Absolute Flash #4 (2025)

Wally has a nightmare of looking into his mother's grave and seeing Barry's skeleton, surrounded by swirling energy, screaming for Wally to help him. He snaps awake just before sunrise in the park where he spent the night. Grodd comforts him and they head out of the park into Iron Heights, a poor and rundown district of Central City. Wally walks the sweltering hot streets of Iron Heights with Grodd in his backpack until he finds and joins a line for food handouts near a homeless encampment. A tall man approaches him and tells Wally that he runs a youth mission nearby where he can stay for a week. Wally is suspicious, but a homeless girl named Linda walks past and assures him that the man, Ralph Dibny, and his mission are legitimate. Wally is immediately smitten with Linda and takes Ralph's card. Back in the desert, a group of Project Olympus scientists are taking readings of an energy vortex that Wally left behind when he entered and exited the Timestream. The Rogues look on until Jesse, in some kind of a trance, approaches it. She declares that it is some kind of door and see can almost see the other side. When she touches it, it explodes in a burst of energy that knocks them all back and disappears. Rudy, who has just arrived on the scene, orders the Rogues to resupply and be ready to roll out as soon as Wally is sighted. He then returns to Fort Fox to get to the bottom of what Barry's experiment did to Wally. In Central City, Wally has decided to go to the Dibney Mission. As he is eating lunch in the cafeteria Linda approaches him and asks if she can sit with him. Wally nervously agrees and they start talking. Linda tells him she can tell he hasn't been in Iron Heights long because he still looks like he has hope and asks where he's from. Wally replies that he's not really from anywhere because his dad is in the military and they moved around a lot. Linda asks if that's why he ran away and he cagily replies that there were other reasons. She says that they're all running from something, but when Wally asks her what she's running from she immediately shuts down. Wally tries to apologise but she just leaves, telling him he can have her food. However, as she leaves she smiles at him and says she'll see him around. Later as Wally is getting settled into the dorm Ralph brings him some toiletries and lays out the rules of the mission: no drugs, no fights and everyone has to pitch in on chores. After he leaves Wally telepathically asks Grodd if he thinks they'll be safe staying there for a while, but Grodd doesn't reply. Wally checks his backpack but Grodd isn't in it. He calls out for Grodd in his mind and notices an open window. Wally rushes over to the window and sees Grodd scampering away outside. At Fort Fox, Rudy West investigates the ruins of Barry Allen's lab. Elenore Thawne comes in and Rudy asks what the focus of Barry's research was. She replies that he was initially working on an augmented weapons program in partnership with Lazarus Corp, she allowed him to expand the scope, and admits that she doesn't know exactly where it took him or what happened to Wally. Rudy is outraged at this but she calmly tells him that Wally is the greatest success they ever had, as all of the Rogue's equipment was unable to stop him. He yells at her that Wally is not a test subject, and he needs to find him and get him home; but Thawne casually replies that they know where Wally is because they're tracking Grodd. Rudy says he'll leave with the Rogue immediately, but Thawne tells him Wally wasn't the only thing that escaped the night of the accident. She leads him into a room full of smashed containment spheres and reveals that several mutated experiments are missing, but Grodd is leading Wally to them. Wally chases Grodd through the streets of Iron Heights and down a manhole into the sewers. He finally catches up to Grodd, who says they need to stop "Hot". He leads Wally further into the tunnels repeating "Hot" and Wally chases after him asking what he is doing. They turn a corner and find a hulking humanoid figure made of lava. Grodd tells Wally "Hot is here".