Flash Forward #1: Saints Out of Sinners

Lobdell, Booth, and company were handed a difficult task. They have the unenviable chore of redeeming a character that many would argue should never have been placed in this position in the first place, from a creative standpoint. Spinning out the events of Heroes in Crisis in which Wally West, the Flash of my own generation, was caught up in a convoluted conspiracy to cover up an accident in which he lost control of his powers and killed a dozen heroes seeking help at Sanctuary, a mental health facility for superheroes. Wally West was painted as weak, frantic, pessimistic and hopeless in the aforementioned series and the job of Flash Forward is to show him to be the hero the majority of fandom already knows him to be.

I wouldn’t want that job, no way, no how, but Scott Lobdell has stepped up to the plate to face perhaps the greatest challenge of his rich and storied career. All eyes will be on him (and the rest of the team) and the pressure for this book to be great is immense.

The book was good. Perhaps as good as it could be given the circumstances. Lobell manages to capture the same despair our plucky, can-do hero was saddled with by Tom King and company in the early goings quite nicely but makes sure to not dwell in that negative space for too long. As the various C-list villains of Blackgate take their shots at Wally, we see the hope and optimism we love about Wally begin to bubble to the surface. Despite everything, Wally wants to live. He’s not ready to give up. That’s a delicate balance to strike and Lobdell does it nicely in this book.

Brett Booth is an artist that many either love or hate in terms of style but there is no doubting that he is extremely adept at capturing movement on the page, an important skill to have when drawing the Fastest Man Alive. This issue oscillates between stillness and movement and in both phases, Booth shines with help from Rapmund on the finishes and Guerrer0 on colors.

The overarching narrative of “trouble in the multiverse” facilitated by the Tempus Fuginaut character seems somewhat overwrought. Since the introduction of the Dark Multiverse in the pages of Dark Night: Metal, fans have been inundated by the Multiverse/Dark Multiverse dichotomy to a point where it no longer seems a novel plot point. The potential of seeing Wally move throughout these various worlds is intriguing but also feels like it was done with a somewhat heavy hand, as if Lobdell was performing surgery with a jackhammer. Still, the series is rife with potential that you can be sure will be well-written even if the plot remains somewhat ridiculous.