Flash Forward #4 Review

A Wife From Another Life

Written By: Scott Lobdell

Art By: Brett Booth, Norm Rapmund, Luis Guerrero, Troy Peteri

Cover Price: $3.99

Release Date: December 18, 2019

Let's head on back into the Multiverse so we can see our former favorite Flash take on the Dark Multiverse infection that is threatening everything that we know and hold dear....... while also trying to find some redemption for Wally West along the way.  Previously we saw our hero going from world to world with his magic Fuginaut stick that was purging the darkness around him and in the background we saw that at the Incursion Point in the Dark Multiverse that Wally's children, Iris and Jai were climbing around giant stone sculptures of the heroes that Wally killed during Heroes In Crisis..... What does that mean?  I have no idea, but let's jump into this issue and see if we're any closer to finding out what's going on in this series and if we're any closer to trusting Wally West again.  Let's check it out.

That wacky Dark Multiverse infection is getting out of control now because instead of just infecting a world and its heroes, it's now infecting worlds and having them combine together for some reason and with this we see the the Justice League of Shadows of Earth-13 going up against the amalgam world of Earth-32's Outlaws of Justice (not to be confused with Amalgam Comics after Marvel VS. DC).  Really though, these characters are just here to spotlight some cool designs from Brett Booth's amazing art, but ultimately they don't really mean anything to the story besides for a version of Linda Park who's a speedster named Lightspeed showing up to remind Wally what he lost.  It's weird though because DC really doesn't know what to do with this Wally West because initially when he came back it was just supposed to be a Wally, who was the best of all versions and then we found out that the reason no one remembered him was because Abra Kadabra sent him away and made everyone forget, but here we go with the idea that Wally was ripped from his family and stuck in the Speed Force because of Flashpoint and while I don't mind this explanation, I just wish it didn't take so long to come to this idea and that it had to be switched so many times.  

Beyond the revamped explanation about Wally West, which would actually give the character a connection to his kids that he saw in Hypertime, which previously weren't his, this issue is a lot like the previous ones in this series.  Yeah, it looks great, but it's essentially Wally West pointing a stick at darkness and everything being fine afterward.  The big difference here though is that Wally actually makes his way to the Incursion Point, where in this issue we saw he once was with Tempus Fuginaut, but this time when he shows up he sees the place where his kids were climbing over the statues of Wally's dead friends.  Why's this all here?  I have no idea, but hopefully Scott Lobdell has a better idea than me and can make the final two issues to this mini series mean something.

All in all, this issue continues to look amazing, like the previous ones, but this series isn't grabbing me the way that I hoped it would because it still is Wally West just pointing a stick at darkness, while we get some interesting cameos of alternate versions of characters that mean something to Wally West's life.  With that though, we are finding out now the definitive reason that Wally West was forgotten and how the kids he saw in Hypertime may have actually been his, but this "definitive" version may be changed later down the line because it seems that it keeps changing with each new writer who tackles the character.  Besides that though, I am interested by the cliffhanger and look forward to seeing what happens next, I just wish that the series was stronger overall because I'm still not sure how this quest is going to make us look at Wally any different after Heroes In Crisis or what the Mobius Chair from the first issue has to with anything that we're dealing with.

Bits and Pieces:

While I continue to really enjoy the art, the story just isn't doing it for me because the action isn't all that exciting and the side elements are pretty much "Wally West, this is your life!", where characters close to Wally show up in different forms so he can get over that whole mass murderer thing.  Yeah, I wish it was a better series overall, but there are still elements to this book that make me want to keep coming back each issue.

5.5/10