Here’s a riddle for you. How do you know if you’ve met a Flash comic book reader in the past two years? The answer is simple—they tell you.
Jeremy Adams’ Flash featuring Wally West front and center as the Scarlet Speedster is a book of such joy that Flash fans can’t help talking about it. A celebration of Wally’s friendships and expanding family, Adams’ past two years of stories have all been leading up to the “One Minute War,” a unique event which pits the world’s speedsters against the Fraction, an invading alien race with technology that moves just as fast as they do.
And the man isn’t isn’t stopping there. On May 9th, Jeremy Adams will be taking his talents to a newly relaunched Green Lantern series, which brings Hal Jordan back down to Earth after twenty years abroad in the larger cosmos. We got an opportunity to catch a quick breather with Adams for some discussion about the latest Flash arc, family and faith, and what’s next for Hal Jordan.
Cover art by Taurin Clarke
“One Minute War” is your biggest Flash story yet, bringing the entire Flash family together against a threat to Earth that only they can perceive and react to in super speed. But speaking in terms of relativity, what assets do the Flash family have when the fact that their enemy moves just as fast as they do negates their one power?
Brains, experience…Impulse… (laughs) They are ORGANIC CONDUITS, meaning they process the Speed Force faster than the Fraction’s little machines, giving them a SLIGHT speed edge. But what really puts them over is, to put it simply, they’re friends, they’re family…they’re heroes. This is their world, and they’ll be damned if an alien race is going to come pilfer it without resistance.
You’ve said before that it was a mission statement to let Wally have some happiness over your run on the book and that’s worked out well. And yet, “One Minute War” opens with a pretty shocking loss. How do you maintain a balance between tragedy and catharsis, especially in a superhero comic medium?
I think that THAT is the lesson of Wally and the Flash family at large. Their loss is usually ALWAYS devastating, but so is their redemption. The Flash Family runs more on HOPE than it does on the Speed Force. They exist to remind themselves and the world that even if you are knocked down, a better tomorrow exists. All you have to do is pick yourself up and run after it with everything in your heart.
Art by Roger Cruz, Wellington Dias and Luis Guerrero
After the idea of family, one of the biggest themes of your Flash run has been Wally’s relationship with faith. What exactly is Wally’s stance on spirituality? Is that something you’ve drawn on from your own beliefs?
It’s interesting that you say it’s one of the biggest themes, and I guess I never thought of it that way. I always thought of it as Wally dealing with the facts in front of him. He’s fighting Eclipso, who once worked for the big guy upstairs, so it stands to reason that “the Presence” would somehow be involved. And well, Wally is a good guy. He’s a bit like (the biblical figure) Job. His life is taken down to the studs, but he’s still optimistic and hopeful, a perfect “vessel” to use in order to fight a big bad like Eclipso. Of course, learning that the Presence is pleased with him, I’m sure that brings up an assortment of other questions, and so, I imagine that Wally, like so many, is wrestling with and exploring exactly what he believes. And in a universe that has angels and demons and all sorts of stuff, I could imagine that exploration can be pretty complex!
After “One Minute War,” you’ll be moving to a new book, the recently announced Green Lantern. Wally West and Hal Jordan are both characters who started with a fairly myopic view, only to have it expanded in the line of duty, allowing them to become more developed heroes with experience. But where do their ideologies differ? Supporting casts and relationships aside, how will writing Hal be different than writing Wally?
With Wally, he has two kids (third on the way) and a wife, and family was incredibly important to who he is. It was almost paramount to who he is. With Hal…Hal’s family is really the Corps. But what happens when you leave your family…when you leave the thing that gave you “identity?” Are you a hero because you have a ring, or are you a hero because THAT’S WHO YOU ARE? This story is going to jump around in time a bit and tell the present story and unveil a bigger story that led Hal back to Earth.
Your Green Lantern run is going to be grounding Hal back on Earth for the first time, with one or two brief exceptions, since his transformation into Parallax. What is that readjustment going to be like?
Hard for all parties involved. When you’ve seen the infinite wonders of the stars above, how do you deal with going to buy groceries? I imagine it’s all kind of mundane. But also, what about his brothers or Carol? They’re so used to him leaving, do they believe he’s back for a sustained period? Or do they think that he’ll just leave again? Lots of cool interpersonal drama to be mined from it all.
Variant Cover by Ariel Colon
Of course, we can’t talk about a grounded Hal Jordan without talking about Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams’ Green Lantern/Green Arrow. How much inspiration can we expect to see from Hal’s days as a Hard Traveling Hero?
I don’t know. I think that was a product of its time and it illuminates a lot of Hal’s character, but he’s grown up a lot from that time. He’s been infected by evil, become the hand of vengeance, come back to life, and saved the universe a few times. I’m trying to draw on ALL his experience and what that might mean for his growth as a character.
The last time we saw Jessica Cruz in The Flash, she was rolling deep with the Yellow Lanterns. But since Dark Crisis, Jessica seems to have returned to green with little offered explanation. As the new Green Lantern guy, can you shed a little colored light on this?
Maybe. It’s not the first story I’m going to explore. But if people stick around long enough, and if enough of these books sell, I’m hoping to get deeper and deeper into the entire Green Lantern mythos. But right now, editorial has asked me to stay earthbound, and well, I tend to follow orders.
The Flash #792 by Jeremy Adams, Roger Cruz, Wellington Dias and Luis Guerrero is now available in print and as a digital comic book. Green Lantern #1 by Jeremy Adams and Xermánico will be available on May 9, 2023.
