Issue Thirteen: "And Everything After"
Written by Simon Spurrier
Art by Ramón Pérez
Colors by Matt Herms and Pete Pantazis
Lettered by Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou
Cover by Ramón Pérez
Variant covers by Mike Deodato Jr. & Jão Canola, and Özgür Yildirim
Artist Spotlight variant cover by Nicola Scott & Annette Kwok
Editor Chris Rosa
Group Editor Paul Kaminski
Our cover is a haunting, yet completely misleading image of an electric speedster standing in the ruins of a destroyed Flash statue. Nothing remotely like this happens in this issue. I kind of wish it did, because that idea of a "broken legacy" seems a lot more interesting than the story Spurrier did give us. Anyway, Bart didn't show up in any of the variant covers, so let's do a quick review of Spurrier's grand conclusion.
So ... here is what I think happened. Barry and Wally raced through the Source Wall to stop the Arc Angles' poison from infecting it. Barry pulls out the poison, but Wally can tell that the Source is still in pain and has been in pain since before this whole thing began. Somehow, Wally just knows that he can heal it by ... wading out into a white pool of nothingness. Inspector Pilgrim randomly and miraculously opens up a portal inside the Source to pull Barry out, leaving Wally to do his thing. But the Arc Angles are there, too, and to stop Wally, they summon his family and begin to torture them. Wally slices up all the Arc Angels with his magical dagger that he got from ... somewhere.
So now the entire West family is deep inside the Source, and everybody begins demonstrating an insane amount of knowledge. Wally's own kids bizarrely know more about everything than he does. Jai somehow has the power to "reshape" the Arc Angles into forms that resemble the Stillness entities that kind of kicked this whole thing off, only to later be destroyed by the Arc Angles. And these new Arc Angles have conveniently lost their memories, so Jai and Wally order them to explore the universe and never forget that "it's better to feel anything than nothing."
The Arc Angles take off with their newfound purpose in life, I guess, and Linda realizes that the Source is about to give birth. So the West family ... shares their love? ... with the Source, enabling it to "give birth" and send them all back to where they belong, just as it was. Except the West family now has a dog named Foxy and everybody seems to remember the dog as having always been there.
The Flash family slowly comes to the realization that they just saved all creation, and Bart rushes off to procure more donuts, since that's all he's good for anymore.
But there's no time for celebrating. Everybody quickly receives word that Amanda Waller is up to no good, so they all rush off to join the Absolute Power event. Wally lingers behind just long enough to cryptically tell Linda that he saw a vision of two Wallys trying to work together, but not trusting each other. Then he races off into the sunset, almost as fast I raced away from this book.
I really was hopeful when Simon Spurrier took over from Jeremy Adams. Spurrier promised to take the Flash in a new direction. One filled with horror and mystery. We got a little bit of that ... but mostly an incomprehensible story filled with concepts even too abstract for Grant Morrison. And I think the biggest problem came down to how ridiculously overpowered he made everybody. For decades in the comics, entering the Speed Force was an enormously difficult accomplishment — something that Max Mercury spent a lifetime trying to accomplish. But now he can casually lead a group of speedsters deep into the highest level of the Speed Force without expending any effort. And penetrating the Source Wall used to be a near-impossible, colossal event that had ramifications for the entire DC Universe. But now? Anybody and everybody can just pop in and out willy-nilly.
And why, exactly? What were our heroes fighting? Nearly all-powerful beings that sought to destroy time? That concept doesn't mean anything. So it's no surprise that the resolution of such a plot would be unsatisfactory. The West family saved the day through the power of love! Pretty much the lamest copout one could hope for. And along the way, we learned that the Wests are so absurdly powerful and intelligent, that it seems impossible for anything to challenge them in the future.
What's that? Amanda Waller is up to no good? Don't worry, Jai and Irey will just reshape reality to open a sideways conduit into the ethereal nature of Waller's psyche and pluck out all the negative emotions from her subconsciousness. Seriously, what's stopping them from doing something that utterly bizarre and unfulfilling? Spurrier has opened the door for this kind of nonsense to permeate all future Flash stories.
And I am compelled to end by complaining about his treatment of Bart Allen. Adams didn't have much use for Max and Bart, so he decided to give them a beautiful farewell race into the beyond to help trim the fat of this bloated Flash family. Spurrier shockingly robbed Max and Bart of this sweet moment, only to do ... absolutely nothing with them. We had that tense moment where it looked like they were going to die in Ickto, but beyond that, they mostly stood around in the background. And in Bart's case, obsessively eating donuts. I say if you're going to do something as dramatic as pull the rug out from the under of the perfect finale, then you'd better have a good reason for it. Spurrier didn't. And I actually would have preferred that he just left them alone and focused on all the other members of the Flash family instead.
Next time? I'm not sure. It might just be time for another Year in Review. It doesn't appear that Spurrier has any plans for Bart in his next story arc, and nobody else is using him. I'll keep an eye out, but I find it highly unlikely Impulse will make another appearance in 2024.
