The Flash #796

The One-Minute War – Finale: One More Minute

Script: Jeremy Adams

Pencils: Roger Cruz, George Kambadais & Fernando Pasarin

Inks: Wellington Dias, George Kambadais & Oclair Albert

Colors: Luis Guerrero, Matt Herms & Pete Pantazis

Letters: Rob Leigh

Cover: Taurin Clarke

Variant Covers: Daniele Di Nicuolo, Yasmin Flore Montañez, Lee Garrett, & Taurin Clarke

Editor: Chris Rosa

Group Editor: Paul Kaminski

Our cover puts Jay Garrick front and center, leading the final charge against the Fraction. That would have been a neat story, but that’s not what happened in this issue. That said, I don’t mind this cover too much, even if Taurin Clarke has no idea how to draw torn clothing. I am a little baffled, though, as to why Clarke didn’t just include the last two speedsters in this group — Max and Irey. I guess I should be grateful Impulse made it — he really looks like a last-minute addition. And, no, Bart does not go joy-riding on a Fraction vehicle in this issue, either, even though that would have been a good story, too. Wait … is Taurin Clarke a better storyteller than Jeremy Adams? I mean, it makes much more sense to keep Jesse Quick in her traditional outfit rather than arbitrarily make her Liberty Belle. And it’s only natural for the actual World War II veteran to be the leader in this war. Just something to think about.

We pick up right where we left off, with Gold Beetle conveniently explaining everything to Wally. Apparently when Wally was supercharged with Speed Force energy by the Fraction, the Speed Force’s defensive mechanism kicked in and sent him outside of space and time, which is an area this team has dubbed Planet Flash. Gold Beetle also reveals that way back when Wally was trapped in Bart’s body and he whispered something mysterious to her, he was actually giving her detailed instructions on how to save everyone he accidentally killed during Heroes in Crisis. 

Using 35th-century cloning technology, Gold Beetle created duplicates of all of Wally’s victims — except for Roy Harper, as he had previously already been saved by something or somebody else. Gold Beetle replaced all the potential victims with their clones, which Wally killed, while she took them all to Planet Flash to wait for Wally and help him defeat the Fraction. Gold Beetle also visited the future to work with a grown-up Jai on some Speed Force conduits for her army. Unfortunately, these harnesses will only work for one minute, so they hope they can use that limited time wisely in creating a large enough distraction for the Flash family.

And … yeah. They do just that. The sudden arrival of Wally and his misfits enables the rest of the Flash family to sneak into the core of the Spire. Max delivers one final speech of encouragement, telling everyone that they were all meant to be right here right now to save the world — why he was unable to ascend to the Speed Force, why Jay has lived so long, why the still unnamed boy was rescued, and why Bart randomly came back in time. They all begin racing around the core to supercharge it, while Wally battles the Admiral.

Turns out the Admiral is an “organic conduit,” too, thanks to the experiments of the Fraction way back when. This only matters because it enables Wally to give him what I call the Inertia Treatment. He shoves the Admiral in a big battery — like the one our nameless boy was in — and explains that once the Spire is supercharged, everything will be reset to like it was before, except for natural speedsters. This means that when the Fraction returns to space, the Admiral will still be stuck inside the battery. And for some reason, Wally assumes the Fraction won’t think to check on that battery for the next thousand years, thereby condemning this man to a fate almost as bad as poor Inertia’s. Seems like a rather extreme punishment for a guy that didn’t seem that much worse than his fellow Fraction soldiers.

Anyway, time resets to one minute ago, and the Fraction is approaching Earth. From their perspective, the Admiral has suddenly vanished. Bizarrely believing this to be some sort of planetary defense mechanism, the Fraction decides to change course and not return to Earth until they find the Admiral.

The Flash family suddenly find themselves standing in the middle of a bridge, signifying that everything is back to normal. Barry races back to his date with Iris, telling her he wants to grow old and have kids with her (but he doesn’t actually say the word “marriage”). Gold Beetle takes her misfits back to their own timelines, including the nameless boy, who finally reveals his name: Wade. He said his parents named him after a cool relative, and Linda says Wally also has an uncle named Wade, which was news to me. Our story then ends with everyone else crashing the West family barbecue.

Epilogue.

Max watches the sun set over the desert, preparing to make one more attempt. Suddenly, he’s joined by Bart, who said he’d figured with the war over, Max would try to “cross over … or go forward … or whatever.” Max admits this to be true, so Bart says, “Great. Let’s go.” When Max protests, Bart says, “We’re family. Where you go, I go. Come on, let’s see what’s next. It should be fun.” Max concedes, and the two of them race off into the sunset.

I’ll admit I got a little choked up at that end. Partly because of the pitch-perfect sentimentality between Bart and Max. But mostly because this feels like the last we’ll see of Impulse for a long, long time. DC clearly has no plans for Bart. Young Justice won’t be revived — as a comic or TV show — anytime soon. Tim and Kon each got their own solo series again, but not Bart. He is being shelved indefinitely. But the good part is this time he wasn’t unceremoniously forgotten. Racing off into the sunset alongside Max is a truly fitting sendoff. As were his final words. A really bittersweet moment for me.

In other news, it looks like DC has finally, completely and thoroughly erased all the harm done by Heroes in Crisis. All thanks to little miss Deus Ex Machina, aka Gold Beetle. Look, I get it. Everybody hated that story. Tom King had an idea, but editorial got in the way and everything fell apart. But I hate the idea of undoing unpleasant stories by simply waving a magic wand and fixing everything off panel. Joshua Williamson’s retcon was sloppy, but this feels even worse. And was this even the right time to do this? I thought this was supposed to be the One-Minute War, showcasing the might of our 10 separate speedsters! Why cut into that limited space with several pages of Gold Beetle delivering exposition? Maybe it was because Adams found out he’s being kicked off the book after issue #800, so he had to cram in every last idea before the end.

In the end, I was not pleased with the conclusion of this story. Mostly because our heroes didn’t actually save the day. They just redirected a nearly unstoppable army toward another innocent planet. How come no one thought about that? It seems to me the obvious thing to do would have been to sever the Fraction’s connection to the Speed Force, rather than merely send them back in time. Don’t tell me that Jeremy Adams wants the Fraction to reappear in future comics. Ugh.

I’m also annoyed that it took us so long to learn that random boy was named after Mark Waid, just like Bart’s old movie-making friend, Wade, and, apparently, a random uncle of Wally’s. Yes, there’s no disputing that Waid is the greatest Flash writer of all time, and he definitely deserves every shoutout he can get, but can we please honor him in a less clumsy way?

Speaking of Mark Waid, he is back at DC now and might be able to revive Impulse. If he wanted to. Or, of course, the new Flash creative team after Adams leaves. But truthfully, there just isn’t room for Bart in DC anymore. And this story demonstrated that. As fun as it was having Bart mess around with Ace, there wasn’t anything he did that Ace couldn’t have done by himself. So they might as well just stash Bart away until something drastic changes. 

I just can’t shake this sinking feeling in my gut that this was the last meaningful Impulse story we’ll get for a long, long time. I genuinely don’t know when my next review will be on this blog. Maybe the CW Flash will trot Impulse out one last time for the series finale. Maybe he’ll make an unexpected cameo in one of his friends’ books. So until then, I’ll leave you with Bart’s final words:

“Let’s see what’s next. It should be fun.”