Written by: Mark Waid, Christopher Cantwell
Art by: Vasco Georgiev
Colors by: Matt Herms
Letters by: Buddy Beaudoin
Cover art by: Dan Mora (cover A)
Cover price: $3.99
Release date: February 25, 2026
First Impressions
The first read on The Flash #30 is that of a gorgeous, relentlessly moving comic that never stops long enough to let your brain catch up. Page to page, the action feels big, the layouts keep the energy high, and the idea of threading Bart, Wally, and Barry through one of DC’s most famous deaths has real emotional weight baked in. The problem is that the script keeps stacking concepts on top of concepts without laying clean track beneath them, so the emotional beats and cosmic stakes blur into one long rush of “something important is happening” without enough space to process what or why.
By the time you hit the ending, you can feel how much the creative team wants this to be a definitive statement about the Speed Force, Bart’s role in it, and Barry’s fate, yet the rush to line everything up with DC K.O. and Crisis‑era iconography leaves the whole thing feeling more exhausting than profound. It is the rare issue where you can honestly praise the pacing and still call the reading experience confusing, because the forward momentum is there, but the story keeps zigzagging through time and metaphysics so quickly that the “why should I care right now” part of your brain never fully locks in.
Recap
In The Flash #29, Wally West stole a flight ring from the Legion of Darkseid and raced to Barry Allen’s lab to stop the Legion from disrupting Barry’s origin and destroying the Speed Force. Dream Girl defected from the Legion to help, but Saturn Girl’s team diverted the fateful lightning bolt, causing Wally to intercept it instead and nearly killing the Speed Force in the process. Bart Allen, weakened in the present, realized the Speed Force was being murdered, learned he was the Speed Force itself with guidance from a partially trapped Jay Garrick, and reignited it from within his own body, saving Wally and Barry but drawing Darkseid’s attention. The issue closed with Darkseid warning Bart that Barry is destined to die in a “Great Crisis,” and that trying to change that fate would collapse everything, which pushed Bart into chasing a time bubble to save his grandfather anyway while Dream Girl vanished with a promise to meet again at the end.
Plot Analysis (SPOILERS)
The issue opens in the thick of the temporal chaos, with Wally, Bart, and Barry hurtling through time as the fallout from Bart’s decision to defy Darkseid’s warning comes crashing down. The Speedsters land at a familiar crisis point for Barry, one of those fixed‑point moments that every DC reader recognizes as a line in the sand between life, legend, and sacrifice. Darkseid’s presence is framed as a past version intersecting with their current race, a cosmic chess player who has been manipulating the Speed Force as both a weapon and a resource tied to Barry’s destiny.
From there, the script pushes Bart into the role of would‑be saboteur of destiny, as he tries to engineer a scenario where Barry does not vanish into the Speed Force at that crucial moment. Wally acts as the field general trying to keep everyone alive and focused, while Barry becomes the man stuck in the middle of a fight for his own narrative, largely reacting to forces he only half understands. Darkseid applies pressure through both raw power and philosophical taunts, reminding Bart that tampering with this moment risks shattering the very fabric of the Speed Force he has become.
As the battle escalates, the layouts cut rapidly between different angles on the crisis, with speed trails, energy crackles, and overlapping figures stacking on top of each other to sell the sensation of time and space fraying around the Speedsters. Bart’s earlier revelation about being the Speed Force itself resurfaces in flashes of visual metaphor, as the art portrays him not just running through the storm but partially becoming it in streaks of light and fractured silhouettes. Supporting players from the DC K.O. framework and the Dark Legion concept appear at the edges of the conflict, but they mostly function as pressure valves and visual noise rather than clearly defined tactical pieces.
The climax hinges on Bart making a choice about whether to let Barry’s iconic fate play out or to insert himself as the sacrifice, which would theoretically give Darkseid the opening he wants to reshape the Speed Force in his own image. The script tries to thread a needle where Bart both honors the weight of Barry’s original sacrifice and asserts his own agency as the Speed Force, but the sequence plays out so quickly and with such dense visual information that the exact mechanics of what he decides feel muddy. By the final pages, the crisis is technically resolved and the immediate DC K.O. tie‑in obligations are met, yet the emotional landing feels strangely soft, with more emphasis on teasing future consequences than letting this issue’s choices breathe.
Writing
On a pure pacing level, The Flash #30 moves like a book that does not want you to be bored for a single panel, and that part works. Scenes snap from one critical beat to the next with almost no downtime, which gives the issue a satisfying sense of urgency compared to the setup‑heavy wobble of the previous chapter. The trouble is that the script never grants itself the quiet half‑page needed to clarify who is doing what to the timeline and why it matters right now, so important beats blur together and payoffs arrive without the set‑up you need to feel them. Structurally, this feels like the end of a longer arc compressed into twenty pages to satisfy both DC K.O. obligations and a desire to revisit Crisis iconography, which leaves character motivations sketched in broad strokes rather than cleanly articulated.
Dialogue swings between energetic quips and big‑idea pronouncements, and while individual lines occasionally land, the overall mix leans too heavily on characters telling you how monumental everything is instead of letting the events demonstrate that weight. Bart, Wally, and Darkseid all speak in a blend of exposition and emotion that aims for mythic but often lands as crowded, since each line has to carry plot detail, character voice, and timeline rules at the same time. Thematically, there are strong ideas on the table, particularly around agency versus destiny and what it means for Bart to be the Speed Force instead of just a user, yet the script keeps racing past its own philosophy to get back to the next explosion of speed trails. What you are left with is writing that feels conceptually rich but practically cluttered, impressive in scope but uneven in execution for anyone who is not already charting the continuity in their head.
Art
Vasco Georgiev’s art is the main reason this issue feels readable at all, because the line work and staging sell momentum with a confidence that matches the script’s ambition. Speed effects are rendered with crisp motion lines and layered figures that convey multiple moments in a single panel, which smartly communicates how time is folding around the Speedsters. Character acting is strong on a micro level, with Wally’s tension, Bart’s strain, and Barry’s bewildered resolve all coming through in facial expressions and body language even when the page is crushed with effects. There are panels where the sheer density of energy crackles and debris fights readability, but as a whole, the compositions keep your eye moving along clear diagonals that guide you across the chaos.
Color work leans into high‑contrast bolts of yellow, red, and cosmic violet, which amplifies the sense that the Speed Force is both a character and an environment. The palette choices make Darkseid feel suitably otherworldly compared to the warm reds and golds of the Speedsters, so you can always tell where the god of tyranny sits in the frame. When the issue quiets down for half a panel here and there, the colors shift slightly cooler, hinting at the emotional undercurrent the script rarely pauses to explore. Overall, the art team turns in a visually impressive, kinetic package that sometimes sacrifices panel‑to‑panel clarity at the altar of sheer spectacle, but if you are here for big Flash visuals tied into DC history, you will find plenty to enjoy.
Character Development
Character work in this issue is more implied than explored, which is a problem when the plot revolves around rewriting or preserving one of the most defining deaths in DC lore. Bart’s motivation rests on his revelation from the previous issue and his emotional connection to Barry, yet the script rarely slows down to let him articulate what this choice means to him beyond not wanting his grandfather to die again. Wally fares slightly better as the responsible adult in the room, the one who understands both the stakes and the rules, but even he spends much of the issue issuing orders and reacting to twists rather than working through a clear internal conflict. Barry, ostensibly the man whose fate is on the chopping block, mostly reads as an anxious passenger in his own legend, which might be thematically intentional but leaves him feeling oddly distant for new readers.
Relatability takes a hit because so much of the emotional context depends on external continuity and prior issues, not on what this script gives you in the moment. Darkseid functions as a looming, articulate threat with a consistent voice, but his interest in the Speed Force and Barry’s death feels more like a plot lever than a character obsession you can latch onto. The result is a cast that behaves in ways that are broadly consistent with their archetypes, yet rarely in ways that feel grounded in clear, immediate, on‑page motivations, which keeps you at arm’s length when you should be right there in the storm with them.
Originality & Concept Execution
On paper, using Bart’s newfound status as the Speed Force and throwing him into the moment of Barry’s Crisis sacrifice is a sharp, original angle, especially as a DC K.O. tie‑in that actually touches a core piece of Flash mythology. The idea of Darkseid treating the Speed Force like a resource to be captured and reshaped, and Bart wrestling with whether to break or preserve a foundational sacrifice, has real potential to say something new about destiny in superhero universes. In practice, the execution feels like it is trying to do two issues’ worth of conceptual work inside one very loud finale, so the freshness gets buried under the noise. The comic does follow through on the promise of “Speedsters from the present meet Darkseid from the past” as a premise, but it stops short of fully exploring the implications of that encounter once the punching is over.
Pros and Cons
What We Loved
- Kinetic layouts that keep the eye moving and sell the sensation of time ripping at the seams.
- Expressive character acting that gives Wally, Bart, and Barry distinct physical personalities amid the chaos.
- Bold, high‑contrast color work that turns the Speed Force into a vivid, living environment on the page.
Room for Improvement
- Overstuffed script that crams too many concepts and timelines into a single rushed conclusion.
- Emotional beats that rely on prior continuity instead of building clear, on‑page motivations and reflections.
- Cluttered climax where the exact mechanics of Bart’s final choice and its consequences feel frustratingly vague.
About The Reviewer: Gabriel Hernandez is the Publisher & EIC of ComicalOpinions.com, a comics review site dedicated to indie, small, and mid-sized publishers.
Follow @ComicalOpinions on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and TwitterThe Scorecard
Writing Quality (Clarity & Pacing): 2.5/4
Art Quality (Execution & Synergy): 3.5/4
Value (Originality & Entertainment): 0.8/2
Final Verdict
The Flash #30 is the kind of issue that looks like a win from a distance, a big, pretty Crisis‑adjacent brawl with Darkseid, three generations of Speedsters, and the fate of the Speed Force all tangled together, yet up close it reads like a comic that is sprinting to meet obligations instead of walking you through a complete, satisfying story. If you have been following DC K.O., read the previous issue, and enjoy watching clever artists find new ways to stage speed fights across collapsing timelines, this will probably scratch that itch for you. If you are a casual reader or someone with a tight pull list who needs clarity, emotional focus, and a self‑contained payoff for every four dollars, this installment feels too confusing and overstuffed to justify the spend.
6.8/10
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