In this issue of THE FLASH, Barry tracks down the Mashup Killer and the Future Flash travels ever closer to our time! Time is the big theme here…it’s time to try and capture the Mashup Killer, time to revisit Daniel West (who is still doing time), and the Future Flash is still running back through time on his way to our time. Can he save future Wally before he runs out of time?

LIGHT SPOILERS ONLY

Barry Allen has figured out the identity of the Mashup Killer, and he goes after this surprising killer as the Flash. But, the Mashup Killer has a LOT of weapons at his disposal and won’t go quietly into that good night. During the battle, the Flash’s powers continue to glitch, which is really where the whole Future Flash storyline fits in. Barry brings Wally and Iris to visit Daniel West in prison, where Daniel tries to turn Wally around…for a fee…

…and we continue to see the Future Flash’s journey back through time as he closes in on the event that will cost Wally his life in the future, and we see more of what happened on that fateful day. That leads to the setup for a MAJOR battle next issue.

This is an issue where I wish there were a few more pages available. There are at least three major storylines here and not quite enough pages to truly do them all justice. One could easily make a full issue out of just the Mashup Killer, much less the development of the New 52 Wally West and the journey of the Future Flash back toward our time. Still, given the limitations of the normal comics page count, Robert Venditti and Van Jensen did an admirable job moving this story forward (or in the case of Future Flash, backward). The Mashup Killer tale allows an interesting coda to Forever Evil, with room for more exploration of the theme of “Flash wasn’t here when we needed him” in future issues. And, we do have a potential turning point in the development of Wally’s character. As for the Future Flash, things are still coming to us in small page counts but it looks like things are about to get very interesting. The artwork continues to be excellent with Brett Booth, Norm Rapmund and Andrew Dalhouse handling pencils, inks and colors (respectively). Again, if only this could have been a bigger page count…but still a good issue overall.

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