3.5/5 stars. Now, this was fun. This is one of my stories, one that superhero comics do so well: where the hero ends up doing bad things in an ultimate quest to do good. Plus, Flashes, time travel, all good. I'm interested enough to check out earlier volumes and to keep up with what might be next. [I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.] ( )

I received this from the publisher and Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.

Now this was AMAZING!

While The Flash has always been one of my favorite superheroes, I haven’t read any of The Flash volumes since Volume 1: Fast Forward, and I wasn’t up to speed on the run up to this latest volume. That did not impact my understanding of the story in the least: the story was written so well that I was able to keep up with the background information provided through normal dialogue. Not an easy task, that.

The writing in this was simply outstanding. Robert Venditti really captured the emotional impact of future-Flash/Barry Allen as well as his desire to set things right, and captured the confusion and “goodness” of current-Flash/Barry Allen. I was truly surprised to see how far future-Flash had fallen because of his guilt at being late to various emergency scenes and remorse of not being able to save everyone all the time. The author really played the emotional parts of this storyline very well.

The artwork in this volume matched the writing, and seeing the various future villains and how they’ve changed. The battle scenes were exceptionally well done, especially towards the end of the book.

Overall, this was the best Flash storyline I’ve read in a long time, and I’m looking forward to see how this all plays out. ( )

Time Travel. I think my head hurts.

The TPB starts with Barry as himself and as the Flash trying to fix his city after The Crime Syndicate has destroyed so, so much of it. He’s also trying to juggle his girlfriend Payy (who’s growing on me still), his ‘work’ as the Flash, his work at the Crime Lab, and Iris asking him to help her nephew Wally (yay Wally West) stop getting into so much trouble.

And then we find out that it’s more than just Central City that’s falling apart, but the speed force too. And so we get two stories in most of the TPB, and bounce between them like a super powered super ball. One alongside our current time Flash, and one alongside a future Flash. And then Wally gets into the mix (I liked his costume a lot), and after that we get quite a cliffhanger too.

I got this advanced galley through Netgalley on behalf of DC Entertainment ( )