It looks like the Justice League dropped the ball when it came to the safety and well-being of the Flash. When Barry Allen returned to the land of the living, a frightening gap in the League’s operation came to light and makes the entire team look bad.
While Flash and the rest of his teammates on DC’s premier fighting force act independently most of the time, they ally themselves to take on threats bigger than any one of them can take alone. The team might have started as a small band of superheroes, but over time the Justice League expanded to a network consisting of dozens, if not hundreds, of costumed adventurers. The organization has become so polished over the years, it has an entire infrastructure set up just to monitor activity all over the Earth for potential threats only they can take care of.
And while the League is a well-oiled machine in that regard, it seems like one small oversight caused a pretty big headache for one of their own. In Flash #18 by Brian Buccellato and Marcio Takara, Barry Allen is trying to get his life together after a particularly rough couple of months. After the Speed Force absorbed Flash, he got pulled from one adventure to the next. From escaping Gorilla City to stopping a war with the Rogues and taking on Gorilla Grodd for control of the Speed Force, time seriously got away from Barry. Amid all the chaos, Barry is accidentally declared dead, though he does manage to get that rectified after things settle down. Unfortunately, this creates a problem getting his old job with the Central City Police Department back, forcing him to take a job bartending at a tavern known for catering to supervillians.
![Flash’s Life Was Ruined by a Disturbing Justice League Plot Hole](https://static1.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Barry-Allen-Legally-Dead-Flash-DC-Comics.jpg)
This isn’t the first time Barry Allen returned from ‘death’, but it is one of the few instances that highlights a problem in the DC Universe. In their adventures across time and space, it’s probably a fairly common occurrence for heroes to be accidentally declared dead in the line of duty, even when they’re just temporarily held up. The real question is why an organization as big as the Justice League is can’t seem to help one of their own cut through the red tape and get their life back on track?
Granted, the team is rarely presented as an official government entity, but various members of the Justice League are extremely connected individuals who could certainly call in favors when needed. At the very least, some of the organization’s more affluent members could help create a system that aids its members financially when they experience hardship as a result of their superhero work. If the superheroes of the world can put together a giant spaceship headquarters, they could at least help an ally as he traverses a legal gray area. Maybe the Flash isn’t one for a handout, but he should know whether the Justice League has his back if and when this happens again.