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This Dream Is A Nightmare
Our heroes have found Barry Allen, but will his dream world let him go? We have a weird development going on where when Wally confronted Barry inside of his dream world, Barry saw his former sidekick as the Reverse Flash, and not only that, but Wallace West became mesmerized by his family in this world to the point where he stopped worrying about his mission. Yeah, it seems like these worlds have some defenses to keep Barry busy and to make sure nobody gets him out. Let's see if we can free one of the Fastest Men Alive as we continue our Dark Crisis tie-in because if we can free Barry, we can free the rest of the Justice League, and with that, hopefully, we can fight back the forces of the Great Darkness and Pariah.
So as you might recall, we had Jai and Irey West jump into the Multiversal wormhole so that they could save their Uncle Barry themselves and prove to the adults that they have what it takes to be proper superheroes. All they really do is muck things up though where they ended up in a world where Barry Allen became a more Batman-like figure known as Night-Flash and we continue that story of Jai and Irey not understanding the world they're in and really...... just continuing to muck things up. That's not all though, we conclude the Mad Max Barry Allen story with Jesse Quick and Max Mercury, which sadly continues to be the weakest part of this story, to the point here where I'm not totally sure what our heroes accomplished, but like previously, the real meat to this book is Wally and Wallace West inside Barry's dream world, where Wally's being beaten to death by his former mentor and Wallace is being enticed with the dream-like promise of family.
The dream world is still a bit of a mystery in how it works and what its defenses are..... you know, beyond just Pariah making something to keep its victims placated and inside them, and while this section has been the strongest part of this arc because of it being something connected to the big Dark Crisis event, this installment does fall a little short of previous entries in how Barry is snapped out of it and even how some of the panel progression works out. Thankfully though, we have Jay Garrick make his return in this issue and I say thankfully because ever since our heroes entered the Multiverse, Jay just kind of disappeared and no one cared where he was.
All in all, I continue to love the art in this book, especially the three different looks to the three different worlds that are explored, but I just wish that these worlds felt like they meant more overall. I mean, it's not every day that we get Jesse Quick and Max Mercury and now that we do have them, their section really just ends up feeling like filler. Thankfully though, our Jai and Irey section feels more important in this issue in that it looks to be setting up a future threat, which is fun. As for Barry's dream world, which I've loved previously, this section just kind of becomes meh as things are just wrapped up so that we can move on and it doesn't feel like the way we snap Barry out of his trance is as meaningful as it could have been if it mirrored the Rebirth reunion of Barry and Wally a little more, even though it's referenced. Even though things just come to an end all at once here, there's still fun to be had and it did set up some interesting things for not only The Flash book, but for what Barry Allen will be doing in the Dark Crisis so even though I would have liked more out of this book, I'm still really enjoying what The Flash brings to the DC Comics table.
Bits and Pieces:
The Search For Barry Allen comes to an end this issue and while there are parts of this book that didn't feel like they were needed, the parts that mattered did some cool stuff to set up future stories in both The Flash and Dark Crisis and we had some fun moments with our heroes along the way. Yeah, I would have liked more ultimately, but with great art and great depictions of characters, I still find myself enjoying The Flash.
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