Sometimes It All Comes Together

A bunch of disparate pieces of comic information suddenly all coalesced in my brain a few minutes ago, making me think that maybe I've cracked part of what DC is up to.

1) DC's been hinting that major changes are coming in the Flash: The Fastest Man Alive title that's barely a dozen issues old now. I'd given up on it shortly after it debuted, because the writing team (from the old Flash TV show) was so unreadable that, combined with a new Flash (Bart Allen) who was neither the Scarlet Speedster I'd grown up with (Barry Allen) nor the one I'd gotten to know and love over the past two decades (Wally West), I couldn't find anything to like. I've bought a couple recent issues - new writer, at least! - and clearly they're building up to something big.

2) The JLA/JSA/LSH crossover running between Justice League of America - by Brad Meltzer - and Justice Society of America - by Geoff Johns - has the 31st century Legion members from a LSH incarnation that was popular in the 70s toting around little lightning rods as they roam mysteriously across our 21st century. Longtime Legion fans - like me - recall that devices just like those were used back in the Silver Age to resurrect Lightning Lad, after he'd been killed a few issues previous. The catch was: whoever holds the rod that draws in the lightning charge to revive the dead person gives up their own life in the process! (In the old Legion story, a bunch of them formed a ring around LL's coffin, in an electrical storm, and let chance decide!) Why does this bunch have those rods, and who are they planning to use them to bring back from the dead? And who's going to sacrifice himself or herself to save another?

3) A couple weeks ago we saw the dead Flash image that DC leaked, suggesting that Bart's days as the Fastest Man Alive were numbered.

4) Today DC caught everyone unawares by announcing, out of the blue, that Mark Waid will be returning to one of the characters he made his name on - the Flash! - as the current series will end shortly, after which Waid will take over the character and DC will resume the numbering of the old series. The fact that this has been planned for over a year now, Waid's already written three of the issues, and one's already been drawn, and nobody outside DC knew about it, is amazing in this Internet-spoiler age of ours. But that notwithstanding, this is great news for most Flash fans - myself included - and promises big things in the future.

5) Waid's current DC series, Brave and the Bold, recently featured the Legion villains known as the Fatal Five, and there've been hints that the Legion themselves may show up there within a few issues. (This may or may not be related to the pattern I'm seeing.)

So when I started adding all of that up, I saw the following:

Meltzer, Johns and Waid (all big Silver Age DC fans), working together to tell a story in which the Legion comes back from the future to revive a fallen Flash! The JLA/JSA/LSH teamup is called the Lightning Saga, after all, and Flash (at least, Barry and Wally) got his powers thanks to a lightning bolt. And all of the Flashes wear that symbol on their chest!

So will it be Bart who's brought back from the dead? (I hope not.) Wally?? (Possibly, as he was the Flash Waid spun tales about for a decade or so.) Barry??? (Probably too much to hope for, but on the other hand, rumours of his return have been circulating for awhile now. And Waid's a monster Barry Allen fan!)

And how does all of this tie into Countdown, and potentially the next Crisis? I have no idea, but all of a sudden I'm a lot more interested.