Absolute Flash Is Resurrecting an Intensely Personal Villain

DC’s forthcoming Absolute Flash is resurrecting one of many Scarlet Speedster’s most private foes—and sure, they’re household. The writer’s new Absolute line is giving followers daring and darkish new visions of its largest heroes, placing them in a world with out their trademark benefits. Absolute Flash is taking this premise a step additional, by bringing again one among Wally West’s first, and most private villains: his father.

DC launched solicitations for its April 2025 titles, together with Absolute Flash #2. The guide might be written by Jeff Lemire and drawn by Nick Robles. The solicitation reads as follows:

Absolute Flash #2 (2025)

Launch Date:	April 16, 2025
Writers:	Jeff Lemire
Artists:	Nick Robles
Cowl Artist:	Nick Robles
Variant Covers:	Jorge Corona, Christian Ward, Clayton Crain & Andrew McLean
Wally West is on the run from his dad and the remainder of Fort Fox, and whereas his new-found skills are terrifying him, he must discover a approach to make use of them to make his escape. However how will he deal with the elite group his father despatched to carry him again?

Absolute Flash continues Jeff Lemire’s wonderful streak at DC, having simply helped the writer launch a brand new JSA title. Rising star Nick Robles offers artwork for Absolute Flash. Robles has been behind a few of DC’s most hanging covers, and Absolute Flash appears to be his finest work but, significantly in Wally West’s costume design.

For the debut of Absolute Flash, Wally’s family might be amongst his first villains.

Just like the Hulk, Wally West’s Father Has Been a Horrible Affect On His Son

Rudolph West Was An Abusive, Emotionally Distant Father

Whereas Wally West’s father may look like an odd alternative for his first villain, there’s precedent for this in DC historical past. Rudolph West was launched early in Wally’s historical past, in 1960’s The Flash #116. Within the story “The Race to Thunder Hill,” Wally and his father (right here referred to as “Bob”) are taken hostage throughout an vehicle race. He acquired little or no growth in these pre-Disaster on Infinite Earths tales. Nevertheless, after the Disaster, which positioned his son because the DC Universe’s dominant Flash, all of that modified, because the character took on darker tones.

Comic book art: Wally West Flash runs towards the reader, shattering glass.

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Within the post-Disaster DC Universe, Rudolph West was a domineering presence in Wally’s life, and a product of poisonous masculinity. Rudolph didn’t consider in displaying feelings round his son, and even took to bullying the child. Wally’s house life was horrible, so when he acquired pace powers like his uncle Barry, he discovered a approach out, and a conduit for the feelings he was feeling. Even then, Wally nonetheless bore the psychic scars of his father’s abuse late into his heroic profession. But there was much more happening with Rudolph West.

DC Made the Flash’s Father Right into a Critical Villain–However Then Forgot About Him

The Flash’s Father Was His First Villain

In 1988, DC printed the Inexperienced Lantern-centric crossover occasion, Millennium, and the revelations that got here to gentle throughout it will rock Wally West’s life perpetually. Certainly one of Millennium’s plot factors concerned family members of DC’s largest heroes being corrupted by the Manhunters, a military of androids constructed by the Guardians of the Universe. Rudolph West was an agent of the Manhunters, recruited earlier than Wally was even born. Though he seemingly perished throughout that occasion, he would resurface a yr later, through the Invasion crossover, finally sacrificing his life to assist cease it.

The Flash’s rogues gallery is regarded as the most effective in comics, and rightfully so. The “Rogues” often menace the Flash, as do the likes of Gorilla Grodd and the Reverse-Flash. Rudolph West occupies a particular place within the Flash’s record of villains, as he might be thought to be the primary foe Wally needed to struggle. Whereas Wally and his father by no means exchanged blows, the harm Rudolph dealt his son harm worse than something Captain Chilly or Mirror Grasp may throw at him. Rudolph West was the one villain Wally by no means may contact, and by no means may beat.

What Will Absolute Flash’s Father Be Like?

With out Jay Garrick or Barry Allen, Wally Might Not Stand a Probability

Now, in DC’s new Absolute Universe, Rudolph West is returning to menace the Flash as soon as once more. Whereas DC has not revealed any particulars about this new model of Rudolph, it has talked about “Fort Fox.” It’s attainable that is some kind of navy operation, giving Rudolph and Wally ties to the military-industrial complicated. Robles’ cowl reveals a person who might be assumed to be Wally’s father main a workforce of military-style commandos into battle. If the Flash has ties to the federal government, then will probably be much more of a radical departure for the character.

“Fort Fox,” talked about within the solicitation for Absolute Flash #2, is likely to be a reference to Flash co-creator Gardner Fox.

Utilizing Absolute Flash’s father as his first villain subverts the formulation even additional. When Wally’s predecessor, Barry Allen, debuted, he instantly fought costumed super-villains such because the Turtle. There have been no villains within the Flash household, till Rudolph West got here alongside, and now the writer’s Absolute Universe has made him a real menace to Wally. With out Barry or Jay to information him in the usage of his new powers, Wally might be in for the struggle of his life.

DC’s New Darkish and Visionary Absolute Line is A Rolling Success

DC’s Absolute Line Flips the Script on the Heroes Backstories and Villains

DC’s new Absolute line has been an enormous gross sales and demanding hit, with almost each title going again for a number of printings. DC’s icons are at a extreme drawback within the new Absolute line: Batman doesn’t have his wealth and Surprise Girl was raised and educated by Circe in Hell, versus rising up on Paradise Island. For Absolute Flash, Lemire and Robles are meting out with the character’s legacy–no Barry Allen, no Jay Garrick and no Johnny Fast. The idea of legacy has been necessary to the Flash for many years, and now it’s gone.

The Absolute line has additionally flipped the script on the dynamics between the heroes and villains, beginning with Circe being so formative in Surprise Girl’s growth. In Absolute Batman, the main focus has shifted to lesser-known, however no much less cool, villains such as Mister Freeze and Black Masks. Whereas the Joker’s arrival within the Absolute Universe is assured, it’s refreshing to see these new takes that month-to-month break the mould of every little thing that has come earlier than.

Absolute Flash #2 is on sale April 16 from DC Comics.