THE FLASH #768 - Wally West Is On His Way Back

 This story was written by Jeremy Adams, with artwork from Darko Lafuente, Brandon Peterson, and Marco Santucci.

 

Since the beginning of the DC Rebirth initiative back in mid-2016, perhaps even for the five years prior to that with the New 52 as well, Wally West has been put through the absolute ringer. Whether that be just not appearing for half a decade with no explanation, being brought back and ignored, or going through a complete character assassination at the hands of Tom King, I would say that it is universally accepted that the handling of his character since his return has been less than satisfactory. To many, Wally West is their favourite Flash, having grown up with him post-Crisis, and reading his adventures for 25 years as the Fastest Man Alive, coming to love him and his supporting cast like they were close friends, who’s lives you were deeply invested in. Personally, Barry Allen is still my favourite Flash, purely because I wasn’t a big comic guy during Wally’s heyday, but having read some of the stories, I can most definitely see where the majority of people are coming from. The way that DC have treated this icon of their publications for the last decade plus is nigh-on unforgivable, and it has become difficult to believe it when they say that “good things are coming for Wally West”.

With that being said, this first instalment of Jeremy Adams’ run almost makes you want to believe DC’s words, with an incredible starting point for this new Wally-centric era for the title. Adams did an excellent job here of beginning Wally’s full-on redemption arc, bringing him back closer in resemblance to the character that everybody knows and loves, while also making sure not to neglect the very existence of Barry Allen, with the two characters perfectly co-existing within the same story. While the whole “character getting taken back by the Speed Force” concept has been seen more than enough times over the years, I feel that this story line is just about different enough to make it stand out from the pack, making it seem quite fun and interesting, with a great supporting cast of characters to go along with it. Wally’s adventures in prehistory and beyond have an incredibly zany feel to them, with Adams’ sense of humour being very clear throughout the entire story, such as with Wally remarking to Barry that he is “somewhere in the Jurassic Park era”, to which his mentor replies “the 90s?”. For me, this really helps to establish the age gap between the two of them, as while we have known it is there since the returns of both of the speedsters, due to some distinctly comic book circumstances (Barry’s fate in Crisis, Wally aging up for the main Flash role), the tow of them have often appeared to be the same age as one another, not leaving much space for age-appropriate humour (made even more confusing by Wally and Iris appearing the same age, despite being Aunt and Nephew, while Wallace is much younger than both of them). The weirdest part of this whole story, which is as of yet unexplained, is that Wally has clearly been transported to the Caveman Flash’s body, but the Caveman was not in Wally’s body in the present, with just Wally’s suit left behind unoccupied.

My absolute favourite part of this story was the way in which Adams explored the tumultuous relationship between Barry Allen, Wally West, and Oliver Queen. After the events of the past few years, especially with what happened to Roy Harper during “Heroes in Crisis” (an event I would prefer not to dwell on), I believe that Oliver is quite rightly beyond pissed off with Wally due to his role in all of that, with Barry’s stance and bias towards Wally not exactly helping matters get resolved. Towards the end of the story however, following Mr. Terrific having to break up an argument between Barry and Ollie, the Emerald Archer was finally convinced that rescuing Wally was the right course of action, as Barry was just doing exactly the same thing that Ollie would do to save Roy. Although I do think that the change happened a little bit too quickly for my tastes, it was a very logical progression for the character during this arc, showing Oliver to be someone who is willing to put the past (at least temporarily) behind him in order to somebody important to his friends.

Every single artist that worked on this story honestly deserves a massive raise, as it was some of the best Flash work that I have seen in the last five years. Sure, Rafa Sandoval is great and everything, and Howard Porter has his moments, but Lafuente, Peterson, and Santucci blew me away with their contrasting styles of art, that all somehow still meshed perfectly with one another seamlessly, with each one being perfect for the era that they were trying to represent (although I couldn’t tell you who was who, to be quite honest). My personal favourite would have to be the modern-day portions, with the Bart Allen future sequence at the end coming up as a close second. Obviously, I am not saying that the prehistoric segment didn’t look great, it was just not my favourite, despite also being incredible.

To conclude, from what I have said above, you can probably tell that I really enjoyed this issue. For the majority of the latter-stages of Joshua Williamson’s run on the title, I had grown a little bit jaded with The Flash, dipping in and out for long periods, not enjoying most of the stories that were being put out. Hopefully, this run from Jeremy Adams can be the one to reel me back into the world of the Fastest Man Alive, going on to be a much more enjoyable experience than the last five years have been, but I guess we will just have to wait and see on that front. 

 

This issue of The Flash will be recieving a "B+" grade, according to my grading criteria.