Recently, the Internet was abuzz with speculation that DC was bringing back Barry Allen as the Flash. All the clues were there, and you know what? I think most readers were actually ready for his death, sacrosanct as it was, to be undone. Alas, it was not meant to be, and Wally West was back instead. Not that there's anything wrong with that, Wally was my Flash after all. He we should have known better anyway, because the Return of Barry Allen was a most memorable episode of Mark Waid's Flash, and you can't fool me twice, Master Waid.
Running from Flash #73 though 79, Waid had Barry Allen return from beyond the grave at the end of a Christmas story, like so:
The storyline is memorable to me for a few reasons. On a pure geek level, how hot is it to see three generations of Flash working together?
This storyline was also the proper start of Waid building a "Flash Family", which would eventually include Impulse and Jesse Quick, but here introduced into the DC Universe the Quality Comics hero, Max Mercury (the artist formerly known as Quicksilver).
I loved Max the minute I set eyes on him because I'm a sucker for obscure Golden Age characters, but his use of superspeed acrobatics is fairly unique in the group, and I just love his role as "speed force Yoda" dispensing wisdom to the younger runners. And an elder Johnny Quick also appears, trying to teach Wally the secrets of his speed equation.
In the end, "Barry Allen" turned out to be Professor Zoom, the Reverse-Flash, in his first chronological appearance. It's his first trip to the past, and the origin of his pathological hate for the Flash.
This is more than a stunt on Waid's part, because it mirrors the Flash's post-Crisis origin, whereby the lightning that struck Barry was energy from his death in Crisis (the Flash creates himself). Zoom, with his origins in his own future, now has a similar recursive origin. Great stuff!
Plus: The Flash Museum! The Cosmic Treadmill! And Wally going hardcore on Zoom's ass:
Brrr. Chilling.
And that's why those issues of the Flash remain the most memorable to me after all these years.
Also good reading: Flash #136-138, "The Human Race" as reviewed on my faux-blog last year.
Running from Flash #73 though 79, Waid had Barry Allen return from beyond the grave at the end of a Christmas story, like so:
The storyline is memorable to me for a few reasons. On a pure geek level, how hot is it to see three generations of Flash working together?
This storyline was also the proper start of Waid building a "Flash Family", which would eventually include Impulse and Jesse Quick, but here introduced into the DC Universe the Quality Comics hero, Max Mercury (the artist formerly known as Quicksilver).
I loved Max the minute I set eyes on him because I'm a sucker for obscure Golden Age characters, but his use of superspeed acrobatics is fairly unique in the group, and I just love his role as "speed force Yoda" dispensing wisdom to the younger runners. And an elder Johnny Quick also appears, trying to teach Wally the secrets of his speed equation.In the end, "Barry Allen" turned out to be Professor Zoom, the Reverse-Flash, in his first chronological appearance. It's his first trip to the past, and the origin of his pathological hate for the Flash.
This is more than a stunt on Waid's part, because it mirrors the Flash's post-Crisis origin, whereby the lightning that struck Barry was energy from his death in Crisis (the Flash creates himself). Zoom, with his origins in his own future, now has a similar recursive origin. Great stuff!Plus: The Flash Museum! The Cosmic Treadmill! And Wally going hardcore on Zoom's ass:
Brrr. Chilling.And that's why those issues of the Flash remain the most memorable to me after all these years.
Also good reading: Flash #136-138, "The Human Race" as reviewed on my faux-blog last year.
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