Flashpoint: Kid Flash Lost #3

Kid Flash Lost Part Three

Sterling Gates Writer
Oliver Nome Penciller
Scott Kolins Art pgs. 10, 11, 16, 17, 19
Trevor Scott Inker
Brian Buccellato Colorist
Dezi Sienty Letterer
JJ Kirby Special Thanks
Kate Stewart Assistant Editor
Joey Cavalieri Editor
Cover by Francis Manapul
Cover Color by Brian Buccellato

Our third and final cover of this miniseries shows the near completion of Bart's fall onto a futuristic city below him. As always, it looks neat enough, but it still has absolutely nothing to do with our story. And it's really frustrating, you know? This is the last, grand hurrah of this version of Bart Allen, and an incredible artist was chosen to draw these covers, and all we got was three different angles of Bart falling on some random futuristic city that isn't even in the story! Bart deserved better than this.

Our story begins at Fort Mockingbird, Texas, in 1889. In the midst of a lightning storm, a couple of soldiers are nervously preparing for an upcoming battle. But their spirits are lifted by the arrival of Maxwell Crandall, the Windrunner. As Max speaks with the captain about how he can help keep peace in this part of the world, a soldier cries out in fear at the sight of something big and bright in the west. So Max rushes off to check out it, fearlessly running toward a bright, yellow ball of energy surrounded by lightning.

To Max's astonishment, an injured Bart Allen emerges from the lightning, wearing a black costume. Bart instantly recognizes his former mentor, but warns him to stay away. But this Max is a young man with long, flowing hair, and he hasn't met Bart yet, so he's naturally curious about this whole situation. Bart again warns Max to stay back, and explains that the Speed Force brought him to Max in his early days, before he was thrown through time. Bart ominously says the Black Flash, the embodiment of death for speedsters, is somehow inside him. As he begins talking about his need to find Barry, Max grabs hold of the rambling teen's wrist, warning him that a battle is less than two hours away. As soon as Max touches Bart, he screams out in pain and is electrocuted until he's reduced to a smoking skeleton. And Bart is ripped back into the Speed Force, feeling like a murderer that's falling through time and dying, himself.

As Bart hurtles through time, he sees images of Barry regaining his powers in the Flashpoint world and working with that version of Batman. But then images from Bart's own world start to leak through. He sees himself growing up in his virtual reality, then his first meeting with Wally West, where Bart greeted him with a bunch of punches to the face. This reminds him of the time he died and saw his life flash before his eyes. But then Bart sees strange images of bizarre worlds he doesn't think ever existed, where Superman and Batman have two heads each. Just as he begins to wonder if this is real life, Bart stops falling through the Speed Force and lands in a darkened laboratory.

Bart theorizes that the Speed Force has sent him to someone else it's touched, in order to prepare for something. Sure enough, he immediately stumbles upon a young Jay Garrick, lying unconscious on the ground amid some spilled chemicals emitting noxious fumes. Against his better judgment, Bart tries to help Jay up, but as soon as he touches him, he feels Speed Force energy flow from Jay to him. As he's ripped into the Speed Force once again, Bart compares it to a vampire, using him to drain energy from each person it touched.

Our hero is once again subjected to images of his past life — forming Young Justice with Superboy and Robin, hanging out with the Legion of Super-Heroes and his cousin Jenni, kissing his first girlfriend, Carol, and giving his mom a hug. But the images once again become confused, as he sees the normal Captain Marvel transformed into his Flashpoint counterpart. Suddenly, he's dropped out of the Speed Force and into a cemetery.

Bart's grandmother, Iris, and a man named John are visiting the grave of Wallace Rudolph West. Bart screams out in anguish when he realizes it's Wally's grave, and weakly moans that this is too much. John tries to pull Iris away from the strange teenager that fell out of the sky, but Iris insists on staying to find out what this is. Without offering any explanation, Bart demands to know what happened to Wally in this world, admitting aloud that Wally was a huge part of his life. Iris is bewildered by all this, but she does manage to tell Bart that Wally died while trying to protect people from Citizen Cold. Bart says this is all wrong and he shouts at Iris and John to get away from here.

Once the others are gone, Bart can feel the Speed Force start to pull him away, but this time, he's ready. He says he's done being the Speed Force's "garbage boy," and begins his attempt to outrace the Speed Force to Barry Allen. Which is exactly what he tried to do after his adventure with Patty Spivot, but then he started to get bounced around through time. But as he runs this time, he sheds the Black Flash costume and thinks he's beginning to understand the purpose behind all this.

Before long, Bart catches up to his grandpa, who is currently running back in time to try to undo the horrors of the Flashpoint world. As Bart closes in on Barry, images of Barry's life passes by him — from Barry's birth, to him acquiring his powers, joining the Justice League, fighting the Reverse-Flash, sacrificing himself against the Anti-Monitor and coming back to life during Final Crisis. Bart finally manages to touch Barry, but when he does, he falls into one of the flashbacks — Barry and Iris lying in bed, discussing Barry's strained relationship with Bart.

Suddenly, Barry pulls Bart out of that memory, telling his grandson that he does care about him. He asks Bart how he's here, but Bart says he doesn't have time to explain, beyond the fact that he finally realizes what he was meant to do. He tells his grandpa that he doesn't have enough speed to undo this weird reality, so the Speed Force sent Bart around to collect more energy to give it all to Barry. Bart realizes that the Speed Force encased him in Black Flash armor to protect him on that journey, but now that he's ready to transfer that energy, Bart becomes the living embodiment of the energy of the Speed Force — the very rare White Flash.

But Bart only gets to enjoy his fancy new white uniform for half a second before he withers away just like his grandpa did in Crisis on Infinite Earths. But even though Bart's body is gone, he's still able to communicate with Barry, telling him he now has the energy he needs to save the world. Barry runs off, leaving behind Bart's white costume, floating in the Speed Force. We get a closeup of Bart's ring and can see Bart's smiling face inside the lightning bolt. Even though he's now part of the Speed Force, Bart has no regrets. He reasons that because he "lost" this race to the Flash, an entire universe will now live. And with our final image of this continuity, we see Barry continue to boldly run forward, boosted by the energy of Jenni, Jay, Irey, Jesse, Wally, Max, and, of course, Bart.




I wish this whole series could have been like this — a loving tribute to Bart Allen and the Flash family. Instead of wasting all that time with Patty Spivot, we could have been visiting all the different speedsters and exploring critical moments of their lives. What we did get in this issue was sweet and touching — if a bit inconsistent. I don't understand why Bart had to kill Max, but not Jay or Wally. The Wally visit actually was the most confusing, since Wally didn't have super speed in the Flashpoint world and was already dead by the time Bart got to him. And I got quite tired of Gates portraying Bart's greatest anxiety as his relationship with his grandfather. Seriously, Bart and Barry are fine, even if they're not best buds. We didn't need one last "touching" reminder that Bart does matter to Barry.

But it was great to see Max in his prime, even if it was just for a couple of pages. And even more importantly, we got to see Bart selflessly sacrifice himself again to save the universe. That's what he did when he shoved Superboy-Prime into the Speed Force. That's what he (sort of) did when he took on Inertia and the Rogues. And that's what he did here. We won't worry about how well this story connects with the main Flashpoint series (it doesn't), and will instead celebrate the fact that Bart got to go out a hero. Most DC characters simply vanished away without a trace with Flashpoint, while others were written off in rather lame miniseries (like poor Wally). But Bart was allowed to perform something meaningful and be granted a way to come back. Just like how his "essence" was protected inside Brainiac 5's lightning rod, Bart is still alive — in a manner of speaking — inside his ring. And he will come back ... about seven years later. Which means this blog is now going to spend a considerable amount of time following the adventures of alternate versions of Bart.

Next time, we will begin the New 52 with Teen Titans #1.