Warning: contains spoilers for Infinite Frontier #6!
Recently, Wally West became the official Flash of the DC Universe. It was a surprising move, given that Wally had actually been planning to retire as a superhero, but it was also hard won, following Wally’s quest through time and space to heal the injured Speed Force. One moment that gave Wally the most faith in his decision was arriving in the future in June’s Flash #771, meeting his grown-up daughter Irey West and discovering the wonderful things that would happen as a result of him embracing the Flash mantle. Now, it turns out that future may have been far darker than fans realized.
The revelation comes from Infinite Frontier #6, in which fans finally learn some details about the forces behind the scenes of DC’s new era. As Darkseid attempts to harness the Great Darkness beyond the multiverse, Barry Allen, the Flash prior to Wally, escapes the villain’s clutches and arrives in Multiverse-2. There, he meets Pariah, a being who has borne witness to the deaths of many realities, and who reveals he has a new philosophy even greater than Darkseid’s ambitions – to “let the real multiverse truly live.”
What exactly Pariah means by this still isn’t clear, but it’s nothing good, as he immediately transports Barry to a new reality where the former Flash is trapped in a heartwarming – but ultimately fake – version of family life on what the comic calls “Earth-Flash.1.” Pariah promises, “We’ll all be happy. No matter what,” even as fans see that his eyes have become black pits. But what’s so significant about this moment for Wally is that when fans see Earth-Flash.1. from a distance, it has the same lighting-bolt aura that Irey showed her father in the future.
While the issue doesn’t stress the connection, the suggestion is that – driven mad by seeing so many worlds destroyed – Pariah has somehow altered or manipulated the multiverse to trap Barry Allen in a fake paradise, likely drawing on Barry’s own Speed Force connection to mess with the borders of reality. Pariah’s words suggest he plans to do this again on a grand scale, giving a very different context to the seemingly ideal future Wally was shown by Irey. Now that fans know the lightning-bolt planet aura is a sign of Pariah’s meddling, it’s beginning to seem like what Wally actually witnessed was a future in which Pariah is triumphant.
While tragic, this explains why the future Wally witnessed was so optimistic and positive, offering him immediate assurance that his family can grow up to be safe and happy. That’s the exact kind of lie Barry is currently trapped in, with no desire to break free. It’s possible that Wally was shown a fake future on purpose, since he leaves with the intention of making sure it comes to pass, or that Pariah’s vast lie simply shows whoever visits it what they want to see, but either way what seemed like one of the happiest moments of Wally’s life now seems like something a lot darker.
As ever, there’s still hope. The future Wally witnessed doesn’t have to come to pass, and it’s even possible that Pariah’s abilities can be turned to the genuinely positive, and the future is just as bright (albeit a good deal more complicated) as it seems. If not, Wally’s decision to plunge himself back into a life that has been deeply harrowing for him in the past was built on a lie, and the Flash is running towards a cosmic honey trap and taking the rest of reality with him. Infinite Frontier‘s startling twist will pick back up in 2022, so for now, Flash fans will just have to hope that Wally starts asking some hard questions about the real nature of the future he’s trying to create.
