the Rogues and says, "You monsters ... you murdered my grandson." Weather Wizard is shocked to see how young Bart is, and he begins shouting that it wasn't supposed to go down like this. Captain Cold tells him to shut up and let him think. Heat Wave realizes they've just made themselves the most wanted men on Earth and the Justice League is going to spend every second of their lives hunting them down. Trickster puts the blame on Inertia, and Mirror Master seconds the call to attack the devious speedster.

Inertia's speed has returned, which enables him to easily dodge their attacks, but he still tries to talk his way out of this mess. He says he set the Flash up to lose his powers, but it was the Rogues who finished him off, so they all deserve credit for the act. But Abra Kadabra is unwilling to negotiate, and he deactivates Inertia's teleportation device on his wrist. He threatens to show Inertia what happens to little boys who lie, so Inertia quickly runs away. Frustrated they weren't able to use Inertia as a sacrificial lamb to save their hides, Mirror Master suggests they kill Val and Iris to eliminate the witnesses. Pied Piper stops him, though, pointing out that thousands of people saw them take over the Getty Center and cops are swarming around the outside of Trickster's forcefield. Piper asks Kadabra to teleport them away, and Kadabra complies.

Now — Inertia is in a full-on panic. He can't get back to Craydl, so he briefly considers asking for Deathstroke's help, before reasoning that Slade won't help him. News of Bart's death has already spread on the radio, and there are now reports of a rare tornado in Los Angeles. The tornado is, of course, coming from Wally, who is furiously moving in on his target.

Wally grabs Inertia by the scruff, and Thad initially thinks he's Bart. But looking into his weeping green eyes, Inertia realizes with horror that it's Wally, whom he thought was dead. Wally keeps racing forward with Inertia in his grasp, smashing him through barns and trains, carrying him across oceans and through cities. Inertia naturally tries to get away, but Wally is streamlining the Speed Force in a way he never has before, and he's actually able to take Inertia's speed away from him. As he does this, a sudden realization dawns upon Inertia. He says Bart lost his powers because Wally took them.

Wally is horrified to hear this and shouts out the word "NO!" but he's really not able to argue against Inertia's logic. Seeing how unnerved this revelation makes Wally, Inertia foolishly presses the issue by gleefully recounting the details of Bart's death, ending by saying, "He screamed like a little bitch." This puts Wally into an almost uncontrollable rage. He instantly devises 12 different ways to kill Inertia. He acknowledges he has never felt justified in taking a man's life, but he immediately tries to rationalize this by saying Inertia isn't a man. He's a sick, corrupt clone of Bart. An irredeemable sociopath with Bart's face. Ultimately, though, it's that face — that little piece of Bart — that persuades Wally to spare Inertia's life. But Wally chooses to do something he considers even worse than killing him.

One week later, the Wests are relaxing at their new home (Iris put all their things in storage, then helped get them this new place). Linda and the kids are having a water fight in the backyard, while Wally is having a serious conversation with his aunt inside. Iris tells Wally that Val stayed with Bart's body until arrangements could be made. Iris thinks Val is young enough that she'll be able to move on from this tragedy, and said she'll always consider her part of the family. (The odds we'll ever see Val again are about 0.5%.)

Wally asks Iris how she's doing, and she admits she's not great, talking about how horrible it was to watch those "animals" tear into Bart after he lost his powers. The reminder of Bart's powers stings Wally a bit, but he continues the conversation, asking if Iris was prepared for Bart's death. She says she knew from history that Bart died saving Los Angeles from an explosion, and that she told this to Bart, hoping they could somehow cheat fate. But Bart still dived right in to save others, which was always his ... impulse.

Wally kisses Iris' forehead, and she makes a small joke about this being the one time Bart had a plan. She then asks Wally what he did to Inertia. Wally thought she already knew, but Iris reminds him that time is surprisingly fluid, and every big crisis of this era bends it further. So Wally tells her, saying they'll never have to worry about Inertia again. He explains that he stole Inertia's speed, but that wasn't enough. And in that moment, Wally was so connected to the Speed Force, he realized he had the ability to completely take away all of Inertia's movement, permanently immobilizing him. Wally says Inertia is still conscious, still able to see, hear and think in real time, but is trapped for eternity in a frozen body. And since he's essentially a living statue, Wally placed Inertia in the Flash Museum, in the Bart Allen Memorial, right next to a statue of White Lightning. And right in front of Inertia is a statue of Bart as Impulse and Kid Flash, forcing Inertia to stare with eyes that take 100 years to blink at the ghost of the man he could never be.

Iris offers no commentary on this horrific fate for Inertia, and instead changes the subject to the rest of the Rogues. Wally says he hasn't been able to find any of them, but says the only way they'll stay out of his reach is if someone else finds them first. And little does he know, but that's exactly what happens. The Suicide Squad has tracked down Captain Cold in New York, Mirror Master in Glasgow, Abra Kadabra in Hong Kong, and Weather Wizard and Heat Wave in Louisiana.

Wally and Iris then have an awkward pause, as neither of them wants to start talking about the next topic that they both know they need to address. Wally finally breaks the silence by trying to apologize, but Iris cuts him off and bluntly asks him if he chose to come back. Wally admits he didn't. Iris asks if he had any control over the how or when or why of it all. Wally says no. So Iris tells him to be more like Bart. She reminds him of how he coined the term "single synapse theory" to describe how Bart would leap from instinct to action without all that messy "thinking" in between. Wally says that drove him insane, but Iris points out that Bart was able to live in the moment and he never dwelled on things that weren't his fault.

Iris takes Wally to the window to show him his family. She tells him in order to be a good family man, he needs to stop living inside his own head all the time. Wally doesn't have the heart to tell his aunt just how unique his twins are and what challenges they pose. But he does agree to try, and Iris assures him that he's not alone anymore. So Wally asks her for any last insider tips on what the future holds for the West family. Iris says, "Not really ... but it's going to be one hell of a ride." And the last two pages give us a sort of preview of the upcoming adventures in The Flash. Unfortunately, Wally's kids changed dramatically with that page turn. Instead of both having red hair and being about 12 or 13 years old, they're now about 8 or 9 and Jai has black hair. And they both have superpowers — with Jai able to become super muscular and Irey able to vibrate through objects.




It sure is nice to have Mark Waid writing the Flash again. Of course, this is the beginning of his infamously dreadful second run of the Flash, wherein Waid said all the promises that were initially made to him were rescinded before he even began — and he even admitted that he may have simply run out of stories to tell about Wally to begin with ... In short, it was a rough ride. But I still appreciated his presence in this issue. Even though this was largely a cleanup issue to bridge the gap between The Fastest Man Alive and The Flash #231, it was nice having Waid give us Wally's voice, thought process and sweet relationship with his aunt.

I really feel bad for Inertia. Written by Todd Dezago, he was a complex, conflicted character who seemed like he had a genuine shot at redemption. But when he was brought back to battle the adult Bart, Inertia was watered down to a generic irredeemable sociopath. He wasn't necessarily bland, but certainly not as rich and compelling as he once was. And his ultimate fate — ick! I'm glad Wally acknowledged this is a fate worse than death, because I can't imagine anything more horrible. (Of course, those who know Inertia's history will know that he won't stay in this statue status forever.) It's just a shame it had to end up that way. One interesting solution would have been to have Inertia try to take Bart's place once again — but that would have required him to have felt guilt about Bart's death.

Let's check out the new ads:

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Passion. Adrenaline. Progression. Glory. AST Dew Tour. (On two separate pages.)

Mad About Hunger. An astonishing 8-page section of MAD Magazine teaming up with Ball Park hot dogs.

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DC Nation features a letter from Nick Napolitano, director of digital workflow. He lists his top 20 challenges and jokingly mentioned Dan DiDio's name 10 times on that list. I wonder though, was he entirely joking?

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Next time, we'll attend the funeral of Bart Allen in Countdown #43.