Warning: Spoilers for The Flash #767
It’s a well-known fact that ‘The Fastest Man Alive,’ The Flash, derives his extreme speed from an energy field called the Speed Force, a place where all speedsters get their motion-intensive powers bestowed upon them from. It’s also well known that without it, The Flash is rendered all but useless, a problem that can and does reoccur when Barry is flat out tired from crisscrossing around the globe while on the latest mission to help those in need.
So it’s of no surprise that during the Endless Winter crossover event that’s currently shaking DC Comics to its ice-encrusted core that The Flash is admittedly running (quite literally) on fumes. And that’s where Shazam! villain and all-around unpleasant guy, Black Adam steps in, because apparently, he’s the key to getting Flash back on his feet and back up to speed.
Happening in the second chapter of the Endless Winter event that sees a new foe in the centuries-old Frost King thrust the world into a sub-zero hell complete with ice monsters and unending blizzard conditions, The Flash #767 by Andy Lanning & Ron Marz and Clayton Henry, shows that an unlikely villain can also be an invaluable ally when the time is right. Lucky for The Flash – who has just about hit his limit for thousands of miles ran in a single day – Black Adam was feeling generous at the moment their paths crossed.
After a tense venting session at the United Nations about how the Justice League is basically inept at doing their jobs in finding the cause of the storm and stopping the villain at the heart of it, Black Adam makes a thinly veiled threat alluding to the fact that he might take matters into his own hands. Shortly after, The Flash is tasked with heading over to Black Adam’s home country of Kahndaq to try and placate the man into not becoming another problem on top of the bigger, more urgent problem they’re already facing – but due to the extreme cold slowing him down and the fatigue of it all, Flash’s batteries are almost spent, and he is easily beaten in a dust-up with the vicious ice monsters lurking inside the whiteout around him. Taken in by a nearby Black Adam and his new friends, Adam lets Flash recover and upon waking, uses his lightning powers to charge Flash up to full power, a key ability that it seems like Flash didn’t even know would work!
Now it’d be nice to think that the ruler of Kahndaq would simply help a guy when he’s not feeling at his best, but that would be giving Black Adam too much credit. Not only does he have that patented cocky smile across his face after he tops Flash off, but his creepy comment about being certain he’ll see Flash again or talking about how he just had “…a most useful conversation” after Flash is miles away is just downright shady and wouldn’t be the first time Black Adam used others to further his own agenda.
So even with the Speed Force constantly supplying The Flash with the speed he needs to get the job done, there’s only so much it can do when he’s running himself ragged trying to rid the world from the icy grips of the Frost King. And while Black Adam is an anti-hero you can’t always trust, he still decides to extend a helping hand to a hero in need; it’s just hard to tell if he did it out of the goodness of his heart or if there’s something else behind his motives for giving the speedster a free charge.
