“Yesterday’s” Comic> Flash Annual #4

Waverider had a short career in therapeutic massage.

Flash Annual #4 (Vol. 2 technically)

DC Comics (1991)

At a celebration for the Flash, a woman comes up to him wanting to tell him about her boss, a metahuman named Diogenes who uses his power to see other people’s memories as well as being smart enough to know how to manipulate that knowledge to run his crime syndicate. Waverider’s attempt to read his future, however, distracts him enough for Diogenes to catch up with her and lead her away.

Had Waverider not interfered, life would be different for Wally West. As he would have investigated Diogenes, he and Bonnie would have fallen in love and married. When Diogenes targeted their families out of revenge, Wally and Bonnie would enter witness protection, becoming Mike and Diane Edwards. While intending this to be temporary (Wally was publicly the Flash and yes, this is addressed with “Mike” dyeing his hair) things change with the birth of David, who inherited Wally/Mike’s speed powers but not his protective aura. So when David gets hurt saving a neighborhood girl from being hit by a truck, Diogenes is able to find him and sets up a trap for the hero by kidnapping the boy from the hospital. Donning the costume again, Flash is put through a gauntlet of former Rogues that is meant to drain his powers into Diogenes’ own son. However, the powers are genetically coded and Diogenes’ son dies when the power is transferred into him. Instead of taking the powers back, however, they are granted to David to include the protective aura. Maybe someday he would have been the Flash?

What they got right: The fact that Wally is halted by Waverider’s scan shows that the attempts to scan a person’s future may stop that future from ever happening. At least in my collection it’s the first time I’ve seen this noted, and shows a flaw in Matthew Rider’s plan. As a “hero comes out of retirement” story, the witness protection angle is a nice change to the formula.

What they got wrong: Although Bonnie/Diane becomes a plot device, simply adding the reason Wally is forced to go into hiding and then the son that will be used to bring him back. Outside of a brief moment of exposition she adds nothing else to the story. And why would going underground stop Diogenes from attacking their family and friends to draw him out? In the story he even forces Jerry McGee (by threatening Tina because unlike the TV show her husband isn’t dead) to create the machine that saps Wally’s powers (I don’t know if the “Speed Force” was created by DC yet). One of the Rogues, Paradox, even kills another of Wally’s friends when he tries to save the McGees from being taken.

Recommendation: Armageddon 2001 aside this was a very good alternate Flash story, although Wally would later marry someone else and have two kids with both his powers and protective aura. It’s worth picking up for Wally West fans but others might enjoy it, too.