Writer: Geoff Johns
Art: Scott Kolins
Color: Michael Atiyeh
Cover: Kolins w/Atiyeh
Variant Cover: Francis Manapul w/Brian Buccellato
Letters: Travis Lanham
Editor: Adam Schlagman
Our main cover is playing off Ethan Van Sciver's exceedingly boring cover of Flash putting on his boot for The Flash: Rebirth #1 — a series that hasn't ended yet. At first glance, one might think that this is an image of Barry becoming a Black Lantern. But when you compare the two covers, you'll see this is a reverse image of Rebirth, meaning, of course, that this is the Reverse-Flash, Eobard Thawne. Sadly, this raises some questions that would have been answered had a certain artist met his deadlines.
I got this image of the variant cover from dc.fandom.com. It shows Barry fighting Nekron, which does not happen in this issue. I absolutely love Manapul's take on Barry Allen, and it is nice to have a bright red cover amid all this Blackest Night stuff. I do have to say that Nekron looks quite generic and not nearly as scary as he should be.
This story takes place during Blackest Night #4, picking up with Barry running around the country, warning everyone about the Black Lanterns. We're given a quick glimpse of Avernus, the hidden graveyard of the Rogues in Central City, where we see some mild graffiti adorning the grave of the Reverse-Flash. In Keystone City, Wally hears Barry's words and promptly kisses Linda goodbye, telling her to keep the TV and computers off, since he doesn't want Irey getting involved. At the Rogues' safehouse in Central City, Captain Cold, Weather Wizard, Heat Wave, Mirror Master and Trickster somehow hear Barry's words, as well. Captain Cold believes keeping his emotions in check won't be a problem for him.
As Barry runs, he reminisces on his own death and rebirth, accompanied by the ensuing fight with Eobard. This part gets a little awkward, since the conclusion of that fight has not yet been published. But Barry does note that Eobard's body is currently resting in a grave, while the Eobard he fought in Rebirth was from the future, saying he recently had a resurrection of his own. And now that Barry is witnessing fallen heroes and villains coming back to life, he wonders if this very event is what Eobard was mentioning.
Back in Avernus, we see Bart's half-brother, Owen, teaming up with Tar Pit to search for his father, the original Captain Boomerang. Owen actually put some thought into choosing Tar Pit as his companion. Owen knows the Black Lanterns are after people's hearts, and he knows that Tar Pit literally doesn't have a heart — he's just animated burning asphalt — so that should keep him safe. As they examine the torn-open graves of Avernus, they see one more Black Lantern ring fly down into the Reverse-Flash's grave, commanding Eobard Thawne of Earth to rise.
We then get our one and only glimpse of Bart in this issue, heading out with the Titans, asking his grandpa where they should go. Barry gives the vague answer of "wherever there's trouble," just like we saw in Blackest Night #4. But then we see some new things that happened between this moment and the end of that issue. Wally tries to tell Barry something about his old gorilla friend, Solovar, but Barry's suddenly approached by the zombie Eobard, who falsely proclaims himself the new Black Flash. Barry recognizes this isn't the real Eobard, just his animated corpse, and he manages to keep his emotions under control. Zombie Eobard lunges at Barry, but he dodges the attack at the last second, gets behind Eobard, and throws him up into the sky at super speed. Barry immediately takes off toward Gorilla City, estimating he'll be 500 miles away before Zombie Eobard hits the ground.
Barry is horrified to see ruin and destruction at Gorilla City, with dead apes lying in the streets. As he searches for the cause of this chaos, he stumbles across the odd cave paintings we saw during Rebirth. Barry recognizes this as basically a diagram of the Speed Force, and he begins to wonder how Gorilla City is connected to the Speed Force. For some reason, this thought fills Barry with hope, which then attracts the Zombie Solovar. Barry's hope is immediately replaced by rage when he sees what's become of his old friend.
The Rogues, meanwhile, learn of a bunch of Black Lanterns attacking Iron Heights Penitentiary. They document the return of the first Mirror Master, the first Trickster, the Top, Captain Boomerang and Golden Glider. Captain Cold says it's only a matter of time before those zombies start hunting them down, so he orders his team to take the fight directly to the Black Lanterns.
As Barry fights Zombie Solovar, he notices that the real Solovar is also fighting from the inside, begging Barry to help him. So Barry rips off Solovar's ring and rushes it far away from Gorilla City. But as he runs, the ring begins regenerating Solovar right there. Solovar again begs for help, but Barry sadly has to tell his friend he doesn't know how to. So Barry ditches Solovar and the ring, and heads back to the U.S., where he somehow learns that the Black Lantern power level has reached 100%. Barry finds himself in Coast City, and he calls Wally and Bart to him.
This wasn't a bad issue. I often have mixed feelings about these issues that take place in-between pages of another issue, as that potentially opens the door for a lot of continuity problems. But in this case, everything seems fine. The Flash is fast enough to have a couple of quick adventures on the side without disrupting anything else. Mostly, though, this issue was a nice way to catch up with the extended Flash family ... well, sort of. It's easy enough to show us what the Rogues are up to, but as for everyone else? Well, Geoff Johns is kind of stuck in limbo right now. Flash: Rebirth needs to end before any new stories can be told about Wally, Bart, Max and Jesse. But since Rebirth has been delayed yet again, Wally is confined to two quick panels, and Max and Jesse are not even mentioned. DC also couldn't even start a new monthly Flash series, all because of Rebirth. It's kind of amazing to see how large of an impact one man had on the entire company just because he couldn't keep his deadlines. Granted, part of the blame falls on the editors' heads. They should have demanded to bring in some additional artists to get the story out on time. Waiting for George Pérez is worth it. Waiting for Ethan Van Sciver is not.
We don't have any new ads with this issue, but we do have a new DC Nation page by Paul Levitz, talking about his upcoming run with the Legion of Super-Heroes.
Next time, we'll get one more quick cameo of Bart in Green Lantern #49.
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