Wally West just got an incredible power boost that makes him even faster, but the cost of his upgrade may outweigh the potential benefit.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for The Flash Annual 2021 by Jeremy Adams, Fernanda Pasarin, Brandon Peterson, Hi-Fi, Michael Atiyeh and Steve Wands, on sale now.
After finally finding the cause of all the speed force surges, Wally West was granted an incredible boost to his powers. His adventures jumping into the bodies of speedsters from across space and time led him to the discovery that it was Savitar who was sickening the speed force, feeding on it to grant himself a god-like level of power. Even Superman’s powers paled in comparison to him when both returned to the present, but Wally managed to tap into a new connection to the speed force to save the day. However, Wally’s new power boost has the potential to be extremely dangerous.
Wally, Barry Allen, and Mister Terrific had been trying to find the source of the speed force surges since the speedster first started experiencing them. They had correctly deduced that it was the speed force’s natural reaction when trying to expunge something that was making it sick. But when this illness turned out to be caused by the villainous speedster Savitar, the situation became much more dangerous.
Savitar had been siphoning power from the speed force for an uncertain amount of time, growing stronger while the power he drained faded out of existence. Wally managed to drag him out of the speed force, but by then Savitar had absorbed so much power that not even Superman could stop him.
Barry explained that his powers were drained by Savitar, but Wally’s were still strong, an indicator of his special connection to the speed force. Using that, Wally established what Savitar called a “raw” connection to the speed force, making him faster than he’s ever been before. Wally then used that power to outrun and defeat the villain.
But the victory was short-lived when Mister Terrific revealed that Wally’s new “nitro boost” was actually the result of him absorbing the speed force’s surge energy. So while it may provide him with an incredible boost to his already phenomenal speed, there was no telling what that kind of energy could do to his body in the long run, so to speak.
The power surge is still a relatively new discovery, but what is known about it is that if control is lost, a single surge can release an incredible amount of destructive energy and decimate miles of territory…and Wally just absorbed a substantial amount of the surge energy. It’s not the most comforting notion, especially in light of Wally’s recent emotional issues.
However, Wally seems to be in a much better place now than he was at the start of his adventure, and his confidence could be the key to mastering this new power. As it stands, the nitro boost he’s acquired, while potentially volatile, unquestionably makes him the fastest man alive. And Wally has been proving that his mastery of the speed force is second to none, most recently during the events of Dark Nights: Death Metal – Speed Metal by Joshua Williamson, Eddy Barrows, and Adriano Lucas, when he managed to outrun an army empowered by Doctor Manhattan.
This power has the potential to be a real threat to the Earth, and perhaps the whole multiverse considering that the speed force is connected to all of it. But if anyone is up for the challenge it is Wally West. As he explained, the speed force chose him to wield its power and it has always been a force for good in the past. It wouldn’t hand a devastating amount of power to just anyone, and it apparently trusts Wally to use it responsibly.
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