Absolute Flash #1 (2025)

In the desert, fifteen year old Wally West has a panic attack as lighting and red afterimages explode out of him. He struggles to calm himself using anxiety management techniques his mother taught him and tries to slow his thoughts. Two days prior, Wally is standing alone on a set of railroad tracks in the rain. He is momentarily confused, but remembers where and who he is and starts walking back towards Fort Fox, an army base at the foot of a mountain where he lives with his father. He arrives long after curfew and the gate guards threaten to call his father, but a scientist named Barry Allen smooths things over and walks Wally home. As they go, Barry commiserates with Wally about his boredom at Fort Fox and the trouble he has making friends due to frequently moving to new postings. They reach Wally's house, but before he goes in Barry asks him if he wants to see something cool. Barry leads Wally to a research lab built inside the mountain and welcomes him to "Project Olympus". Wally is amazed at the advanced technology in the lab and asks what they're working on. Barry is evasive but says they're on the cutting edge of physics and biology, and making new advancements every day. He tells Wally that he believes he has great potential that is being wasted and invites him to work part time on the project. Wally is eager to do it, but says his father would never let him. Barry claims that he can talk to Wally's father and convince him to agree, but just then Wally's father: Colonel Rudy West, storms in. He yells at Wally for staying out so late and Barry for letting the boy in. He tells Barry to stay away from him son and orders Wally to go home. In the present, Wally sees vehicle in the distance coming towards him. As it gets closer he sees that it is a tank and it launches a boomerang-shaped drone towards him. Wally runs from the drone and into a cave, but the pilot is able to confirm his identity. The drone returns to the tank and four people disembark. Their leader, the Captain; and the pilot, Digger, follow Wally into the cave. As Wally runs deeper into the cave red bars appear around him and he suddenly suffers an intense headache. The day before, Wally is in his room playing his guitar. He is once again disoriented for a second but this passes when Rudy comes in. He wants to talk to Wally about what he saw in the mountain and warns him that the work Project Olympus is doing is dangerous. Rudy tells Wally that he needs to be at Fort Fox, but also needs to keep him safe. Wally gets angry at Rudy for dragging him to Fort Fox and expecting him to just wait around until he gets new orders. He says that at least Barry took an interest in him and Rudy angrily yells at him to never talk to Barry again. Wally sarcastically salutes and replies "Yes sir", then storms out of the house saying that if his mother hadn't died they would have both left him. Outside, Wally sees a series of vertical red rectangles about the height of a man leading up the road into the mountain. He walks up to the mountain and enters the lab, looking for Barry. As he walks deeper into the facility he passes a containment tube with a strange green monkey in it which leaps and screams at him. Frightened, he runs from the monkey and eventually enters a huge room dominated by a mysterious machine with exotic energy swirling around. Barry, standing inside a spherical containment chamber in the centre of the machine, yells at him to get away. In the present, the Captain and Harkness chase Wally deeper into the cave. Wally reaches the end and collapses in despair near Barry's corpse, blaming himself for his death. One year in the future, a mysterious figure emerges from a fragment of reflective metal in the ruins of Barry's lab. He accesses the Project Olympus archives and brings up footage of Wally's exploits over the coming year. He smirks and says "Mirror, mirror, on the wall. Time to make this whole world fall".