There are 15 stories in this 12 issue series, and to me they are pretty evenly distributed in terms of quality. The good, the bad and the meh.

I first started to read each issue every week, then stopped at issue 6. Once the last issue shipped, I read them all by story, instead of by issue.

Here are the ones I liked:

- Batman: the creators of 100 Bullets can do no wrong, so this crime story delivered. Bruce was surprisingly very involved in this story, which makes the ending even better. I hated that the first panel was wasted on the title of the anthology. Did we really need that? It’s already on the cover!!

- Kamandi: I am not familiar with either Kamandi or Prince Valiant (the strip that inspired this story’s style), but I was very interested in this epic adventure. Tiger, Gorillas, Lions tribes battling for supremacy in a post apocalyptic world. Kamandi is the last man on Earth, or so it appears. There’s action, tragedy and even hope at the end. Plus Ryan Sook’s art is gorgeous.

- Strange Adventures: Adam Strange is reinvented by Paul Pope here, so that there’s a central theme of duality between Strange on Earth and on Rann. Alanna makes for a good female co-star, which is why I think this strip was not just called Adam Strange. I like Gorgo’s final fate on Earth. The art is very inventive, especially the way the villains are drawn.

- Flash: this strip does a great job with the layout of such a large page. It starts with 2 different stories splitting the page in half. Two stories that differ in style and theme. As the story goes on, the strips start to meld together, but there is always something new and surprising. The story is just an all out time travel fun, something that doesn’t need to be explained, it’s just fun.

- Hawkman: there’s not much to this story other than big action scenes with many different subjects. I like that this is on such a big scale that the whole JLA is involved. First we get a hijacked plane. Then Hawkman fights big aliens. Then they end up on Dinosaur Island. Finally Hawkman is helped by Aquaman. Just well done big action scenes.

Here are the stories that I didn’t like.

- Superman: it’s a pity that this strip was chosen to represent the series in papers. Superman comes off as a whiny bitch, and we see all the cliché scene you’d expect from a Superman story: Superman wonders about his identity, he goes to the barn that shines a white light. Of course there is a reason for his whiny behavior, but it doesn’t matter because it’s predictable and unpleasant. I also didn’t like the coloring, which ruined the usually good art by Bermejo.

- Titans: all other stories are new reader-friendly, except for this one. Without knowledge of the Titans history, I couldn’t enjoy the “clever” twist of the identity of the villain. Even before that, the story relied too much on the characters’ past. The art is a generic animation style, that just doesn’t mesh well with the other stories. The storytelling is also not very good, it all feels more like a series of pin-ups.

- Sgt Rock: Joe Kubert is a legend, but I don’t think he succeeds here. He doesn’t take advantage of the bigger page size, so even though his art looks good, I wasn’t excited. The story is the biggest problem here though. Nothing much happens, for 6 pages Rock is interrogated. For the rest there’s just a long fight. I admit I’ve never read Sgt Rock before, so that might be why I didn’t like this at all.

- Demon and Catwoman: this is another strip that totally failed to interest me. First of all the pairing of these characters is an odd choice that doesn’t work at all. My dislike of Demon and his speech doesn’t help matters. The plot is very simple and boring. The art is not bad, but compared to the rest of the stories, it pales.

- Wonder Woman: I admit Caldwell’s ambition and experimentation. He really tried to use the format in a different way. Unfortunately it just doesn’t work for me at all. Both the art and the words are barely readable, add to that a confusing story and it’s clear this was a failure.

The rest of the bunch are just ok.

- Green Lantern: the story is just bland, nothing too exciting. At first I didn’t like the art, but I must say it grew on me. Not bad, but I expected more from Busiek.

- Deadman: interesting art and layouts, it certainly tries to utilize all that space in a different way. I wasn’t wowed by the story, but I liked the twist ending.

- Metamorpho: I like the layouts, Allred tried different things in different pages. Though some of them didn’t work as a weekly page. The story was very uneven, some pages are exciting, others just don’t work. The pages with the elements table were cute in concept, but in practice it was boring. And we certainly didn’t need two of those.

- Supergirl: this is “cute” story with some clean and exciting art from Conner. That being said, it was a little too “kiddie” for me. I did like the Aquaman cameo, that was really funny. At the end we actually get a satisfying explanation about all the craziness.

- Metal Men: this started as a funny action story, which I actually didn’t find that funny. However I was surprised by the ending, which took a tragic turn. I understand that’s typical of Metal Men story, but I’m not familiar with their comics. The art though is classic superhero fun.

There are a few different stories in this series, the main one is about Conner. He’s trying to find his identity after his resurrection, since his DNA is half from Superman and half from Lex Luthor. This is mainly a character piece, not only about Conner himself, but also about his relationships with other characters (Robin and Wonder Girl). It’s all about who he wants to be, and by the end it’s clear that he’s his own person. There’s a subplot about Luthor and his niece, which really shows how evil/twisted Luthor is, I was surprised by that subplot. The art by Manipul is great, clear art that’s not too realistic like everything else in the stands these days.

The other big story is about the other Superboy, Prime. Last time (Legion of 3 Worlds) we left him in the “real world”, living with his parents who knew about him and what he did. Here he keeps posting on message boards and being whiny, which is taking the metaphor a bit too literal, without any subtlety at all. This story is a tie-in to Blackest Knight, though it has nothing to do with the main story. Here we see Alex Luthor resurrect and fighting Superboy Prime. It was kind of amusing seeing the real world in the story, but it’s just a gimmick. I do like the art by Ordway, somehow his style just fits perfectly for this story.

There are also short back up stories about the Legion. These are mainly standalone stories that continue threads and characters from previous Johns stories. They’re fine for whoever read the previous stories, but they’re not especially great. The art by Henry is generic modern superhero style, nothing too fancy but perfectly fine.

Johns left the series which is a pity, because it means all his ideas about the Legion will be lost or changed by Paul Levitz. His Conner stories are also over, though this story was satisfying on its own. This really felt like an anthology series for misc Johns ideas that couldn’t fit into his regular books. That guy has ideas for all DC characters.

I am not familiar with the convoluted Legion history, but all I had to know was that there are 3 versions of them and they all come together in this story. They fight the perfect counterpart to their inspiration Superman: Superboy Prime who inspired the Legion of Super-Villains.

A lot happens in this story, including the resurrection of Connor and Impulse. Just for that, this story will be remembered as an important one in DC history. But the conflict with Superboy contains a twist about the identity of the Time Trapper. This being a time travel story, I had a lot of fun with it.

We also get to see the future of the Green Lantern Corps, which is obviously relevant for the current Blackest Night event.

The art by George Perez is perfectly suited for this type of story. Not only there are 3 full teams of heroes, but they’re actually 3 different versions of the same characters. That’s a huge challenge, but Perez has no problems with it.

This really is the culmination of many different stories, which is a bit weird since there are revelations about stories told in other series months ago.

But before that’s dealt with, for the moment we have a single and Linda-less Wally, who encounters the Flash’s biggest nemesis: Malcolm Thawne. I loved the reveal of his true identity, it’s one of the many great reveals in this series. We also see a glimpse of Iris West, before she’s properly introduced in Chain Lightning (although I’ve already read her story in a one-shot). The prophecy about the gem power is a bit iffy, when it comes to magic I’m just not a big fan, because anything can happen without a proper explanation. Also I didn’t pay attention to the wording of it, so I just assumed the gem would kill 2 Flashes, which wasn’t that big of a deal to me, only 2 Flashes in 1000 years? That doesn’t seem too bad.

Pop Mhan’s art in the first 3 issues is very modern looking, in places very dynamic. It was an ok style for me, but his successor was a better fit.

Next is the big Chain Lightning arc that’s been teased since a year prior. It’s basically the speedsters traveling through time in the following 1000 years to help the future Flashes against Cobalt Blue and spreading the love to even more Flashes. Here we encounter many future Flashes, all of them either West or Allen.

But main story obviously stars Wally, who goes to follow Zoom to the moment in the future when the gem is finally destroyed, by Wally… the usual time travel paradox. Everything seems to be fine but there’s a twist! Jay was possessed by the gem all along, and he’s now controlling all the other Flashes!

That’s when Barry comes back. Apart from his fake appearance at the beginning of Waid’s run, this is the first time Barry shows up next to Wally and actually has an adventure together. This was hinted at in the Life Story of Flash. It’s nice to see how Barry and Wally feel about each other, which is similar to how Barry and Jay felt the first time they met. Their brief moment of peace in the Flash museum was a nice piece of writing. The reason they’re there isn’t great though, they need to re-charge? Wally has a direct line to the Speed Force, why would he need to re-charge?

Then they defeat Cobalt Blue after freeing Jay, and the three Flashes work together one more time. The threat seems to be over, so all the other speedsters go back to their time, leaving Wally and Barry. But there’s another twist!! Pariah arrives to get Barry to fight in the Crisis, but CB is not dead and kills Barry.

Issue 150 sees Wally brought into Crisis and trying to do what Barry did, sacrificing himself to save everybody else. But he can’t do it, he keeps failing no matter what he does. Even though I haven’t read Crisis since 15 years ago, I liked reliving that story, I think Paul Pelletier did a great job.

While I was reading this, I started to think why doesn’t Wally just go back to the moment Barry was killed and save him? Well, that’s exactly what happened, even though it feels like a cheat. It’s one of the flaws of time travel, especially if you don’t put constraints to it. If something goes wrong go back in time and re-do it! I’ve learned to overlook this flaw as long as the characters are well developed. Wally defeats Cobalt Blue and saves Barry, then goes into the Speed Force, again. But this time Linda is not around anymore, so he can’t find his way back. But somebody else does.

The new Dark Flash was a mystery (mystery identities are definitely typical of Flash), he has more powers, is older than Wally and starts a relationship with Angela. We had to have a romance now that Linda and Wally aren’t together. However, Linda is actually back, or so she thinks. She’s actually not in her timeline, she’s in an alternate universe with a “darker” Flash, Walter West. But then another Wally comes to save her from Walter, but is he the real Wally?

This storyline was a bit confusing at first, but once we learn all about Wally and Walter, everything was clear. There was a story about the Folded Man in the 4th dimension that I thought was a clever idea, almost worthy of Grant Morrison.

In the midst of all these threads, Waid/Augustyn managed to introduce a new villain, whose back-story I found interesting. This tale is told in Secret Files 2, where Tony becomes Replicant. He’s been seeing the Rogues since he was a kid, so he treats them as family. So it made sense for him to become the new member of the Rogues, a more powerful one.

He’s actually a big menace for Flash, maybe not as big as the big ones, but in my mind better than the Rogues and other classic villains. Speaking of villains, Kadabra is one of the big ones, in fact he was the one to kidnap Linda and take away memory of her. He tracks Linda down, and fights the two Flash (Wally and Walter). He even manages to kill Linda and Wally, but leaves Walter even more angry and ready to kill him, that’s when he went to Linda’s universe and become the new Flash.

Then another big villain shows up, Zoom, at which point I thought it was just too much. Why have so many villains at the same time, without a plausible explanation? But that explanation came later on, as a twist that saw Zoom revealed as Wally and finally getting Linda’s memory back by tricking Kadabra. That was another clever twist, one of many twists in which Wally’s plan is revealed at the end.

Again, things seem resolved, expect none other than Superman and Wonder Woman show up to take Walter back to his time. Obviously we can’t have two Wally West running around as Flash, which is why Hypertime was brought in. There was a small hint at the beginning of the story line, but here Waid brings it in full. That gives us an issue where Walter and Angela have to deal with their separation, while Linda and Wally finally get married.

At the end, Walter tries to go back to his universe, instead he ends in the real world, in a comic shop. A bit of meta at the end of this epic doesn’t hurt. I didn’t recognize any of the “real” people, if they were meant to be anyone.

I thought this was a good ending for the run, with Walter out of the picture, and Linda and Wally happily married. Instead we get 3 more standalone stories, one about the honeymoon, where Wally has to deal with Kobra and Lady Kobra (now Lady Flash) Christine. Another was about Jay’s honeymoon with the JSA. And finally a team-up with Captain Marvel against Felix Faust. Waid/Augustyn/Pelletier were only in this last one, which I guess was a fun little story. I just felt the momentum was over 3 issues earlier.

Paul Pelletier’s art is halfway between traditional and modern, a good combination for this run. I’m happy that he was able to draw this whole run (with the exception of 2 fill-in stories).

While there were more changes to Wally and the mythology in previous runs, I thought this last run was full of surprises and twists, as well as building on the past and future of the Flash mythology. It definitely felt like a very different run. For example, while Wally defeated the enemy and then died in the Speed Force, again, this time he didn’t come back because of Linda’s absence, instead we get a new Flash. This was just a fun ride, I’m glad Waid finished on a high note.

It took more than 3 months to read these over 100 issues of Waid’s run and it was all well worth it. One of the best runs in comics history. I’ll take a short break from Flash, then come back for another highly acclaimed run by Geoff Johns.

This is a mix of comics panels with prose, chronicling the story of all the flashes, but in particular Barry Allen’s life. It’s told by Iris West and it’s a book that we’ve seen in the Flash series throughout Waid’s run. I’ve slowly learned about Barry while reading Waid’s run on Flash, so I knew about his life in broad strokes. But this book tells them in more detail, and it gives life to characters that I had connection to beforehand.

The focus of his life is obviously Iris, so their story is center here. Whereas before I just thought they had the perfect love story, it’s clear that they had their ups and downs, which makes for good drama. But I didn’t know that Barry even had another girlfriend whom he almost marries. Too bad for her, since she seems to have been forgotten, or not mentioned often.

I also enjoyed the Flash of Two Cities story, which is a very famous one but again I never knew the details. Now there are a lot of things that make sense to me (why they’re Keystone and Central are “twin” cities).

The last part of Barry’s life was spent in the future with Iris, another detail that I wanted to learn more about. After that I felt pretty much caught up, with Wally being the Flash and all the other speedsters. There were some classic villains there were mentioned, but I didn’t connect to that much.

At the end, Waid gives us hints of some of the stories he’s going to write on Flash, and some other hints that I don’t think he had occasion to write. For example we know of a last adventure with Barry, of Wally’s daughter and son. Of Bart’s dark twin. This is a great book that summarizes Barry’s life without feeling boring, instead taking us through his life as if we were reading it in real time. It’s perfect to read now that Barry is back.

I will now go through the other stories quickly, only pausing if there’s something important.

Flash Plus is a team-up with Nightwing, it contains a mystery and alien invasion.

Secret Origins 1 contains a main story recounting the history of the 3 Flashes, with an epilogue that hints at the upcoming Chain Lightning story arc. There are also some informative profiles about villains, those are the ones I knew least about. But the best “extra” of this issue is the timeline: it gives us the important years about all the speedsters, but also some future events that we haven’t read about, like Wally sacrificing his life to save all time. Since the Flash history involves many time travels, I found this timeline essential.

Next is Speed Force, an anthology containing different stories about different speedsters. There’s the first appearance of Cobalt Blue, in the past against Barry and Wally (as Kid Flash). This will be picked up in Waid’s upcoming run. Blaine Allen and his son are the Flash of the future, their story will also be picked up in the regular series. John Byrne authors a silver age story with Jay, Max is also stars in a 1893 story. While in the present Jesse has to deal with being CEO of her company. There’s a nice mix of stories here, some of them just fun, some of them relevant to the future.

Faster Friends is a team-up mini featuring lanterns Kyle and Alan with Flashes Jay and Wally. It’s written by the two regular writers of Flash and Green Lantern of the time, Waid and Ron Marz. It’s an ok team-up that shows us the different dynamics between the “old” friends and the “new” ones.

And finally there are two issues of 80 Page Giant, with lots of little stories. From the first issue, John Byrne comes back for another Jay Garrick story, while Max encounters Babe Ruth and helps him get over his fears. There are many other stories, but the Iris West story in issue 2 was the most curious since I didn’t know about her yet. It was fun seeing Wally’s daughter as Kid Flash, and also seeing Wally’s new “costume”. The last story with XS is also cool, chronicling the last years of Wally’s life on Earth, first as a God-like figure, then sacrificing himself to save lives. But he obviously couldn’t just die, he has to be launched out of time and space. These 2 issues were less successful than Speed Force, but there are still some fun stories here.

Now I can finally dive into the end of Waid’ run on Flash!!

The first story arc (130-132) stars the Suit who takes over bodies and their powers. Morrison’s crazy ideas are already showing here with the time-travelling Wally does, and the way he freezes himself to save his life. It’s a neat idea, typically Morrisonian. Another neat idea is Wally creating a suit made of Speed Force.

The next few issues are stand-alone stories. First there’s Mirror Master who somehow creates an entire mirror world for Wally. Next there’s an issue starring Jay Garrick, who comes out of retirement to help momentarily replace Wally. This seems a love letter to the golden age, another theme close to Morrison’s sensibilities.

The next issue (135) is a three way crossover with Green Arrow and Green Lantern. It starts with the boys on a cruise, where they encounter Hatchet/Hearwave/Sonar and Polaris. This is a pretty standard action story, until it comes to the Flash issue, where Morrison and Millar make it a trial story, a more interesting take on it in my opinion. Flash manages to solve the case thanks to his superspeed reading.

The next storyline takes racing to a whole new universal level. It’s a race across the universe, against Wally’s childhood imaginary friend. In the end, the whole humanity helps Wally win the race and the bet against the 2 ultradimensional gamblers. A storyline of huge scale. This is also where Paul Ryan left the series, after a very respectable run.

The last arc sees more shuffling in the credits: Grant Morrison leaves the credits to Mark Millar, and the new regular penciller is Pop Mhan. This story is about the Black Flash, which is basically death for speedsters. Wally was supposed to die, but Max realized this and saved Wally. Unfortunately Linda is taken in his place, and Wally goes in deep depression. He even decides to move to Scotland, having lost all desire to be a superhero.

But Black Flash is back again, this time he really wants to take Wally. Wally is the only one who can beat him, and in order to save the other speedsters he races Black Flash to the end of the universe, where Black Flash doesn’t exist anymore. It’s not a very good explanation, Millar tends to do that sometimes. But in the end Wally races back and takes Linda with him. Then he proposes.

This is another high stakes story, so I admire it for that. It also introduces a cool concept, The Black Flash. But it lacks in the pseudo-science department, which I guess is always hard to do.

Pop Mhan’s art is definitely a modern style, so it’s a welcome change of pace from Paul Ryan. This run was obviously different, but it gave us many thrills on a totally different level. Another nice change of pace after the relatively urban setting in the previous Waid/Ryan run.

Now that Waid and Augustyn are back, I can’t wait to see what they have in store.

Some nice stand alone stories are 12, where Bart has a great time with XS, but unfortunately XS has to leave him and go back to the future. Issue 19 is a hilarious issue, where Bart has difficulty falling asleep. Once he finally does, he has a very exciting dream, lots of funny scenes. Then he wakes up and he realizes that he only slept 1 minute.

Another great story with Legion is issue 21, with lots of temporal anomalies and just fun scenes. Great use of time-travel. The following issue sees Bart chasing Max around the world, only to find out that it was all a distraction in order to give him a suprise birthday party.

There are many other nice stories, but the biggest story is probably about Bart’s mother, Meloni. She comes to get Bart back to the future, while at the same time we learn about her past. It’s a big deal when Bart has to say goodbye to his schoolmates, especially Carol, with whom he has a friendship/romance going on. However once he’s in the future we learn that Meloni is Thawne (Prof Zoom)’s daughter, so Bart is a child of both the Thawnes and the Allens rival families. Thawne wants to get rid of the superpowered Allens, so he agrees to leave all Allens alone if Bart goes back to the past. Of course, he doesn’t know that XS will also get powers in the future. Bart goes back but Max is gone.

Which brings to the other big subplot of the series, that of Max and Helen. Helen was introduced seemingly as a romantic character for Max, but he didn’t seem interested in her. Also, she seemed to pop up everywhere he went, so I assumed she was up to something. It turns out that it was Max that was following her, trying to be part of her life, but not romantically. Because Helen is Max’s daughter.

Then we learn the backstory about Max’s affair with Helen’s mother, after which he just ran away into the future. But now he has tracked her down (that’s actually the main reason Max decided to relocate there with Impulse), and after some time in which Helen had to deal with this newly discovered secret, they finally reconcile and move in together. That’s why Max wasn’t there when Bart came back from the future. He moved across the street…

This was a perfect place for me to stop reading the series. All important subplots have been tied up, and now there’s a new status quo with Helen as part of the family. I wish I learned more about White Lightning, but it’s not something I can’t read on Wikipedia.

Overall this was a fun series to read, graced by Humberto Ramos’ pencils. His dynamic style really made Impulse look fun. There were a few fill-ins by other artists, all competent, but they just weren’t Ramos.

Another reason for this run being different are his new collaborators. Brian Augustyn has been editing this book since the beginning, so he’s obviously had an impact on the direction of this book. But here he’s actually resigned from editing and joined Waid as a co-writer. They are joined by the new regular penciler Paul Ryan. I’ll talk about him later.

The first issue is a tie-in to another event, Final Night. They actually managed to write a very good story that’s very relevant to Linda and Wally’s ongoing relationship. They’ve always had a difference of opinion about telling the whole truth (Linda’s journalist point of view) and protecting people by hiding it (Wally). It’s the same thing that happened in Terminal Velocity, but here it is on a bigger scale with Linda telling the whole city. It was a very nice speech, and everybody (including Wally) was won over by it. Wally’s point of view is still valid though, so I don’t think there’s a right or wrong here.

Next there’s a two parter about Piper, who finally is the focus of a story. Unfortunately I didn’t buy the way he tried to solve the problem. I get it that candidate Cartight was against gay (Piper is obviously but not openly declared gay), but Piper reacted too rashly. It was an ok story, but I also didn’t like the way it was resolved: ONeil is suddenly taken by creatures from hell. What? I guess it ties into Underworld Unleashed, but I needed some more explanations in this series. The seed for the main story line of this run is planted here: the mayor doesn’t want Flash to live in the city anymore, due to their financial crisis.

This is where the writers explore Flash’s impact on the city and its people. There’s even an accountant who’s calculating all damages created by Flash, even psychological ones. There are two points of interest here: (1) is Flash really attracting these supervillains that in the end destroy the city? This is the same chicken and egg question about Batman and his supervillains. (2) This seems to be an attempt of the writers to give more personal drama to Wally. He’s always been loved in the past, so this is another attempt at making him more like Spider-Man.

Wally seeks advice from his friends, Jay is explaining to him (and us) the mayor’s political motivations, as well as noting the difference when Jay was active. I loved that the one person that helped Wally with his decision of leaving the city was Allison Armitage. Great scene. So now Wally is the first superhero commuter, between Keystone City and Santa Marta, California.

The difference between Keystone and Santa Marta was really funny, the way Wally’s ego is stroked by those savvy California people. But his first day on the job is not easy. He has to deal with Mr Frost, who is selling his new technology to Luthor, Kobra and Vandal Savage. I’m not sure it was explained how it worked, all I know is that it creates holograms, but how does it actually damage buildings? Anyway, the way Wally beat him reminded me of how he beat Kadabra many issues ago. He goes in at super speed first, then tricks the villain. Meanwhile Linda suspects something is up, too many things are happening to try to keep Wally off Keystone City, and she asks Argus to help. I thought some villain (Kadabra maybe?) was behind it all, but it turns out it was the mayors people trying everything they can to kick Wally out, legally or informally. That was a disappointment.

Next up we have Major Disaster, whose new powers are really intriguing. I liked the scenes where he would formulate his plan in his head by simply looking around. In the end he manages to destroy Santa Marta with a huge tsunami, something not even Wally could stop. Luckily nobody died, but Wally is obviously totally devastated, seeing how the city he was to protect, has been destroyed. Meanwhile the Rogues’ Gallery are back from the dead, wreaking havoc in Keystone City!!

The last arc feels epic, it connects some subplots that have been going on for a while, mainly since Underworld Unleashed. I can’t believe that Neron (and Waid) planned all this from such long ago. Even the JLA show up to help Wally, though even they can’t defeat the Rogues.

The best part about this arc is obviously Neron’s deal with both Wally and Linda. I totally understand that Neron wanted to take their love, such a powerful force would help him get more power, especially now that the speed force is “leaking” from Wally, deprived of his anchor to this reality. That was a genius logic.

The way Linda and Wally “broke up” was perfectly logical as well, they’ve always had those disagreements, so that scene didn’t feel forced at all. Even though we knew they were forced to break up, so it was plausible to feel forced. But it wasn’t, because Waid had planted their issues since the beginning. They really do feel like real people with real relationship problems.

Even better, is that Wally and Linda’s love actually IS powerful enough to beat anything. Neron being corrupted by it was perfectly captured by Ryan as he was trying to help the lost souls in his own realm. Brilliant. This run ends perfectly, with the most important thing of the series: Wally and Linda’s love.

This was a great ending to a run that I must admit I wasn’t too excited about. Gone was the study of the speed force, we barely saw the other speedsters (only Jay I think), and the art was less “flashy” (no pun intended). Paul Ryan is a very solid artist, he tells the story very well and fluidly, there’s no confusion at all. He also always meets his deadlines, so there were no fill artists at all. His style is more on the classic superhero side, less modern, which I guess I prefer. Still, I wasn’t turned off by his style, just not as excited.

But as I said, it ended with a high point for me, so it was still very good. Waid and Augustyn took a year off to recharge batteries. They were serious about coming back though, so much that they already plotted their epic return, called Chain Lightning. Meanwhile we get Morrison and Millar’s run. Can’t wait to see how different it is from Waid and co.

But we start with a bang: Terminal Velocity, which sees Wally finally going into the Speed Force. This being a time travel story (actually, all big Flash stories have been about time travel), Wally sees the future and he tries all he can to change it and save Linda. That ironically puts a strain on his relationship with Linda, because women are not dumb, on the contrary they have a sixth sense and she knows Wally is hiding something.

Bart is already touted as Wally’s replacement because of his innate talent. But he’s too screwy to be relied on. I like how Wally plays him and Jesse, he seems really wise. I could feel the generation difference. We also learn more about Max’s backstory which is really interesting. He almost reached the speed force, but hesitated and was thrown into the future.

The big bad is Kobra, but honestly I didn’t really care about him. He was just the menace to overcome in this story. Wally and Linda are still the focus. Yes Linda is proving herself to kick ass, and she’s not simply the damsel in distress, even though Wally does save her.

Wally goes into the Speed Force and disappears for a while, but he comes back all energized (he even heals Jesse’s leg instantly) god-like and saves the day. He now has a direct line to the force, even though he’s not sure what happened. He basically reached heaven, but came back for Linda. Wow!!

The art by Salvador Larroca here is rough, but is clean and does the job. Sometimes his faces reminded me of Rob Liefeld. It’s not bad, but he’ll develop into a much better artist in later work. It particularly pales in comparison with Carlos Pacheco who helps in the last two issues.

Wally’s big changes are further analyzed in the following issues. The focus of it is Linda. She’s uncomfortable that Wally didn’t tell her everything, but also that Wally basically gave up heaven for her. She’s also afraid that Wally will leave her to be “god”. One of the perks of Wally’s new powers is that he can share his speed to objects and people, so for the first time Linda can see the world from his point of view.

Their relationship is further tested when Linda’s ex husband enters the picture. Technically it’s his corpse, but the effect is the same. Towards the end they seem to be reconciled, to have worked put out their problems in the open and discussed them. That’s a start. The superhero story involves a magic cult and a giant monster, but it’s nothing too interesting. Mirror Master makes an appearance and traps Wally, duping him into believing his love story. Wally falls for it, only later realizing MM is obsessed about a girl. Another new “power”: vibrating through objects makes them explode.

Linda finally realizes that she can’t live life based on what Wally does. She needs to make her own decisions. All that while fighting with Frankie, Wally’s old girlfriend.

The final one-shot story of the bunch is a tie-in to Underworld Unleashed, an “event” series written by Mark Waid. That story is actually not needed for this issue, where Flash teams-up with Captain Marvel. Of note is that Wally’s lightning works against the darkness of the Shadow Thief.

Next up there’s the big event Dead Heat, but before we get to that I’ll review the first few issues of the Impulse ongoing series. Mark Waid is writing it, so I think it’s relevant to the Flash universe. Humberto Ramos pencils, and right off the bat it’s clear that this series has a different tone than the Flash series. This is all about young kids, high school, having fun, high school, and Max…

The focus is on Bart trying to adjust not only to this time, but especially to reality. I don’t know if Max is closely supervising him, but he seems to know what to say to him. Apart from his problems at school (which don’t seem to bother him) he always finds other bigger problems outside. Like a hovertank experiment, or a band of kids recruited by White Lightning, or a swamp monster.

My favorite issue so far is issue 6, where Bart helps Randall with his domestic problems. It’s serious issue of kids abuse, but it’s handled very well, and even has a little twist. But this issue really humanized Bart and made him more than an annoying teenager.

Blockbuster shows up for the Underworld Unleashed tie-in, which leads to the prologue of Dead Heat. Max is gone for days (captured by the big bad in Dead Heat), while Bart’s cousin from the future XS shows up. They are attacked by ninjas at the end, leading to Dead Heat.

Dead Heat is another milestone in the Flash series, this time bringing us a villain worthy of the superheroes. Savitar has his own backstory tied to the speed force and Max. He really seems indestructible, being fast and knowledgeable about the speed force. We also learn that Max has probably been waiting for his arrival since his last time jump, though it doesn’t explain why he didn’t even feel Savitar’s arrival a year before.

This story crosses over with Impulse, but since it’s Mark Waid writing both titles, the story flows smoothly. When Bart loses his speed, he really feels depressed and can’t do anything normally. He can’t even write his name in time. But after being taunted by other kids, he gets angry and punches them, which shows that he’s not completely useless without his speed.

I like that Savitar is wiser about how to use speed. He can store it in other human beings, he can heal his wounds instantly, he has a protective field, and he can give speed to static objects. He’s really the best villain we’ve seen so far. I just wish we could have seen Max fighting him, instead of being beaten to a pulp.

There is a casualty in this story, Johnny Quick goes into the speed force never to come back. I don’t feel it was given enough importance, Jesse mourns him only briefly here. It was a nice ending for this character, once he starts to “believe” in the force he’s called by it. His death made him more likable than when he was alive and stubbornly refused to accept the truth.

The final battle with Wally and Savitar was expected, why not bring Savitar to the speed force and let “them” take care of him? What I really liked was how Wally realized how the Speed worked, at least how he returned from it. And then he doesn’t go back home… ha!!

Instead John Fox appears next to Linda. He’s the Flash from the 27th century, appearing to look for Wally. He tries to be Flash in Wally’s absence, he even helps XS getting back to her time. But he knows something about Wally that he’s not telling.

Oscar Jimenez is the regular artist after Larroca, and I think he does a great job. I really like his line, it’s dynamic and clear, and he can do good expressions. People don’t seem to remember his run on the Flash, but I’ve always liked it as much as anybody else. He hasn’t been very active in recent years, I can only remember his run on Stormwatch with Warren Ellis.

The next story arc is Race Against Time. There are two stories that will converge: Wally keeps jumping through time before finally getting back to the present. He revisits the 64th century where people are worshiping him and his lifestyle (fast paced, move on if bored), leaving everything half done. Next stop is the 30th century, where he gets to meet Barry’s kids, Don and Dawn. That was a nice story, wish we could see more of those twins. The 27th century is next, which sees him meeting John Fox. That prompts Fox to go to the past and help Wally during the big disaster.

Unfortunately Fox does a terrible job in the present, not only as a Flash substitute, but especially by stirring Linda away from Wally, even kissing her at one point. That’s the main reason Wally had such a hard time finding his way home. Even though Fox doesn’t do it intentionally, he still comes off as a jerk. But Wally still saves him, like a true superhero does. It’s clear that Wally is truly a great superhero, he’s his own man and hero, unlike Fox.

The villains are the classic Polaris, Chillblaine and Abra Kadabra (him again!!). Iris’s book is in Abra’s hands, and he wants even more from her. But the main time travel logic is not solved in this story. They pose the question but there’ no answer for it: if Abra Kadabra read about the Ice Age in the book, why did he fail? Did he not read how he was defeated? I think he wanted to cheat fate, but in the end was still beaten. But this is not explored properly in the story. Iris disappears again after this story, but I wish she had more time with Wally.

Oscar Jimenez was helped by many people in this arc: Anthony Castrillo (a John Byrne clone), Jim Cheung (already very good then), Sergio Cariello (way too early in his career). In the first few issues it was fine, because Jimenez was on the Wally story thread, while Castrillo was on John Fox. But then Jimenez disappeared and the last issue was very poor. The same thing happened to the end of Mike Wieringo’s run, they couldn’t finish the concluding story arc.

The Italian series I read years ago was canceled around this last arc, so this is to me the height of the Flash series. Great changes for our heroes, great characterization, especially between Linda and Wally, great art. I don’t know what’s in store next, but at the moment I doubt it will be as epic.

We started with a 4 part story guest starring Nightwing and Kory against the Combine. The Combine are a very lame group trying to take over the city’s underworld, but there wasn’t much development for it other than “techno villains”. Luckily they’re gone at the end of this story. But the most interesting aspect of this arc is Frances Kane and how Flash helps her control her powers. Her appearance seems to affect Wally and Linda’s relationship, but by the end their love is stronger than ever. Ringo really revolutionizes the book, everything feels dynamic and fun and it seems to me that Waid adapted to his style, making the script faster as well.

The next 2 issues are a normal story featuring Razer working for a mystery figure. The revelation wasn’t too surprising, the little brother was introduced briefly but was soon ignored, which is always a red herring. Not much else happens, but there are many seeds planted for following stories. The most obvious one is the escape of a very important prisoner.

Next we see Argus, a new hero introduced in Annual 6 as part of the Bloodlines event where a group of Aliens accidentally give powers to random people (Hitman was one of them). In this issue Argus helps Flash with a trap the Combine left for crime boss Emil Aquava.

The Christmas issue sees Flash get cranky at the high temperature and the many random crimes. That causes Wally to miss all his personal time with Linda and his friends. But somebody is actually behind all this, and his gift to Wally is a lawsuit.

The next 3 issues (88-90) see Wally meet the lady suing him, her face is scarred and she lost her legs. All because while Wally was saving a group of people in issue 84, the lady was being buried in her shop. Wally feels guilty about this, maybe he could have saved her if he tried harder. I love the trial, I thought it was very well written by Waid. Too bad Ringo didn’t draw it. Not only did it convince Wally that he couldn’t have saved her, but it also revealed the man behind all this: Abra Kadabra! He seems Wally’s archenemy at the moment. He manipulated Wally and provoked a strong reaction, even making him Flash a villain. But the way Wally comes back and clears his own name was very clever. Abra thought Wally fell for his trap, but Wally anticipated his trap and instead caught his confession on tape. Brilliant. At the end he goes to Johnny Quick to get his formula so that he can be faster. I don’t get it, I thought he got over that during the trial.

No matter, because that gives us a good issue where he’s going so fast that he basically froze time. Max is the only one who can be as fast as he is, and he helps him analyze himself. He seems more of a psychiatrist… Anyway, Wally learns that his subconscious is making him stop time so that he doesn’t have to make a choice that might result in people dying. Once he realizes it, and that he really cannot save everybody, he’s able to go back to normal speed. And he saves people. There are two subplots here: one is about a mysterious person in the past who told Wally not to give up his dreams. It’s not Max, but we’ll learn about it in issue 0. The other subplot is introducing the next and final arc of this run: someone in the future (2995) is escaping from the government and traveling back to Wally’s time.

That someone we learn is Iris West. This is another great arc that changes the series again. I want to write down the details so that I can remember them. First we learn that Iris was actually born in the future, then sent to the past. When she died, they brought her life-force to the future, where she re-united with Barry. They had twins, then one of them had a son, Bart, who had full speed powers. This is all very vague, we don’t know why they sent her to the past, or who. We don’t know how Barry went to the future, or where did he go afterwards. But it’s all very interesting.

Now there’s a new member of the Flash family, Bart Allen. Wally helps him get over his problems with his powers by pushing him to break the wall, just like he did when he first got his powers.

Parallel to this is the thread about Linda investigating the Kobra, which brings Wally and Bart to their HQ, where they see Abra Kadabra again! This is where Flash is catapulted into Zero Hour. I don’t want to re-read that whole event, but Waid utilizes this event perfectly for his own story.

In issue 0, Wally is skipping through time, reliving some of the highlights of his life. But the best part of the issue is that Wally finally realizes that the mysterious person in his past was himself. He travels to his own past when he was 10, and proceeds to talk to his younger self about his dreams. Just a brilliant time travel story, very emotional.

Mike Wieringo really left his mark on Flash, not only with his dynamic style, but also creating Impulse with Waid. Issues 93-94 were actually drawn by Carlos Pacheco, not a bad replacement, but just different from Ringo. Luckily he came back for issue 0 to conclude a great run on Flash.