Rating: ***

After almost three months, The Flash: Rebirth series continues.  I’ve liked this series so far, but this issue was very confusing.  It reminded me of some comic book stories I read in the 90s where the story was very exciting, but I had no idea what was going on.  I kind of felt that way here with this issue as I had to go over and re-read certain things to get a better grasp of what was going on - and as of right now, I’m still not 100% sure what’s going on or how to explain it.  However confusing the story may be, the action is intense and non-stop in this issue and with the action being presented by artist extraordinaire Ethan Van Sciver, you don’t mind it as page after page showcase some amazing artwork. 

In our last issue, the main villain of our story stood revealed and to no surprise it was Eobard Thawne the Reverse Flash, Professor Zoom.  Okay.  So from what I can understand, Thawne is responsible for infecting Barry with his current affliction of hurting speedsters.  According to Thawne, he has created a negative Speed Force.  It seems that when Barry was hit by lightning he created the Speed Force at that moment and now Thawne has created the negative Speed Force and it’s the cause of Barry’s disorder. 

In the last issue, we saw that Max Mercury and Johnny Quick were in the Speed Force and now the Speed Force is being infected by Zoom’s negative Speed Force.  So it seems, Max and Johnny were not dead and were instead living in the Speed Force, but now thanks to Zoom, Johnny Quick is now definitely dead.  Poor, Johnny.

But how is Professor Zoom alive?  Didn’t he get his neck snapped by Barry back in the 80s before the Crisis?  Well Thawne says that he will be resurrected soon thanks to a good friend of Barry’s.  What does this mean?  This has me intrigued because now we are dealing with time travel and I love time travel stories.  So sometime in the future Zoom will be resurrected by someone Barry knows and Zoom will then travel back in time to fight him.  Who is this person and why would they do this?

Back in the real world, Wally West decides to head into the Speed Force to rescue everyone and bring them back home.  This leaves his wife and kids helpless as Zoom leaves the Speed Force and goes after them.  The Golden Age Flash and Kid Flash race over and battle Zoom in order to protect Linda and the kids.  Back in the Speed Force, Wally reaches Barry and Max.  In a touching moment Max Mercury says he can’t make it out because he doesn’t have a “lightning rod” the way Barry, Jay, and Wally have - meaning he doesn’t have someone he loves to come back to.  Barry extends his hand out to Max and says that Max is family.  He was there to help Wally and everyone else while Barry was lost in the Speed Force.  Barry says he’s not leaving his family behind and that Max still has a lot of race left in him.  They all then explode out of the Speed Force to do battle with Zoom.  We end there.

Also in this issue we see Jesse Quick the current Liberty Belle.  She’s the daughter of Johnny Quick and we see her repeating the speed formula her father used in order for him to run.  She says she knows the answer and repeats the names of all the speedsters - including herself.  Not sure what this all means.  As I said this issue was a bit confusing, but still fun.

I love the Flash universe and it’s great to see Max Mercury back in the land of the living.  I’ve always loved his character from the days I first started reading Flash.  So we have two issues left and where will all of this lead to?  I have no idea.  I just hope Geoff can continue to juggle all of these speedsters and make things interesting and not have them seem redundant.  That’s my biggest fear for the Flash universe - too many Flashes.  If anyone can make it work though, its Geoff Johns, the best comic writer in the business today.  Later!