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The Flash #36 Review – Trading Places

By Nick Tylwalk

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So if Barry Allen is stuck in the Speed Force and his future self is busy impersonating him in the present, is that really such a bad thing — especially when Future Flash is romantic with Patty, patient with Wally and willing to give Iris West her big break as a reporter?

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That’s what we’re supposed to ponder for the vast majority of The Flash #36. If you were expecting Future Flash to be a stereotypical bad guy as soon as he was let loose in the present, Robert Venditti and Van Jensen play with your expectations just a bit. Given a new lease on life through some typical comic book science, Future Barry manages to play off the fact that he doesn’t remember his day-to-day work life pretty successfully, and he really seems to care about Barry’s loved ones, which makes sense since they used to be his. I have mentioned that time travel makes my head hurt, right?

You just know Future Flash is going to show his true colors eventually. While we’re waiting for that to happen, we also check in on our Barry, who is stuck with no powers and only avoids becoming dinosaur food or robot fodder thanks to the help of a mystery man named Selkirk. I’m not really sold on the Speed Force being an actual place, though I can see some fans liking that more than its pre-New 52 depiction as a mystical Heaven-like dimension. The writing team is at least giving us another mystery to dig into, and seeing Barry have to use his brains to stay alive, get home and defeat his older, wiser self has the potential to be a lot of fun.

Brett Booth handles only about a third of the art on this outing, with the remainder done by Andre Coelho, a man with whom I was previously unfamiliar. When you have split art duties, it works best if there’s a clear contrast with the main characters in two different places, or if the styles are similar enough that it’s not that big a difference. I’d lean more toward the second arrangement with Coelho, and while he’s not quite as dynamic as Booth, the few scenes he gets to draw with Future Flash zipping around are certainly in the same vein. It’s also, very sadly, his final work, as the Brazilian artist passed away last month.

Pacing is going to be very important with this particular story. I enjoy a nice slow build as much as the next guy, but Future Flash already had his plan in motion for a while before Barry was even aware of him. You’re rooting for the hero to overcome impossible odds and give the villain his comeuppance in a very classic way, but it can’t be drawn out too much or fans will start to lose interest.

And with that, we’re on to the …

SPOILERS PAST THIS POINT!

After nearly getting eaten by a dinosaur at the end of the previous issue, a powerless Barry is nearly taken out by robots until he’s bailed out by a mystery man.

Future Barry is having no such bad luck. In fact, everything is coming up roses for him, from the fact that the Speed Force has made him 20 years younger so he “belongs” in the present …

… to the way he’s able to keep Patty, Wally, his co-workers and Iris from becoming too suspicious. He even gives Iris what appears to be a big scoop (presumably with his knowledge of the future) and vows to find Wally’s mom. What a guy.

Inside the Speed Force, Barry’s rescuer introduces himself as Selkirk, revealing that the rip that was the main threat in the previous arc has sucked in things from all different time periods. He also hints that Barry may not be the first speedster to end up in this place. Plus he’s got a super cool tree fort!

And, as you kind of suspected, Future Flash shows his true colors when he tracks down a killer Barry was never able to catch and straight up murders him with a little super speed rearrangement of his internal organs. Yeesh.

Favorite moment: Future Barry agrees to stay home and watch a movie with Patty, as long as it’s not a horror flick. Yeah, because this version of you really hates blood, right? Wink, wink.

Final thought: Could time pass differently inside the Speed Force so that Barry has a chance to train and be able to fight Future Flash more evenly when he makes his inevitable return? It’s a story beat that’s been done plenty of times before, but it would actually make sense in this context.

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