The One Minute War comes to a conclusion in this issue of The Flash as the Flash Family come together for one last battle; and they get some reinforcements from an unexpected place.
The last issue of The Flash ended with a pretty startling revelation, as Wally, who was thought to be dead, found himself waking up in a strange location with Gold Beetle, and all of the heroes who died during Heroes in Crisis. Now, I don't think that it's going to be particularly controversial to say that Heroes in Crisis was a bad book. Not only was the mystery at the heart of it pretty convoluted and weird, but the fact that it did terrible things to Wally West means most people hated it. It wasn't just a character assassination, they came to the funeral and kicked the tombstone over and pissed on the mourners. It was awful. Some comics have been trying to do their best to repair the damage it did since then, but the fact remained that several heroes were dead because of him. Well, not anymore. And for that alone this issue gets a five star review.
It turns out that when he met Gold Beetle whilst jumping through the timeline Wally told her to 'save everyone', and she took that to heart, and went and grabbed everyone killed at Sanctuary and pulled them out of the timeline, replacing their bodies with fakes. So yeah, Wally West isn't a killer anymore. And now he gets to smash back into reality with a team of characters thought dead and gone to help Team Flash against the Fraction. They might only get a minute of super speed in which to help out, but they absolutely help.
Whilst the fight against the Fraction rages the rest of the Flash Family start to put their plan into motion to try to send the Fraction back in time to just before they arrived. But what difference would that make? Well, it turns out that their leader is a natural speedster, and after being beaten and put into one of the battery units it means that when time reverses he seems to have simply vanished; making the Fraction rethink attacking Earth-0, and getting them to run away.
I'm sure that there are some who will view this as an easy out, who'll roll their eyes and go 'of course they're using time travel again', but I like this solution. It feels very Flash, yet it's done carefully, smartly, and in a way that doesn't break the universe. And the entire family are there to do it. Getting so see all of the speedsters working together, all of the generations of Flash saving the world as a team is everything I could want as a Flash fan.
With the reversal of time it means that Iris doesn't die, Central City is trashed, and no one other than the speedsters know what happened. It also means that Barry and Iris can also finally get engaged again. The issue ends on a hopeful note, with Wally and his friends and family gathering for a party, Barry and Iris getting their happy ending, Max and Bart heading off into the Speedforce for adventure, and Gold Beetle putting the lost heroes back into the timeline. This is one of those stories that not only managed to save everyone who died during this story, but some extra ones too.
This feels like a celebration of The Flash, of the family, of their abilities to save the world. It's not that often that The Flash is really given a big showcase like this, even in his own book, and it not only feels well earned, but it feels like a fantastic end to this run. There are still a few more issues to go before the creative team changes, but this really does feel like the crescendo; with everything else to come after being a nice wrap-up. The next team are going to have a tough act to follow, as this has been one of the most enjoyable and entertaining eras for The Flash. Hopefully we'll continue to get more amazing stories; and if this story has shown one thing, it's that with this many amazing members of the family it's well past time that we got more than one Flash title.
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