With Barry Allen off to explore the Omniverse, it’s time for another speedster to take his place on Earth Prime. Unfortunately, Wally West doesn’t want anything to do with speedstering ever again – though it looks like the Speed Force has other plans for Wally, hurtling him through the consciousnesses of speedsters through time. Written by Jeremy Adams, with Brandon Peterson, Marco Santucci and David Lafuente on art, Mike Atiyeh, Arif Prianot and Luis Guerrero on colors, and Steve Wands on lettering.
I feel bait and switched.
DC’s Infinite Frontier has promised bold new directions for its entire line, shaking things up with a few new #1s here, a few costume redesigns there, and in the case of The Flash, a promise to return Wally West to his former glory by having him take up the mantle of Earth Prime’s main Flash. Shoo, Barry Allen, away with ye to omnidimensional shenanigans, and find some other universe’s timeline to ruin. Perhaps, I hoped, The Flash could become something a little bit more than the mediocre, sci-fi fueled guilt trips for Barry that it’s been for the past few years.
But no, The Flash #768 was still disappointingly a Barry Allen title – and I did not enjoy what little they did do with Wally West, either.
We start the issue with a quick recap of Wally West’s life up to this point, from Kid Flash, to family man, to accidental mass killer to almost-but-not-quite universe shaping omniscient god. Wally’s had it rough ever since Barry’s return – DC Comics haven’t really had much of an idea for what to do with him since, and what they have done has been…regrettable, to say the least. One could forgive Wally for wanting to retire for a bit.
Barry sure doesn’t, if that strange, out of place snarl on the very next page is anything to go by. This is as good a place as any to talk about the art. There are three artists on this issue, seemingly one for each era of time we find ourselves in.
Brandon Peterson’s for the present is distractingly, and inconsistently, silly. A shot of the Justice League includes the aforementioned snarling Barry, a shocked Superman with kicked-puppy eyes and Batman who looks like he’s trying to figure out the best time to slip in an Adam West-style batpun into the conversation – and none of it seems to match the writing itself. It’s art that would work much better in some sort of parody, and doesn’t work with writing that’s trying to play it straight.
The art improves greatly once we move to the past, with Caveman Wally. Expressions look human again, the art’s softer, and there’s adventure in the air. The prehistoric jungle is beautiful, the best part of the issue. I’m not sure how I feel about the simpler, more cartoonish art that sets the tone for the future, but that’s something for me to make my mind up on next issue.
Despite multiple attempts at a redemption arc since Heroes in Crisis, Wally has decided it’s time to leave his life as a Flash behind forever, asking Barry to cut him off from the Speed Force in one last run. The Speed Force, however, appears to have other plans, sending Wally back to the past, into the mind of a previously unknown prehistoric speedster.
As Barry, Mister Terrific and a Green Arrow still embittered over Roy Harper’s death try to bring Wally back, the Speed Force reacts…violently, implying that it, and not a meteor, wiped out the dinosaurs. From there, Wally finds himself in the body of Impulse, in the far future, one with a giant Dominator and the sudden appearance of Gold Beetle.
In theory, this could have been a fun comic. A madcap jaunt through DC’s unique and strange timeline is peak Flash. It’s just that most of this issue’s space is taken up treading ground it doesn’t need to. We don’t need to see more of Barry’s guilt. We don’t need to see Wally West overcoming his confidence issues in taking up the mantle of the Flash – we’ve seen this done in other comics, and we’ve seen it done better. What’s more, it takes away from the parts of the issue that actually could have been fun. It’s not enough to have a superspeed Velociraptor in a comic – you need to do something with it instead of just throwing it in there like the issue was mad-libbed.
As an added disappointment, I’ve never enjoyed the idea of the Speed Force as a semi-sentient entity trying to right the wrongs of the cosmos, but your mileage may vary on that.
I’ve just been waiting for a good Wally West story for what feels like a very long time, now. As long as Barry is around, however, and as long as Wally’s Heroes in Crisis actions still hang over him, however, it looks like I’m going to have to keep waiting for a while yet.
Armaan is obsessed with the way stories are told. From video games to theater, TTRPGs to comics, he has written for, and about, them all. He will not stop, actually; believe us, we've tried.
