The Flash #200

Blitz: Conclusion – The Final Race

Geoff Johns – Writer
Scott Kolins – Penciller
Doug Hazlewood – Inker
Ken Lopez – Letterer
James Sinclair – Colorist and Separator
Joey Cavalieri – Editor
Special thanks to Jeremy Johns

Our cover by Scott Kolins shows an extremely happy Flash running down the street on a bright, sunny day. I always find it a bit unnerving to see Wally smile like this. Even more given the intense story he's in the middle of. I mean, his unborn twins were just killed last issue! However, this cover is actually a wraparound, which does help a bit.

Now we see the pain Wally and Linda are going through, plus the mysterious intervention of the Spectre. We can also put all the covers of Blitz together to see what kind of a collage Kolins has given us.

I hope that image turns out for everybody. It isn't quite as perfect as I'd like, but you get the general idea. This is a rather impressive achievement by Scott Kolins. It's like a mural telling the story of how Zoom shows up, beats up Wally and Linda, then Wally fights Zoom, defeats him and races off into the sun with a smile on his face. All together, I do kind of like it. But individually, the covers aren't quite as strong as they could have been.

Our story picks right up where we left off last issue, with Zoom announcing his plans to begin Lesson Two. Lesson One was teaching Wally loss by killing his unborn children. Lesson Two will be to reverse Wally's origin from Hunter's by crippling him. Zoom drags the fight out to a desert, explaining that when Wally loses the ability to run, he'll change his mind on time travel. Zoom demands that Wally admit he's right and begins to pummel him. But another time rift opens up, showing Hunter's ex-wife in the past leaving a funeral asking Hunter what he did. Zoom freaks out at this image, delivers a mighty punch to Wally and races away, demanding to be left alone.

Wally comes to in Seattle, with Jesse Quick by his side, apologizing for not coming sooner. They return to Keystone City to check on Linda in the hospital. Jay reports that she's suffering from internal bleeding, but is stable at the moment. Wally realizes that if Zoom wanted her dead, he'd have already killed her. Impulse sadly says he wishes he could help, and Jay points out that he and Bart will be without super speed for the next couple of hours.

But Wally's more desperate for Jay's science background to help him figure out what's going on with Zoom. So they find a room with a chalkboard and Jay lays out his theory. When the Cosmic Treadmill exploded on Hunter Zolomon, a wormhole, or rip in time, was created. Since they were unable to steal Zoom's kinetic energy, Jay believes he isn't tapping into the Speed Force, but time itself. He draws a line on the chalkboard representing the timeline, with a box on it labeled "Now." Everybody rides the "Now" box along the timeline, but the explosion knocked Zoom off it and fused him with a wormhole. He's still moving forward, unable to go back in time, but now he he can control how fast or slow he moves ahead in time.

Of course, there is a drawback to this, Jay points out. Zoom is causing a great strain on the timeline, pulling it like a rubber band and causing it to fold in on itself — hence the windows in time randomly appearing near him. Jay theorizes that if Zoom keeps "running," these windows will grow larger and the rubber band will snap. Wally decides he can't wait for Jay and Bart to power back up. Jesse offers her help, but Wally dismisses her. Meanwhile, Wally's detective friends, Morillo and Chyre, look through Hunter's file and figure out where he might be.

We see that Zoom has gone to Kansas City to revisit the scene of the worst day of his life. While working for the FBI, he led a team of his wife and father-in-law (nepotism much?) to take down a small-time crook dressed as a clown. Hunter assured them the clown would not be armed, but he was wrong. The clown killed Hunter's father-in-law and shot him in the knee. Haunted by visions of this awful event, Zoom destroys the entire barn.

Wally soon shows up, but he's still no match for Zoom. This time he tries talking to him, telling Hunter he read his file and knows all about that tragic accident and how Hunter's wife left him. Wally asks Hunter why he never told him about all this, but Zoom just blames Flash for turning his back on him. Jesse suddenly arrives, pulls Wally away and says she's giving him all of her speed. Infused with her mantra — 3x2(9yz)4a — Wally feels the boost of speed that enabled him to virtually freeze time (which he did in Impulse's very first issue).

Wally is finally able to fight Zoom on equal terms. But after he lands his first punch, Zoom mocks him for pulling his punches, and notes that he needs to push Wally harder. So he decides to skip ahead to the final exam — killing Linda. As they fight each other across the country, Zoom practically begs Wally to kill him, saying the only way to prevent Linda's blood from being on his hands is to do what Barry Allen did to Eobard Thawne. When Wally refuses, Zoom tells him he'll never be as good as Barry.

The fight takes them through Italy, China and Metropolis (right past Superman, even). Wally finally manages to get Zoom down on his knees, right as another time rift opens up, showing Hunter's father-in-law asking him if the clown will be armed. Wally shoves Zoom's head into the pink lightning, hoping it will fuse him back with the present. This essentially works, although Zoom is now frozen in suspended animation. And one last time rift shows Wally and Linda happily announcing that they're going to be parents.

Zoom is taken to Iron Heights Penitentiary and placed in a special yellow tube. All he can see is the vision of himself assuring his wife and father-in-law that the clown doesn't have a gun, over and over again. Wally heads to Linda's side, and after assuring her he stopped Zoom, the two begin to weep for their lost babies.

Later, Wally heads to Valhalla, the superhero cemetery. He reflects on how Bart has now joined the Teen Titans, which he's not sure about, but Jay insists is the right decision. Jesse also seems to have lost her powers for good and now is working as the JSA's business manager. And Iris is spending every day with Linda to help her recover. But Wally has had enough. He visits Barry's statue to apologetically announce his retirement from being the Flash.

Suddenly, the real Barry Allen shows up on the Cosmic Treadmill. After giving Wally a big hug, Barry explains that he's traveled back from his retirement in the future to visit his former sidekick on the first of the three hardest days of his life. Barry also says that he knows in a few days he'll go back even further in time and will die to save the world. But he's OK with that. Wally starts to worry that Hunter was right, that he should have traveled back in time to help him. But Barry tells Wally he made the right decision. Time travelers shouldn't change history, which is why Barry won't be changing history now, only sitting back, watching and offering his support.

Barry leads Wally to Hal Jordan's statue. The Spectre flows out of the statue and takes the form of Hal. Wally immediately asks him to bring back his unborn children, but Hal says he can't bring back the dead in a pleasant way, nor can he change history. But Hal can offer Wally something else — a chance for the entire world to forget who the Flash is. Wally hesitates, but Barry offers his support and blessing, so Wally accepts. Hal tells Wally to run and he'll do the rest. As Wally takes off, Barry tells Hal he's "well on his way," but Hal's confused by this comment.

Two months later, Wally and Linda are walking down the street in the rain, talking about a new job Wally has taken. Morillo and Chyre race by, complaining about all the crime they've been dealing with since the Flash disappeared. Linda asks Wally whatever happened to the Flash, and Wally says he doesn't remember.



This was a 38-page special befitting the 200th issue of Wally's series and the conclusion of Scott Kolins' run on the title. Zoom really is a great villain — despite the redundant name and costume. I also find it highly unlikely that the FBI would put three family members together on the same team, but that still was a traumatic event for anyone to go through. And the end result of Zoom in this issue is a fate I consider worse than death. Unable to move, forced to repeatedly watch the worst moment of your life. Not even Zoom deserved that.

I was a little disappointed that only one of Zoom's "windows in time" showed the future. And that was Bart's, which wasn't surprising at all, since everyone knew he was going to be Kid Flash. I think it would have been interesting had Wally's final vision shown him in the future. I'm also frustrated by how Wally apparently needed to absorb all of Jesse Quick's speed in order to fight Zoom. This issue did reference the Mark Waid story where Wally used Johnny Quick's formula to basically freeze time. But it also forgets that Max Mercury was also able to reach that speed (for a shorter period of time) because the formula was just a psychological crutch. Wally always had that speed within him and he didn't need to take the speed from Jay, Bart or Jesse.

I also consider this issue to mark the end of the Impulse era. Teen Titans #1 also came out this month, showing Bart wearing the Kid Flash uniform. So even though he'll be wearing the Impulse uniform in the first couple of issues, for all intents and purposes, he ceases being Impulse at the end of this issue. And sadly, his career as Impulse ended with him literally whimpering, wishing he could help. And that's just not right. I'm not saying he should have used his time-traveling scouts to save the day, but he surely could have done something more useful in his final fight as Impulse.

Next time, we'll begin the next chapter in Bart Allen's career with Teen Titans #1.