I remember Bart saying that Linda, Wally, and the kids were safe in the SPEED FORCE, which is also where Bart was when he grew up. I don’t recall there being any mention of the future.

Okay, it took me a while to get around to checking, but the answer is in between. First of all, I was indeed out to lunch with the future thing — I must have been thinking of Barry. But I’m not sure where you’re getting the idea that they were in the Speed Force either. What Bart remembers in FLASH #6 is being “in Keystone… on another Earth… with that world’s Jay Garrick.” Given the context (Infinite Crisis), my first thought was that he meant Earth-Two, where Jay is originally from. However, it’s Jay he’s talking to, so this must have been some other alternate Earth. The rest we know: Bart volunteered to go back, taking the Speed Force into himself and wearing Barry’s uniform (which inexplicably looks like Wally’s now).

The question now becomes what happened to Wally et al. In 52 #1, Bart says they’re fine, just “taking some time away. You should see how big the twins are getting.” (That line’s funny now, eh?) But they couldn’t still be on the alt-Earth of that flashback because the Earths were all merged again. That suggests that they were on another planet, and FLASH #231 has now stated as much. Regardless, nothing complicated was necessary to bring him back — he could have come back any time. So did the Legion’s operation have anything to do with Wally’s return, or was that some kind of Speed Force reaction to Bart’s death? (We know it wasn’t their main goal, anyway.)

None of this makes any sense. Why did Wally have his speed in the flashbacks in this issue? What did his lines about “holding on” in JLA #10 mean? What were Barry and Max of all people doing on the alt-Earth? When did Bart’s rapid aging happen? (The Wikipedia article says he spent four years on that alt-Earth, but that makes no sense; he goes back minutes after he arrives in that FLASH #6 sequence.) It’s a mess that strains even my discontinuity-rationalizing skills, and I’m a Trekkie.

I wish I could say the stories are worth it, but at this point, that’s going to be a very hard sell for me. I didn’t want Bart to be the Flash, but all indications were that DC was going ahead with it, full steam. So I did my part: I gave it a chance. And just when it was really getting good, DC yells “Just kidding!”, kills Bart, and expects us all to be happy about it? It’s too late to just pick up where we left off — and even if we do, we have no reason to think we won’t just be suckered again.

I grew up with Wally West; I love Mark Waid’s work on FLASH. But under the circumstances, I’m not delighted to see either of them back.

- Z

Wally knows the future? The Flash will die in an upcoming Crisis?

But the Legion pulled an EXTRA Flash out of the woodwork…