“Of Two Worlds Part One”
Creative Staff:
Story: Jeff Lemire
Art: Nick Robles
Colors: Adriano Lucas
Letterer: Tom Napolitano
What They Say:
Without the mentor…without the family…without the Speed Force, what’s left is the Absolute Scarlet Speedster!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The arrival of the fourth series under the Absolute banner actually comes with a lot of dread. With three titles that have launched strong and interesting works, can the fourth one maintain that good luck? The series has some great talent behind it with Jeff Lemire writing it. I’ve enjoyed a wide range of his works over the years from straightforward superhero to the weird and strange as well as deeply personal, so he’s a perfect candidate for an Absolute book. Nick Robles I’m less familiar with but I absolutely adored his Dr. Mirage work years ago so I was excited to see how he would capture a speedster here. The best part is that they’ve got Adriano Lucas handling the colors for it and they’re able to take the pencils and inks and just elevate the whole thing in capturing the right look.
Having come of age in DC Comics when Barry Allen was being phased out of things, quite literally in Crisis on Infinite Earths, I enjoyed getting to know that character in the final issues of that run. But it also meant that going forward at that time in the late 1980s, Wally West was my Flash and having the focus on here is quite welcome. What we get in this world is a Wally that’s an army brat that has no friends and is stuck on a base with his widowed father who is pretty much absent from his life. And the two are basically just angry with each other for likely simple reasons. We see how Wally comes back late from town one night and his father gets a call from the guards about it but not before Wally ends up being “rescued” by Barry Allen, a scientist at Fort Fox where he and Wally’s father are working on a project.
It’s interesting to get this new dynamic between Barry and Wally but the focus is squarely on Wally and we do see how his father tries to reconcile a little but the depths of their relationship is just that bad since the death of his mother. Barry had invited Wally to come back and get involved in things since he’s a “smart kid” but Wally’s father forbade that for a host of reasons. Which is why it’s no surprise that Wally does make his way back only to do so when Barry is running an out-of-control experiment that, obviously, alters Wally’s physiology. It’s done largely as a kind of flashback piece for the bulk of the issue in seeing how Wally gained his powers and works well since the present-day material with a group of, ahem, rogues hunting him down for someone is tracking him through the desert and we see just how tough things are going for Wally a year after the incident. One where the backstory looks to be fascinating to fill in but has me wary about the present with some of the characters coming on already, especially a certain boomerang guy.
In Summary:
The fourth entry in the Absolute lineup feels more like how I felt after the Superman book, which I thought was the weakest of the launch trio – which isn’t saying much as they’re all really well done. Absolute Flash does things I like here with a focus on Wally West while still leaving open a way to utilize Barry in an interesting way and keeping Wally in his teenage years – desperately needed when the other books largely focus on older characters. The back-and-forth in the timeline element here doesn’t do it any favors but I do like the last couple of pages that hint at what happens in the year between the incident and present-day with what it can offer in how Wally has grown, changed, and probably hardened. The artwork is perfect for it with a fantastic color design that stands out wonderfully. I’m hopeful for the series and I know the talent involved will be able to pull it off, but it’s definitely now the weakest of the four Absolute titles in terms of a launch book. But again, that’s already stronger than a good chunk of the entire DC lineup so it’s not exactly a bad thing. It’s just having to work through the formula in a way I’m a bit tired of in comics but with an intriguing idea and setup while utilizing my favorite Flash character.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: DC Comics
Release Date: March 19th, 2025
MSRP: $4.99
