The Flash: Rebirth #5

Mother, May I

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

Our main cover is a rather dark take on the famous cover of The Flash #123 by Carmine Infantino. But this time, the Reverse-Flash has knocked down Jay Garrick and is attacking Barry Allen, causing the girder to fall on and kill that random construction worker. Part of me wants to laugh, but part of me is pretty disgusted. Geoff Johns sometimes gets a bit too macabre for me, and between this and Blackest Night, I'm getting a little tired of it.

Our variant proudly features Bart Allen and Max Mercury. I wish I could love this cover. But those little flaws in Van Sciver's work keep me back. Their limbs look either too long or too short. And they both look incredibly stiff and rather sinister. Why is there no joy on their faces? Bart and Max love each other and they've finally been reunited after spending years apart — it's OK to smile!

Our story picks up with Barry, Wally, Jay, Bart and Max confronting Eobard in Central City. Wally and Bart grab Eobard's arms, and Wally asks Barry if he remembers the Number One rule he taught him. Bart jokes that the rule is to never run in shoes with laces — something he learned the hard way. Barry continues the joke, saying that's actually the Number Four rule, which he learned from Jay. Jay then says the Number One rule is when you fight, you need to do more than run. He then throws his helmet at Eobard and strikes it at super speed, creating a sonic boom. Bart and Wally quickly let go and outrun the sound waves, which send Eobard flying through a Welcome to Central City sign.

As Bart and Max race toward Eobard, they begin to catch up a little. Bart tells Max that he read the entire San Francisco Library in five minutes, and unlike other speedsters, he actually remembers it all. Max asks Bart what his favorite book was, but Bart says, "Well, none was my favorite." Unfortunately, Eobard is able to get back on his feet before Bart and Max reach him, and he prepares to snap his fingers, saying he learned this trick from a friend of Wally's. Bart realizes this is Zolomon's signature move, but he doesn't have time to explain that to Max before Eobard hits them with his super-speed snap.

Meanwhile, in Wally's house, Jai and Irey are struggling with the aftermaths of Eobard's meddling. Both are suffering from painful lightning, but Jai seems to be affected by it more, stuck stuttering at super speed. Irey is able to think clearly, though, and she realizes the two of them have been fighting over the same connection to the Speed Force since birth, and that if they keep fighting, it'll only keep hurting them. So Irey grabs hold of Jai and somehow manages to draw all the lightning off him and onto herself. However, Irey screams out in pain and promptly collapses. Jai and Linda are both in tears, wondering what happened, when Jesse Quick suddenly shows up. Jesse says she felt her father's presence and his voice, explaining that Irey is now a full-fledged speedster. Jesse repeats her father's speed formula and shoots out a tiny spark from her finger to revive Irey.

We return to our fight, where Eobard has regained the upper hand, mainly by threatening innocent bystanders. He creates wind vortexes to toss moving cars at Bart, telling him to play catch. Max advises Bart to pull the people out of the cars, and Bart says he's already ahead of Max. Jay tries to throw his helmet at Eobard again, but he catches it this time, saying both the helmet and Jay belong in a museum.

Suddenly, Jesse and Irey join the fight, saying the Speed Force needs more girl power. Irey gives Jay his helmet back and ignores her dad to run right up to Bart, who can only awkwardly say, "Uh ... hey?" Bart then promptly turns to Max, asking if there's any way to slow Eobard down. Max says that Eobard is creating a Negative Speed Force with each step he takes, so they need to somehow cut him off from that. Eobard overhears this, and tells Max that he can't risk running too fast because he doesn't have a lightning rod to ground him. Wally then gathers everyone together, and since half our heroes' suits are pretty torn and beat up now, Wally uses the Speed Force to give everyone a new suit of their own choosing.

But the only people who chose a new suit were Jesse (finally ditching her Liberty Belle costume), Wally (now no longer an identical clone of Barry) and Irey (who is following the footsteps of her hero, Bart). Irey introduces herself as Impulse, which causes both Bart and Wally to raise an eyebrow, so she quickly qualifies herself as the new Impulse.

The fight continues, but this time, Eobard starts dropping some valuable information. He points out that Jay and his wife, Joan, are both nearly 100 years old, but almost look 50 years younger than they should. He says Bart has been aged up and down so many times, he shouldn't have survived the process. Eobard mentions Wally's twins' rapid aging, and the mysterious fact that Barry's wife, Iris, somehow looks the same age she did back when Barry left her all those years ago. Eobard explains that one of the great secrets of the Speed Force is youth.

Eobard then pulls Barry aside and explains that he's been going back in time and messing with Barry as a child. Breaking his arm, killing his dog, burning down his house. And then the big one — killing his mom and framing his dad. Eobard now says he's going to go back in time and kill Iris right before she went on her first date with Barry.




This was a fairly significant issue. It could have been monumental, but DC chose to largely ignore the idea of this expanded Flash family. As fun as it was to see Bart interact with a "little sister" who's obsessed with him, we really won't see Irey do anything as Impulse after this. Nor will Max make much of an impact before being erased in 2011's Flashpoint. But the main takeaway here is the idea that Eobard killed Barry's mom. It's truly a frightening concept to know that a future villain of yours is responsible for the greatest tragedies of your life. And 10 years later, that is really the only lasting element from this story.

Like I said, I was really looking forward to the Bart-Irey relationship. He's never really interacted with anyone younger than him, so this would have been a fun, new environment for him — making him be annoyed by an impulsive little kid for once. It's also worth noting that Irey is the second girl to  become a superhero because of her obsession with Bart. The first was the tragic Trajectory, killed by Lex Luthor during 52. Anyway, I also liked seeing Bart interact with Max again, essentially showing off how he's finally internalized all the lessons Max tried to teach him way back when. I do think it's odd that Bart had to tell Max about him reading the library, though. Didn't Bart tell that to Max when they were trapped in the Speed Force together, imprisoning Superboy-Prime? This just goes back to one of my biggest complaints of this Geoff Johns era: We never got a clear idea of what Bart, Wally and family actually did in the Speed Force during Infinite Crisis.

Next time, we'll return to Blackest Night #5.