Heroes In Crisis: The Murderer Revealed

When I was at Acme Comics (the best comic book shop in the multiverse!) for Free Comic Book Day, in addition to collecting a stash of free comics, I bought a batch of comics which including a month's worth of back log from my pull list. 

This included Heroes In Crisis#8. 

The premise behind Heroes In Crisis is there's a place called Sanctuary, created by Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman as a center to help treat super heroes suffering from trauma.  It's supposed to be a safe place, a secure place where super heroes can freely discuss their emotional and mental traumas. 

When we first encounter Santuary in Heroes In Crisis#1, that sanctity has been egregiously violated.

All the super heroes there are dead.

Murdered. 

The likely culprits appear to be either Booster Gold or Harley Quinn. Booster's been acting weird and Harley's always walking a tight rope between madness and being slightly less insane.  

Among the dead are an assortment of D-list nigh forgotten heroes from DC's history: Blue Jay, Lagoon Boy, Gnaark. 

Also dead are Roy Harper (aka Speedy, Arsenal, Red Arrow, etc) and Wally West, formerly Kid Flash and for a very long time, THE Flash of the DC Universe.  

Wally's death hit particularly hard. Written out of existence post-Flashpoint, he was miraculously returned to us with DC Rebirth, a symbol of hope for the DC Universe, both in canon and out here among the long time readers of DC Comics. 

It was hard to accept that Wally West, after all this, would be a victim out of dozens in a crossover event comic. 

Well, it could be worse.

With Heroes In Crisis#8, the murderer of all the super heroes in Sanctuary is revealed. 

And the murderer is....

Wally West, the Flash, the Fastest Man Alive. 

So...

WHAT THE HELL?!?!?

So here's the deal.

When Wally West came back into existence after being wiped out by Flashpoint, Wally came back without his wife and two children. Linda Park still exists but she doesn't know Wally West from a shrubbery.  

Meanwhile, when certain super heroes in the DC Universe encounter Wally, their memories of life pre-Flashpoint start to come back. They realize something has been taken from them and they see Wally as symbol of hope to regain what has been lost.  

It is a dichotomy that hurts Wally right to the very core of his being. He can help others regain what was lost but not what he lost. 

It's this emotional trauma that brings Wally West to Sanctuary. 

Instead of helping, the treatment at Sanctuary cause Wally to retreat further into his own head, fueling paranoia and rage. He breaks into Sanctuary's data base and absorbs the trauma of every other patient there. 

It is more than he can take.

Wally West loses control of the Speed Force, sending out a wave of power that kills everyone in Sanctuary.  

Which is bad enough, seeing Wally West shattered like that, causing so much death. This is not the hero DC fans followed for over two decades when he was the one and only Flash, when he was the Fastest Man Alive.  

But as bad as it is, writer Tom King does cross a lot of T's and dot a lot if I's to bring us to this point of emotional and mental meltdown.  

But it gets worse. And from here, Heroes In Crisis, already wobbling precariously on the rails, goes completely off of them.   

Using his incredible speed, Wally West sets up evidence to incriminate Booster Gold and Harley Quinn, arranges the dead bodies and alters the crime scene. 

And then he goes 5 days into the future to meet himself. There Wally West breaks the neck of his future self and brings the dead body of his future self to leave it among the other victims of Sanctuary. 

Wally in his confession says he's trying to do something that will be as good as the other thing he did that was bad. 

And I'm not sure I care any longer.  

There's one more issue to go of Heroes In Crisis. Just one issue for Tom King to redeem this mess.  

I am not very hopeful.