Originally published on Patreon
Who cares about the new film or the final season of the TV series, the real Flash event of the year is here! One Minute War begins this month in an issue that reminds folks that The Flash is more than just one hero, as every member of the Flash Family makes an appearance as a new threat comes towards Earth, promising death and destruction on a huge scale.
Most of the issue spends its time checking in on the various speedsters scattered around the world, reminding folks who these characters are. Wally and his family are having a barbecue with friends, Barry and Iris are out for dinner, Jay is having a drink, Jesse Quick is working with her husband to fight villains, Wallace and Bart are taking out criminals and getting on each other's nerves, and Max Murcury is preparing to run off into the speedforce.
But then they all sense something that no one else seems able to, some kind of sound that feels off. The whole world seems to freeze around them, and a huge spaceship crashes down into the middle of central city, seemingly killing thousands. And possibly including a beloved member of the family.
So, Jeremy Adams opened this event with a bang. For an issue where not a lot happens, where it's building the tension slowly, getting all of the pieces in position, it's an issue that's probably going to be remembered for those final pages. Spoiler warnings ahead, so if you haven't read it avoid....Iris is dead. Probably. The final page shows Barry holding the lifeless body of Iris, screaming. And whilst she's probably dead there could be the possibility that because time seems to be paused for everyone but the speedsters, or they're moving fast enough that it seems to be, that maybe she's still alive and he's not feeling her pulse because he's going that fast (or she's that slow) that it can't be felt.
I guess I'm just hoping she's okay. But until we hear otherwise, yeah, she's dead. I hate that the final image of the issue reminds me of the moment when Ralph Dibney found Sue dead in Identity Crisis, that it's recreating that kind of moment. And if this is really it for Iris I guess that's part of the reason why that choice was made; to make it similar to the loss of another important supporting character.
There's no hints in this issue as to who these invaders are or what they want beyond the enslavement of Earth. They talk about the mysterious power they use to do so, that they're connected to; and it would be interesting to see if that turns out to be the Speedforce and if that's why the weird shenanigans are happening.
The art on the book, by Roger Cruz, and Luis Guerrero, looks great, and the sense of scale and destruction when the huge, arrow shaped ship crashes down in the middle of the city is the highlight of the book. It feels huge, and the effect it has seems like more than the average super villain fight. It feels like this thing has fucked the city up, and killed a lot of people; and that's down to the art.
The Flash was one of my favourite books of 2022, and a large part of that was because it took the time to focus on stuff outside of the super heroics. We got to see Wally with his family, got to experience them as regular people. And now we're seeing that family and their happiness threatened in one of the biggest ways possible. And they've already lost a member of it. I've always loved The Flash, and the other speedsters that are around him are some of my favourite characters in DC, so getting so many of them in a big event that's purely for them is seriously exciting stuff. One of the things that I'm worried about though, you don't start off a big story with a death if it's going to be the only one that happens. I hope Iris is the only person we're going to lose, but it feels quite unlikely.
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