Originally published on Patreon
The Flash moves at super speed, flying through the world at a pace that's almost impossible to see, and reading issue 791 of The Flash feels a bit like I've tapped into the Speed Force too, because it seemed to be over so quick that I had to be going super fast. The One Minute War is under way, and as the shock of the devastating first contact last issue sets in the Flash Family start to gather the troops.
The end of the last issue saw the alien invaders from beyond Earth-0, the Fraction, dropping from the sky and blowing a hole into Central City. We begin with the very stark commentary that the attack has killed hundreds, if not thousands already; that the Flash has already been unable to save everyone. With everyone on Earth who isn't a speedster frozen in place, our heroes begin to do their best to figure out what happened. Wally and his family try to find somewhere safe for their frozen friends and family, Kid Flash and Impulse head over to the huge alien structure in the middle of the city, and Barry weeps over the body of Iris.
Last issue review I speculated that perhaps Iris wasn't dead, that by being frozen in time she only appears to be; but this issue seems to put that idea to bed as Barry, Wally, and everyone else treats it as if she's dead. And they've been handling frozen people for a while at this point, so they should know the difference if there is one. So yeah, Iris appears to be gone, and it's probably going to have a pretty big impact upon Barry. He's already admitted that he'd go back and change it if he could (good old responsible Barry as always).
Outside of this, we get to see the other members of the team coming up against the Fraction forces, beating several of them, and gathering together to form a plan of action. Unfortunately, this seems to put the speedsters on the Fraction's radar. I like that the Fraction acknowledge that they expected to find a speedster or two, that it's pretty common across the multi-verse, but the amount in Central City is unheard of. DC admitting that they've got more speedsters than the average.
The large number of people connected to the Speed Force gets the Fraction's leader interested in them, and he wants as many as possible captured as a gift for the upcoming wedding of their empress. To this ends, they release Miss Murder, a creature that they 'captured on the dark world'. The woman in question (who's on the cover) bears a mask similar to the Batman Who Laughs; so with the comment about where they found her seems to indicate that she could be from the same universe.
This is a bit of a meh revelation for me if I'm being honest. I kind of hated the Death Metal stuff and the whole Dark Multiverse stories, and as such don't particularly like the Batman Who Laughs as a villain. I'll acknowledge the design is okay, but this is now the second new Who Laughs type villain we've seen pop up over the last couple of months (with a Harley Who Laughs in Harley Quinn) and the design and concept might be becoming a bit overused. Have an evil speedster thing that the Fraction can send out after our heroes, sure, but maybe be a bit more original in her design.
Overall, though, this was a decent second issue to the event. Things are still in the set-up stage, with the Flash Family gathering the troops and figuring out what to do. But with the team together it looks set for things to start heating up in the next chapter.
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