Behind another grabber (intended) of a cover, the Flash’s battle with his flaxen foe the Reverse Flash continues. Dennis Jensen is back as Infantino’s inker and the results really enhance the story. To my mind, Jensen is the best inker of Infantino’s work in this period. I’ve said this before but there are panels that you would almost swear Murphy Anderson had done and are a real throwback to the earliest of the Silver Age issues. The story opens with Kid Flash saving a baby in a runaway carriage as he’s rushing to Barry’s wedding. He arrives arrives to find everyone still there and Barry/The Flash still missing. He immediately charges off to find the Flash, but before he can even change into his uniform he’s confronted by an image of one of the Green Lantern Guardians. The Guardian stops him and tells him that, triumph or death, the Flash has to fight this fight alone.
What follows is a book length battle between the two speedsters with the Reverse Flash taunting the Flash about what he’s going to do to Flash/Barry’s betrothed the entire way with the only interruptions being brief glimpses of the wedding party and everyone’s reactions to Barry’s absence. Each time the scene shifts to the church and the halted wedding, Fiona is a little more crushed by the events. The fight between the two speedsters ranges from the Himalayas to Cape Canaveral where the conflict shifts aboard a rocket heading into space. As they return back to the ground again, the Reverse Flash writes in the golden sand of a Florida beach: “Guess who’s going to kill your wife again?” Jump cut to the church where Fiona is running out of the church. Barry’s mother says: “You can’t run out on Barry now!” to which she replies “Your son is the one who ran out on me!”
As she steps out of the church, both Flashes are see running towards her. As the Reverse Flash is about to vibrate his hand into Fiona’s brain, he’s caught in a choke hold by the Flash and driven into the ground. As the Flash tries to comfort Fiona, we see Captain Frye crouched over the Reverse Flash with his fingers feeling for a pulse on his neck and asking someone to call the coroner.
By sticking to a single storyline, and a very dramatic one at that, the writer Cary Bates continues to lift his game by coming up with one of the series’ best story arcs in some time. For the first time in a while, he’s in command of a story that that has you looking forward to the next issue.
