By Geoff Johns, Angel Unzueta & Doug Hazlewood (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1489
When Barry Allen, the Silver Age Flash whose creation ushered in a new and seemingly unstoppable era of costumed crusaders, was killed during the Crisis on Infinite Earths in 1985, he was succeeded by his sidekick Wally West, a young man who struggled to fill the boots of his predecessor, both in sheer physical ability and, more tellingly, in confidence. He felt a fraud, but like a true hero he persevered and eventually overcame…
After years in the role, West adapted and made a convincing argument for being an even greater hero as he triumphed over his mentor’s uncanny foes and a whole new Rogue’s Gallery of his own. In Wonderland (reprinting issues #164-169 of the monthly Flash comic-book) scripter Geoff Johns and illustrators Angel Unzueta & Doug Hazlewood pushed him to greater heights – and depths – than ever in a dark, extended saga based in large part on a Barry Allen tale from Flash #174 (November 1967).
Wally West revealed to the DC Universe that all super-speedsters derived their enhanced velocity from an all-pervasive energy field that permeated all of creation. This “Speed Force†generally provides the energy and stamina needed for extreme accelerated motion.
Our book opens with a powerless Flash being arrested and brutalised by cops who know he’s Wally West yet treat him as if he’s a criminal. Deducing that he’s in some alternate dimension where he cannot access the Speed Force, surrounded by familiar faces that don’t know him, West is at his lowest ebb until Captain Cold appears to bust him out of jail.
His home-dimension’s Captain Cold…
The murderous Frozen Felon had also woken up a stranger in a strangely familiar land, and is prepared to use any means to get back to his own world – even if it means helping a hated enemy. On the run and gathering intel they discover just how dark a place America could be without super-speed super-heroes as the history of costumed crimefighters is revealed as one littered with gaudy, prematurely dead champions. This is an Earth that has no time for any metahumans, costumed or otherwise…
When Mirror Master appears, revealing himself to be from their home reality, they assume themselves to be trapped in one of his Mirror Worlds, but sadly that is no longer the case as the Reflective Rogue discloses that all their woes are actually caused by the Mirror Mercenary’s erstwhile silent partner…
The enigmatic Brother Grimm has his own agenda, which tangentially includes the destruction of the Flash; but his real target is Wally’s beloved wife Linda Park. Whilst the hero and villains are lost in the mirror world Grimm makes his move, so that when the fugitives pull off an incredible escape the mastermind has to quickly intervene to preserve his scheme.
Flash, Cold and Mirror Master arrive home to find Keystone City vanished, and decide to continue their tenuous truce until they can restore it…
The chase takes them to even weirder and more terrifying alternate realities, and the tumultuous action is resolved and the secret of Brother Grimm revealed in spectacular manner before order is finally restored…
Johns’ first story arc on the Flash is slick and thoroughly engrossing: rapid-paced, classily violent and often genuinely scary, with the unlikely team of antagonists wandering a range of hostile realities, clashing with twisted versions of friends and foes, and although the conceit of reflecting Lewis Carroll’s Looking Glass tale is a little forced, the overall effect is one of a grand quest successfully completed.
This is the kind of Fights ‘n’ Tights saga that could give comics a good name…
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