The Flash: Speed Metal Confirms DC's Most Important Speedster - CBR - Comic Book Resources

WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Dark Nights: Death Metal - Speed Metal #1, by Joshua Williamson, Eddy Barrows, Eber Ferreira, Adriano Lucas and Steve Wands, on sale now.

Several different heroes have held the mantle of the Flash within the DC Universe, from Jay Garrick and Barry Allen to Wally West and Bart Allen. While the extended Flash Family recently reunited in the pages of The Flash to confront the Reverse-Flash and his Legion of Zoom, Wally was conspicuously missing following his role in the Multiverse-spanning miniseries Flash Forward. And with Wally reunited with his fellow Scarlet Speedsters during the crossover event Dark Nights: Death Metal, his place as the most important Flash of them all has been confirmed as the speedsters face the Darkest Knight for the fate of the entire DC Multiverse.

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During Flash Forward, Wally had come into contact with Metron's Mobius Chair and gained the omnipotent powers of Doctor Manhattan left on it after he killed Metron and Earth-3's Owlman. Ambushed by the Batman Who Laughs, Wally had been weakened from his encounter with the Dark Multiverse villain until the Dark Knight was dismembered by Wonder Woman, reuniting Wally with Barry and Jay. This happy reunion proved to be short-lived when the Batman Who Laughs was reborn as the Darkest Knight and began to chase the Flashes through the ruins of the DC Multiverse after it was devastated by the evil Perpetua.

Wally realizes that with the Darkest Knight possessing similar powers to Manhattan, the villain is going to make a second attempt to claim the Mobius Chair and augment his abilities further. Standing between the speedsters and the Chair is an army of Black Flashes, the Speed Force's undead personification of death, summoned from across the Dark Multiverse by the Darkest Knight. Wally recites Johnny Quick's Speed Force formula to give himself and the rest of the Flash Family a much-needed super-speed boost as he reveals his own desperate strategy: Instead of running away from the Darkest Knight and his Black Flash army, run through them to reclaim the Mobius Chair and take it back to Wonder Woman.

The speedsters race through the zombie horde with their upgraded speed while enduring one tremendous side effect from the boost: While their speed has effectively been doubled, it also taxes their stamina at a significantly accelerated rate. Both Jay Garrick and Kid-Flash are the first ones down, leaving the fateful race to Barry and Wally. While the two speedsters' friendship is still strained from their confrontation during "Flash War," Barry proves that he still implicitly trusts his original protege and best friend by lending him his remaining speed to finish the race and outrun the Darkest Knight to the Mobius Chair. Back on the throne, Wally's power is restored while he finds the entire Flash Family safe from the Darkest Knight's clutches inside the confines of the Speed Force...for now.

Because of his cosmic upgrade from the Mobius Chair, Wally can now serve as a conduit for raw Crisis energy to restore the entire DC Multiverse to what it once was. Wonder Woman and the rest of the trinity of DC superheroes are busy gathering Crisis energy, planning to boost Wally by using the Mobius Chair as a reservoir for the additional energy. Jay may be the original Flash and Barry may be the most iconic, longest-running Scarlet Speedster who legacy shaped all subsequent speedster superheroes but Wally has proved himself to be Death Metal's most important and the hero that will choose which worlds live and which worlds die as the crossover event continues.

KEEP READING: Wonder Woman Meets Wonder Woman on Dark Nights: Death Metal's Final Cover

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Sam Stone is a 10th level pop culture guru living just outside of Washington, DC who knows an unreasonable amount about The Beatles. You can read his work in the pages of Image+, follow him on Twitter @samstoneshow, and listen to his podcast Geek Out Show on iTunes and Google Play.