Prison Vibes
The Speed Force is calling us back again to another issue of The Flash, where previously we saw our Scarlet Speedster catching up with his young cousin and current Kid Flash, Wallace West. I love this concept because not only do we not get enough Wallace but a Flash book has been absent a proper sidekick for a long time and Wally and Wallace working together, and giving us a bigger West Flash Family sounds just like the fun I'm looking for. As for our two heroes though, it looks like the fun will have to wait as at the end of the previous issue the two stumbled upon Girder robbing a bank, which while isn't really out of the ordinary, did strike the two as odd as the villain was supposed to be locked up in Iron Heights. Let's jump into this issue and see our Crimson Comets confront Warden Wolf about Girder's early release. Let's check it out.
While we do continue the story about Warden Wolf being up to something, since we've previously seen him release Blacksmith and apparently now Girder, which we discover in this issue is tied to him running for Mayor, the plot to this issue really takes a backseat to more West Family fun where we continue to look at Linda Park hiding her mysterious connection to the Speed Force, but even more important than that, Jeremy Adams takes some of my problems from the last issue, with Wally feeling like a weird absentee dad who's trying too hard with Wallace by giving him strange nicknames, to tying the nickname "Ace" back to their childhood, where it now feels like it fits between two cousins who grew up together who don't mind giving each other a good ribbing and making sure that a joke from the past never goes forgotten. This might seem trivial to most, but making sure that people know and understand that in our current timeline that Wally and Wallace not only know each other but grew up together is something that's important to me and this addition to the nickname gag really hits that point home.
Now, beyond the West Family and back to our main plot, we see our two speedsters getting to the bottom of what Warden Wolf is up to and while this leads to some fun and silly action, we don't get a ton of progression on this front in discovering what Iron Height's suspicious warden is up to or how freeing inmates his tied to his mayoral dreams.
All in all, the art in this issue is great and I love the fun aspects of our two speedsters working together because not only is it a good time to read, but it adds some depth and something new to both the characters of Wally and Wallace West. The Linda Park Speed Force mystery, while being goofy fun is maybe played out a little too silly in her keeping her mouth shut about it, especially when her children's connection previously almost killed them, but I'm still here for it in the long run because I just have to know how she got her powers and maybe a bit of a nitpick here but in this issue we see our two heroes go to the Speed Lab to get some stealth Flash suits when both of these characters should and would just manipulate the Speed Force to alter their costumes....... Still, this is a fun issue with an interesting premise that I can't wait to get back to because there are so many mysteries that I need to uncover.
Bits and Pieces:
I love seeing Wally and Wallace together and I hope that this remains a staple of this book. Not just because I want Flash to have a sidekick but because I love seeing more of the West Family and with Wallace showing up more here, maybe we'll even get some more Iris. The art in this issue is great all the way through and the plot harkens back to some Pre-Flashpoint stories with Warden Wolf and Blacksmith's Rogues that I can't wait to find out more about.
The only thing I have against the new Wally/Wallace relationship is he seems to have replaced Bart even taking his name. If there's more than one Flash why can't there be two Kid Flashes? I hope we get Bart and Jay in this book at some point.
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