Futures End: The Flash #1

Five years ago, the world as we know it ceased to be. Luckily, the world as we know it from The Road Warrior came into being. Many people were prepared for this turn of events. Too bad those people were geeks and nerds without any real survival skills. Tragically, they were all rape-murdered by corporate CEOs who, it turned out, were the biggest sociopaths on the planet. Some nerds and geeks survived longer than others due to their proficiency at oral sex. But even these desperate, shameless nerds could not last for long. Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea gave and gave and gave but eventually, as he knew deep down would happen, he used a little too much teeth. He was thrown into Lightning Dome, a more terrifying version of Thunder Dome, where twenty combatants entered and nineteen left. Mostly because the nineteen were working together to fightfuck the lone other. Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea lasted thirteen minutes, a good showing but not good enough to be remembered for more than the long weekend.

As it turned out, some of the most depraved and richest CEOs were the biggest fans of Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea. When the updates stopped (for, you see, DC Comics continued to publish during these post-apocalyptic times although their market share was now worse than Dynamite. In their defense, Gail Simone was being forced to write all of the titles deep within Dynamite headquarters, and all of the titles featured naked lesbians as every character), the CEOs grew desperate for the only written entertainment they could stomach. A new Tess was needed. And who better to take over the job than the monster that delivered the death thrust to Tess, Goggles McDeathhurt.

And now, five years later, as Goggles McDeathhurt and her lost tribe wander the Dusty Stretches, Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea returns to the internet! Because Tess doesn't have a voice for radio and, anyway, the radio source could be tracked and somebody might not take too kindly to his not being dead like he's supposed to be. So Tess found a shitty little terminal still hooked up to an anemic internet with just the barest hints of life, somehow kept alive by super nerds spread across the globe. I don't know how it all works! I just write comic book fiction about comic book fiction! Logic hasn't merely been thrown out the window. It's been castrated, eviscerated, sodomoderated, and left to bleed out in the gutter. Also, logic is male, apparently. I mean, duh!

Hey loneliest of loneliest souls! Greetings from the Underworld. That's a joke about how I'm supposed to be dead because that woman with the crazy eyes and the broad shoulders and the swimming goggles tangled up in her wild hair supposedly stuck me like your morning breakfast was stuck before it was processed and shipped and sold and cooked and turned into your morning breakfast. Also it's a clue to my whereabouts which are underground! So far underground that you'd never find me even if you were a master spelunker. Master Spelunker isn't quite as clever as Master Debater or Cunning Linguist. Actually, it isn't clever at all. It's just two words that I put one after the other to describe something relatively mundane. Anyway, I have a comic book to read!

It's the Futures End version of The Flash and I wanted to read it today because our theme today is running! As The Flash television show once said so adroitly: "We are all running. Sometimes we're running from something. Sometimes we're running to something." So true! And profound! Sometimes when I'm just sitting, my nose begins running! Sometimes it runs a goddamned marathon! But before I read The Flash comic book, I want to present an essay I wrote a few days ago but I was feeling nervous and vulnerable about posting it so I didn't post it and now I'm going to post it because I think vulnerable people need to feel inspired by the idea that other people feel vulnerable. Take special note of the parts where I explain how much sex I've had throughout my life.

My Not At All Plagiarized Or Stolen Or Satirical Or Mean-Spirited Parody of Somebody Else's Essay
By Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea and not anybody else. Seriously.

I have had a privileged life. I mean, I haven't really. Not in the way white males think people mean privileged. But I'm white and male so I need to say I have led a privileged life because, you know! It's much easier to live without everybody telling me who I'm supposed to be or who I'm supposed to hate or how I can't have all the sex that I love to have. So at least I get to be me without any interference from society around me. I mean, mostly! Obviously I live in society (and have loads of sex in it) so it's going to be a jerk to me and scare me all the time because I have scaredy cat issues. But I didn't know I had scaredy cat issues until this woman who totally jerked me off while her fist was in my ass told me that I had scaredy cat issues. That was a good day. I mean, weeks! We totally did that for weeks.

What I'm trying to say is that I'm super vulnerable and it might look like I'm white and a man but life is still hard because it's hard for everybody even if it's harder for other people but, you know, it's still hard for me too! Like my dick when chicks are all up on it!

But I also cry and stuff although I didn't used to cry but now I cry but I'm ashamed of crying because of the white and male thing earlier, remember? But I think I'm also broken because didn't Douglas Coupland constantly write like twenty novels a day about how white suburban males are totally lost and broken? Hey! That's me and stuff! Plus all the sex. Remember the sex I constantly have. Not that that makes my life any easier. I'm still very vulnerable, of course!

And people need to know that they're not the only ones who feel vulnerable because this shit is easy but it's really hard, see? Inspiring! I probably should have said "inspire" a few times. But also "lonely" and "alone" and "together alone" and "deep throated throughout my thirties." Stuff like that would have made this more tear jerkery! Anyway, thanks for listening about how vulnerable and thoroughly sexed I am even though I'm a white male! The end!

See how we're all running? Or something! Hey look! A comic book!

What good is running fast if you lose time while running fast? You might as well just walk everywhere!

Reverse-Flash has escaped from prison but Forward-Flash is on the other side of the planet. So he isn't going to be able to stop Reverse-Flash from killing Wally West and crippling Iris West. Not that he knows that that's going to happen since he's The Flash and not The Psychic. But The Flash from thirty-five fifteen years in the future knows that it's going to happen so he's come back in time to stop it from happening. If he can time travel, what does it matter if he loses time? I think Flash needs to work on his interactions with reality and comic book logic.

Why does everybody in this comic book wear clothes that are five sizes too small for them? Oh, I remember why! Because Brett Booth is drawing it!

Future-Flash breaks the neck of Reverse-Flash because who hasn't been wanting to do that since Daniel West first appeared in this comic book! Pouty, whiny, woe is me asshole! Get a job! Preferably one that could really use a guy that can go backwards in time. Like maybe an executive at a Hollywood Movie Studio so you can see what movies are big hits then go back in time and produce them before the original person produces them.

Future-Flash also manages to save Iris and Wally.

All of their clothing is so goddamned fucking tight!

Forward-Flash is angry that Future-Flash broke Reverse-Flash's neck. He's all, "I didn't see that coming!" And Future-Flash is all, "He just ran out of time!" And Forward-Flash is all, "Stop running your mouth!" And Future-Flash is all, "Why couldn't Reverse-Flash urinate after having already pissed three times that day? Because he hit his Peed Limit!" And Forward-Flash is all, "Noooooo!" And Wally was all, "Holy shit! I can't wait to be Black-Flash so I can tell jokes all of the time!"

Future-Flash has determined that the Speed Force is broken because it was used in the wrong way. The only way it was supposed to be used was a very strict way which was Barry running really fast which was the only way to fix the Speed Force which naturally tends to break if left to its own devices. Or if used incorrectly. Or if stared at too long in a lascivious manner. Now the only way to fix the Speed Force is to travel back in time so that it breaks but it's also unbreaking because it wasn't as broken in the past even though traveling to the past is totally breaking it like crazy. Or something. I think the main thing is this: Forward-Flash must die! But not this version of him! The version of him five years prior to this one. I think. Since the cover of Issue #35 shows Forward-Flash fighting Future-Flash again.

I guess I should be calling this Futures End Forward-Flash "Not-Quite-As-Futury-As-Future-Flash-Flash." Except that doesn't really roll off the keyboard. And it doesn't make a clever acronym either.

Here's how you could have expended less effort: not stopped at all these pit stops along the way and just went straight back to your target time to kill The Flash which would have caused a chain reaction and stopped all the other things from happening as well.

Forward-Flash and Future-Flash cause some kind of feedback loop because as we all know you can't interact with yourself when time traveling! It's just bad news all the way around! Especially since you'll never be able to get the image of coming all over your duplicate's face out of your head. After the feedback loop causes an explosion spiral, Future-Flash is gone, Forward-Flash has half of his face melted, and Wally is now The Flash everybody but nobody has been waiting for. You know what I mean! He's the reboot version of a beloved prankster! And he doesn't have red hair. Obviously not the same character if he doesn't have red hair. Plus this Wally is a juvenile delinquent! Not because he's black! Because he just is! Or something.

Oh, don't worry about it. This moment of time has already ceased to exist! Probably. I mean, all of these moments will have already been excised from the future! Because Future-Flash will be defeated and Forward-Flash will fix the Speed Force and none of this will have ever already have been happening. Or something.

Hey! Have I mentioned how much I hate bad time travel stories and plots that depend on alternate future timelines?! I have? Oh, okay. Carry on.

Future-Flash arrives in the now to battle Now-Flash and, probably, Black-Flash. Just imagine how big that feedback loop will be! That wasn't a racial joke about the stereotypical size of a black man's junk. I guess it could have been if you thought that and found it funny. But it wasn't and if you found it offensive, it especially wasn't.

Futures End: The Flash #1 Rating: Wait. Am I still doing these rankings in the future? I think I stopped doing those like four years and eleven months ago!