Flashpoint: Kid Flash Lost #1

Kid Flash Lost, Part One

Sterling Gates – Writer
Oliver Nome – Penciller
Trevor Scott – Inker
Brian Buccellato – Colorist
Dezi Sienty – Letterer
Kate Stewart – Assistant Editor
Joey Cavalieri – Editor
Cover by Francis Manapul
Cover Color by Brian Buccellato

Our cover shows Bart horrifyingly falling from a lightning bolt in the sky onto a city far below him. This really doesn't have anything to do with the following three-issue story, but it is a neat image. Manapul joyfully gives Bart long, flowing hair, and Buccellato is careful to remember that Bart's hair is brown, not red.

This is Bart's first solo series since The Fastest Man Alive, and as such, we're treated to an introduction box of sorts: "Grandson of the Flash, Bart Allen was born in the distant future and raised in a virtual reality environment. After he began aging at a hyper-accelerated rate, he was brought back to our time, where the combined efforts of this era's speedsters stabilized his metabolism. The impulsive young man has since learned to tap into the Speed Force, and has grown into the role of the fastest teen alive, Kid Flash." Got all that? Good. Because Bart's only going to be around for a few more issues.

Our story begins in Central City, with a police car chasing after Hot Pursuit. The cops follow the motorcycle into a dead end, but Hot Pursuit shocks them by driving up the side of a building to make a rooftop escape. Once Hot Pursuit comes to a stop, the Cosmic Motorcycle gives a warning: "Timestorm imminent. Activating emergency chronal-evac." The motorcycle erupts in an explosion of yellow lightning, and Hot Pursuit disappears with it. We then cut to Bart chasing Barry down the street.

Barry is being particularly rude to Bart, and isn't making much sense by saying that he's given his grandson "chance after chance" and all he's done is screw them up. Bart points out that his grandfather has mostly avoided him ever since he came back to life, so he momentarily stops the Flash with a cage of rebar to demand why Barry won't let him help. Barry easily vibrates out of the rebar and says that Wally West was a better Kid Flash than Bart will ever be because he could at least keep up.

As Barry takes off once again, Bart starts to notice some inconsistencies with his environment. Standing at the corner of Broome and Fox (named for classic Flash creators John Broome and Gardner Fox), Bart notices a signpost that should be on Waid Avenue (named for Impulse creator Mark Waid). Other buildings are the wrong color, or have the wrong style of bricks, leading Bart to believe he's in a slightly "wrong" version of Central City, perhaps a copy created by Mirror Master. Barry quickly returns to mock Bart's theory and call him crazy, but Bart ignores him, noting that he's also running way too smoothly. When Deathstroke blew out his kneecap, Bart had an artificial knee installed, which mostly does the job, but gives him a slight limp when he runs at top speeds.

When Bart makes this realization, we see that he's actually hooked up to a virtual reality program. A nearby monitor identifies him as "Time Anomaly #2" and says it's attempting to compensate for Bart's efforts to unlock the program. Back in the program, Bart tells the fake Barry that he didn't dig deep enough into his memories to learn about his fake knee. He also proclaims that his real grandpa would never be this mean to him (which I'm not so sure is entirely true), and he attacks the fake Flash.

This jolts Bart awake, and he unhooks himself from all the wires, including one gross one that went down his mouth. Bart correctly assumes he's trapped in some super villain lair, but he doesn't know who's behind this. He decides to conduct a quick search of the area, but immediately discovers he's lost his connection to the Speed Force. Bart's suddenly attacked by a couple of large robots, but he manages to instinctively dodge their assault. As he runs for cover, he jokingly asks if they'd rather play some video games. The robots don't respond, and as Bart looks for a place to hide, the robots' laser accidentally break open another pink chamber, and out of it falls Hot Pursuit's Cosmic Motorcycle, condensed to its police baton form.

Before Bart can recover the device, a very large and grotesque version of Brainiac appears. He orders his robots to not damage his "specimen," and tells Bart to return to his sleep chamber. Bart tries to escape Brainiac, but discovers he's just too slow right now. Brainiac grabs Bart by the neck and angrily says he didn't fish him out of the time stream to chase him around his planet, and that he plans to find a way to pull the chronal energy from his cells. Brainiac's suddenly interrupted by a blast of lightning from the Cosmic Motorcycle.

Brainiac drops Bart, and the baton flies straight into the hands of Hot Pursuit, giving us our first clear look at the hero we thought was dead. Turns out this is someone different — a woman wearing Hot Pursuit's old outfit. The female Hot Pursuit turns the baton back into a motorcycle, has Bart hop on behind her, and quickly takes off before Brainiac can get back on his feet. And Bart admits aloud that he always wanted to ride the cycle, believing it to be "so cool."

Once our heroes get some distance between them and Brainiac, Hot Pursuit surprises Bart by coming to a sudden stop. She explains that the bike's Speed Force tank is missing, which limits its long-distance travel. Bart asks what Hot Pursuit thinks Brainiac meant we said they wouldn't be able to escape the planet, then he gets his first look at the outside world and says, "... oh, grife." The entire city of Metropolis (and presumably the entire world) is covered in Brainiac's tech, with tons of pink bubbles holding naked people prisoner. Bart says it looks like a movie he once watched with Conner — a movie that neither of them liked.

Hot Pursuit says she thinks she caused this, saying something happened with the bike, so she pushed a button and then woke up in this reality. Bart grabs Hot Pursuit's arms and demands she take them back. He also finally questions who she is, noting how the original Hot Pursuit died. So she takes off her helmet, revealing herself to be Patty Spivot. Bart recognizes her as the woman the Reverse-Flash was going after, and Patty explains that she decided to stick around Central City for a bit to help clean up the mess Thawne made and then she decided to do something bigger with her life. Patty says she doesn't know how they got here, but according to Hot Pursuit's helmet, they're in the year 3011, during the fifth century of Brainiac's occupation of Earth.

Bart suddenly experiences painful cramps and collapses. As he struggles back to his feet, he says this can't be 3011, since he was born in the 31st century and knows it wasn't like this. But then he realizes that something must have changed in the timeline, and, since he's locked out of the Speed Force, nothing's protecting him in this new timeline. He speculates that the chambers they were in actually were keeping them safe while Brainiac studied them. Bart tells Patty they need to find the Cosmic Motorcycle's Speed Force tank and use it to travel back in time because he can feel that they're not supposed to be here. To illustrate his point, he pulls off his glove, revealing his hand to be almost translucent and skeletal, just like in another movie he saw with Cassie. Bart ominously says that if he doesn't get hit with some Speed Force lightning, then he's history.




So here it is, the beginning of the end for Bart Allen. I'm glad he's getting a proper, action-packed sendoff. Forced to fight his way out of a dystopian future without his powers. Doesn't get more intense than that. Of course, things are a bit random here, notably the choice of Patty Spivot. Yes, Bart definitely should have a sidekick of sorts for this adventure, but I wish it was someone with stronger connections to Bart. It could be any of the Teen Titans, any member of the Flash family, or even (and it pains me to say this) his old girlfriend Val. Patty will play a bigger role in the New 52, but as Barry's girlfriend. So it's very weird to see her running around with Bart in his last days.

Oliver Nome is not the best artist, but he's not too bad, either. I wish he drew Bart's hair longer, and I wish he'd be able to decide what shape Bart's nose is. But at least we have Brian Buccellato making sure Bart is not a freckled red-head. And really, this is a good-looking comic overall. Brainiac is big, intimidating and gross (intentionally, I believe). And Nome did do a good job of hiding Hot Pursuit's body until the big reveal later on. So all in all, I'll say this was a decent start to this series. It's a bit sad that we're watching Bart literally fade away before our eyes, but I guess that's better than simply being forgotten about.

Next time, we'll finally wrap up our Ramayana retelling with Teen Titans #97.