One of the themes in “Thy Kingdom Come,” the storyline that’s been running through Justice Society of America this year, has been exploring the link between the present-day DC Universe with the future shown in the groundbreaking 1996 miniseries Kingdom Come. This week’s Justice Society of America #21 looks into the mystery of the Kingdom Come version of the Flash.
The original writer and artist, Mark Waid and Alex Ross, have each produced their own sequel — and gone in completely different directions. Waid wrote the 1999 event, The Kingdom, which explored the future generation of heroes and introduced the concept of Hypertime. Ross disliked the direction Waid took the story, and from what I can tell has completely ignored The Kingdom with “Thy Kingdom Come.”
On to the Flash: in the original miniseries, the Flash was silent, faceless, constantly vibrating as if he wasn’t entirely in this plane of existence. It was suggested somewhere (though not in the book itself) that he was actually several Flashes merged together. In The Kingdom, he was revealed as Wally West, and he was just very, very busy, never slowing down to normal speed.
I haven’t read the issue yet, but posters at The Comic Bloc have. According to sylpemberton (Spoilers Ahead, highlight to view):
Jays been zapped by Gog and he’s turning into a being made up of pure speed force. What you see is Jay vibrating in multiple positions. It doesn’t appear to be a merger of Flashes at all…just Jay being affected and vibrating and moving out of control…
I’ve always thought Waid got shafted with “Thy Kingdom Come”. The JSA title makes it look like Ross came up with the whole Elseworld story, which is untrue. At least give Waid credit where credit is due.
Well, Waid came up with the speed force in the first place, so he’s still getting a shout-out there. But I always hated hypertime. Of course, the current multi-world status of the DCU isn’t any better.
I think the Jay-into-KC-Flash thing is really cool. I hope it’s not just reversed next issue.
Oh, it has to be reversed by next issue. All current DCU storylines happen pre-Final Crisis, and we’ve seen Jay be normal Jay in Final Crisis, so he should be back to normal next ish.