They Just Made Absolute Flash More Powerful Than Ever

In the main universe, the Flash is one of the most powerful heroes from any time. The Speed Force is one of the most overpowered energy sources ever conceived, letting the Flash do whatever he needs to do to move as fast as he needs to, no matter how much it shatters every notion of what’s possible. DC’s Absolute Universe pitched itself as a world where heroes are the underdogs, and so they removed a key component from every hero they’ve introduced. Batman lost his fortune, Wonder Woman lost Paradise Island, and the Flash lost the Speed Force. The Flash’s powers in the Absolute Universe work completely differently from what we used to, but somehow they might be even stronger than his original counterpart’s. Absolute Flash #5 introduced a massive change to Wally West’s powerset that could make him the most powerful Flash of all time.

Wally and Grodd on the Run

After getting mixed up with Barry Allen’s seemingly fatal experiment and gaining his powers, Wally took off. The shadowy Project Olympus sent their elite strike team, the Rogues, to capture him, but when he proved too much, they tried their psychic monkey Grodd. Unfortunately for the clearly evil organization, Grodd and Wally teamed up and took off on their own. Issue #4 saw the unlikely duo seek shelter in Central City, and revealed that Dr. Elenore Thawne was leading Project Olympus’s effort to create metahumans, and four of them escaped when Wally fled. The young Flash and his adorable companion saw this first hand when Grodd led him to Heatwave, saying they needed to help him.

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At first, Wally wanted nothing to do with this and tried to run away, feeling the same type of connection start to form with Heatwave that formed when Barry supposedly died. Wally was terrified, but Grodd told him that he was okay, and that only he could help the out of control Heatwave. Donning his suit and rushing into action for the first time, the Flash tried to stop the out of control human-experiment. He tried hitting him, but nothing he did phased the living lava blob, until Grodd told him he didn’t need to stop him, he needed to help him and take the heat. Bolts of lighting shot out from Wally’s hands, and then dozens of bolts of energy blasted from Heatwave into Wally. He had some kind of vision of being in a different place, a desolate world with the cosmos so close and magnificent. A voice called out to him, and a giant spectral hand formed from the stars to reach out to him, but Wally ran away, and woke up back in reality. Heatwave was a human once again, Wally having somehow absorbed the energy that changed him. Then the Project Olympus military arrived, and comics’ cutest hero team took off. This new change to Wally’s powers has absolutely massive implications.

Absolute Flash is Project Olympus’s Miracle

Thawne is obsessed with capturing Wally, saying that he is the ultimate product of Barry’s experiments and something that they’ll never be able to recreate. We’re still not sure of the full scope of what they’re doing, but it seems pretty obvious Project Olympus is making their own metahumans by connecting to some kind of energy source, except every person before Wally suffered some horrible mutation. Wally seems to be the only person who kept his humanity, but even that is in question, as whenever he exerts his powers he feels as if he’s coming apart, and he had visions of two potential futures. In one, he’s the Flash, the hero, but in the other he became a monster just like all the other experiments. Somehow, this energy source that Barry Allen was trying to harness transforms people into monsters, and Wally has become a conduit for it, which lets him absorb it from other people who have been affected. And then there’s the being that tried to reach out to Wally, which could very well be Barry Allen, but could also be an entirely different person. Maybe it’s the embodiment of this energy, or maybe it’s an earlier test subject, such as the Absolute version of Jay Garrick. 

All we know for sure is that Wally’s new powers don’t come from the Speed Force, or at the very least this version of it is very different from anything we’ve seen before. In fact, the final pages of this issue show Wally’s dad finding what looks like an alien spaceship hidden deep within Project Olympus’s base, with alien bodies in test tubes. Instead of a mystical force, Wally’s powers could stem from some kind of alien energy field or advanced technology. Either way, this Wally is very different from what we’ve seen, being able to absorb the powers of those affected by this energy. It’s even possible that he’ll be able to manifest those abilities himself. He can run fast, see through time, and take more of this energy into himself. No matter what happens, I don’t think any of us are ready for what Wally shows he’s capable of, and I am so here for it.

Absolute Flash #5 is on sale now!