The Flash: Rebirth #4

Flash Facts

Geoff Johns Writer
Ethan Van Sciver Artist
Rob Leigh Letterer
Brian Miller of Hi-Fi Colorist
Ethan Van Sciver Cover
Brian Miller Cover Color
Chris Conroy Assistant Editor
Joey Cavalieri Editor

Our main cover is another fun display of multiple levels of storytelling. Against a backdrop of the Reverse-Flash's colors, we have Barry being struck by lightning and splashed by chemicals. But inside the bolt of red lightning, Barry is in his Flash outfit. This is some of Van Sciver's better work.

Our variant cover is not quite as good. In place of innovation and creativity, we have stiffness and laziness. Eobard Thawne is standing menacingly behind the shattered bones of Johnny Quick, surrounded by copious amounts of red lightning. The skull of Max Mercury behind him is rather misleading, as we'll see inside. Anyway, these two covers neatly show the contrast of Van Sciver's work. When he wants to, he can be creative and brilliant. But all too often, he lets himself slide to the easy, cheap tactic of giving us a bland mess of stiff, over-muscled figures.

Our story picks up with Eobard confronting Barry and Max in the Speed Force. Eobard is mad that Barry has arrived early, saying he thought Barry wouldn't retreat into the Speed Force until he killed Wally, Jay or Bart. Barry is surprised to see that Eobard is alive, and he explains that he has his own resurrection coming up, thanks to a friend of Barry's.

Barry lashes out at Eobard for killing Johnny, but he's unable to land a blow. Eobard explains that his negative Speed Force is taking over Barry's positive Speed Force. Max likens it to a cancer, and Eobard praises him for attempting to study the Speed Force, unlike Barry. Eobard elaborates, saying he generates the Negative energy with each step he runs, and it's his lightning that is poisoning the speedsters through Barry. He says when he was resurrected (in the future), he was disappointed to learn that Barry had already sacrificed himself to stop the Anti-Monitor. So he began studying for a way to bring Barry back to exact his revenge.

When Bart was struggling to take Superboy-Prime to the Speed Force by himself, Barry "opened the door" to help pull Prime in. And Eobard noticed that Barry "left the door open." So he sent Barry a subliminal message to lure him out of the Speed Force during Final Crisis. Eobard then transformed himself into a new kind of speedster by recreating Barry's initial accident (which we saw at the beginning of this story). Eobard's efforts granted him the ability to generate negative energy, which he used to contaminate Barry and turn him into the Black Flash. But now that Barry has thwarted Eobard's plan by burning off that corrupting lightning, Eobard has decided to go kill Barry's family himself.

We return to Fallville, Iowa, where Superman, Green Lantern and Wonder Woman have returned to tell the rest what happened. Iris doesn't believe that Barry would just give up like that, but Wally understands that Barry didn't want to risk anyone else's life. However, Wally says he won't accept Barry's decision. He tells everyone to rebuild the lightning rod, while he goes into the Speed Force to bring Barry back. Jay warns him that he'll die like Savitar if he touches Barry, but Wally's encouraged by Superman's report that Barry shed the black aura. Still, Jay is worried that Wally will become lost in the Speed Force, too. Bart reminds him how Max never got out, but Wally vows to bring him and Johnny back. Insisting that he'll use Linda as his lightning rod to find his way home again, Wally takes off.

At the West family home, Irey has put on her superhero outfit in an attempt to follow Bart, who she thinks is real cool. Linda warns her daughter that it's too dangerous, but Irey says she can help them with her powers. Jai coldly says that Irey can only walk through stuff, which he bets Bart thinks is stupid. This puts Irey into a crying fit and she runs downstairs — right into the Reverse-Flash.

As Wally runs into the Speed Force, he also sees flashbacks of his life pass by him in reverse — the birth of his twins, meeting Bart for the first time, etc. Barry, meanwhile, is trying to fight through Eobard's corrupting lightning, telling Max they need to find a way out. But Max says he can't leave. Jay has Joan, Wally has Linda, Barry has Iris, but Max says he doesn't have an emotional lightning rod to ground him. Max says Johnny lost Libby, so he also couldn't escape the Speed Force. And speaking of Johnny, his daughter has once again collapsed in the JSA headquarters, constantly repeating the speed formula.

Barry tells Max that he can't run anymore since he's lost his connection to the Speed Force, but Max says Barry's powers work more like Thawne's. Max explains that all those times he tried to run into the Speed Force but only ended up jumping forward in time was because he was actually running toward Barry. He says when Barry was struck by lightning, he didn't tap into the Speed Force, he created it. And when Barry runs, he generates the kinetic wall between the present and the time barrier, creating an electrical field that exists in every dimension, universe and era. Max warns that if Barry doesn't stop Thawne, his Negative Speed Force will grow and continue to eat away at Barry's Positive Speed Force, killing all the other speedsters. Max begins to weaken under the strain of Thawne's energy, and he begs Barry to run, to generate more fuel, and to save Bart and the others.

At the West home, Linda leads Jai downstairs to apologize to his sister, but to her horror, the Reverse-Flash is down there holding onto Irey. Thawne quickly grabs Jai, saying he can feel the twins' tie to the Speed Force tangled in a knot. He begins to send some energy through the two children, saying he'll "untangle" their knots before strangling them. Linda calls out to Wally (through her ring?) and tells him Thawne is there. Somehow, Jay and Bart hear her distress call and immediately push Thawne out of the house and down the street, causing a sonic boom that shatters all the nearby windows.

As Barry tries to run, and Wally keeps searching for him, Jay and Bart interrupt the planned Flash parade with their battle with Thawne. Jay realizes that Eobard was behind all this, and Thawne boasts that he's hurt Barry in more ways than he could ever imagine. Thawne then begins pushing Jay forward at a high speed and somehow manages to take away Jay's aura that protects him from friction, which causes the elder speedster to burst into flame. Bart quickly puts out the fire on Jay, telling Thawne to leave him alone. Eobard turns on Bart, saying that even though his mother is a Thawne, his father is an Allen, which pollutes his blood. Bart jokes that on the bright side, he's only half-related to Eobard.

In the Speed Force, Barry finally manages to generate some positive energy and starts moving forward, just as he hears Wally calling out to him. Barry tells Max to come with him, but Max says he can't. So now it's Barry's turn to give Max a pep talk, reminding him of all the good he did by raising Bart. Barry says Max is family and he still has a lot of race to run. So Max takes Barry's hand, and together they reach out and find Wally. And in a blast of lightning, the three speedsters suddenly appear right in front of Thawne, preventing him from killing Bart.

Jesse finally stops repeating the Speed Formula, saying she now knows the secret of the Speed Force. And Barry leads Wally, Jay, Max and Bart into battle against Professor Zoom.




At long last, Max Mercury has returned! I know I should be more excited by this, but a couple of things are dampening my enthusiasm. One is Van Sciver's artwork, another is the fact that I know Max won't do very much in his return before being wiped from existence in the New 52. But mostly, I'm distracted by the confusing nature of the Speed Force. Actually, if you just read this story by itself, things do make enough sense. The problem arises when you begin to ponder the incident of Bart bringing Superboy-Prime to the Speed Force, and Wally taking his family to the Speed Force, and how Bart was sent back, but suddenly aged for some reason, but Superboy-Prime didn't, and how Wally and his family came back, and, and, and ... you get the point.

Geoff Johns raised a lot of questions about the nature of the Speed Force and never took the time to answer them. Instead, he opted to ignore everything that's ever been written about the Speed Force and make it all about Barry. It's not enough to make him the best Flash or the fastest Flash. He had to make Barry the source of all Flashes, the literal generator of the Speed Force. This doesn't just give Barry an overinflated sense of importance, but it has a diminishing, detrimental effect on all the other Flashes. Of course, Wally and the others have already been shoved aside to make room for Barry, but this whole Speed Force thing is essentially the nail in the coffin.

Next time, we'll start another massive Geoff Johns story that started before his last one finished. I'm talking about Blackest Night, which begins with a prologue in Green Lantern #43.