WARNING! LOTS OF SPOILERS AHEAD!

Release Date: June 1987
Writer: Mike Baron
Penciller: Jackson Guice
Inker: Larry Mahlstedt
Guest Stars: Wonder Girl, Cyborg, Changeling, Francis Kane
Bad Guys: Vandal Savage

Cover: Jackson Guice

"Presenting the new FLASH". The Flash races across the foreground, apparently outrunning a couple of fighter jets*.

* Fighter jets may not appear in comic. And if they did, the Flash couldn't outrun them at the moment anyway.

The comic

So, the Crisis has been and gone, and Barry Allen has run himself into nothing (or into the Speed Force, as we'll later discover). And so begins a new era of the Flash, starting with my least favourite ever run on Flash, the Baron/Guice run. Stuff happens here, though, that gets picked up on in later issues, so I guess I have to cover it. I'll just try and remember that it doesn't last too long, and we don't have to put up too long with Wally the womanising jerk with an oddly proportioned body.

Wally is loitering the streets of New York, killing time before his surprise party. He buys a lottery ticket before heading to his apartment.

Arriving at his apartment, he unconvincingly feigns surprise at the party his girlfriend Francine and some of his friends from the Titans have thrown for him. Just as he's sitting down to enjoy some abundant quantities of food, he gets a phone call from someone requiring the Flash's services. A heart needs to be transported across the country, and storms are preventing planes from flying.

Wally excuses himself from the party and goes to the hospital, where he agrees to transport the heart in exchange for medical insurance from the hospital, and a plane ticket back to New York. He explains that, as his top speed is 705 mph, it will take him three hours to get to Seattle where the heart is needed.

He sets off on his journey, but on his way he passes two men struggling in the snow. He is 20 miles down the road before he realises what he's seen, and he doubles back but finds only one man dying. With his last words he tells the Flash that he was a private investigator doing a routine background check, but the subject of the check turned out to be Vandal Savage. The man dies, and the Flash turns around to be contronted by Vandal Savage himself. They fight briefly, but Savage vanishes, and the Flash resumes his run to Seattle.

On the return flight Wally subdues some hijackers, spraining his wrist in the process. He returns to his apartment to find the party over and everyone has left. He turns on the tv to check the lottery results, and is surprised to discover he has won six million dollars. He then notices a present left unopened, and assumes it is from Francis. He opens it and is shocked to find a human heart, which he again assumes comes from Francis. His costume ring springs open, and a voice tells him to put the costume on. He turns to see Vandal Savage.

Good Stuff

Just about everyone calling Wally Kid Flash.

Vandal Savage, after magically making Wally's costume ring explode like a fourteen year old boy in a strip club: "Put it on. Live as the Flash, die as the Flash." Nicely menacing.

Flashometer

Flash's current top speed is just under the speed of sound.

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