Review by Karl Verhoven

To keep The Flash fresh, Jeremy Adams dispensed with the services of Barry Allen as the title character and restored the spotlight to Wally West, the primary Flash for twenty years from the mid-1980s. The reversion occurred in Wally West Returns, and Eclipsed opens with the messiness of Heroes in Crisis resolved and Wally back with wife Linda and children Irey and Jai.

Eclipsed is the first collection entirely written by Adams, and it ought to please fans of all ages. There are enough nods to the past, such as Starbreaker, to keep longtime readers happy, while the science also a bedrock of the Flash of old features, is just updated. Anyone starting to learn about the Flash and his world will pick up what’s going on quickly, while Adams makes good use of the wider DC universe. When Wally needs a job he’s employed by Mr. Terrific, assorted heroes and villains turn up when a spear from space is embedded in the Earth, and the chapter co-starring Doctor Fate is bonkers, another nod to the past needing the reader to save the Flash.

Under another writer new creation Dr. Nightmare might seem too ridiculous with his non-stop monologuing, but here he’s just an inventive part of the package. “I discovered that with the right combination of stimuli to the cortex and amygdala, translated through a molecular reconstruction field dreams were easy to create”, he rambles and continues on for a few panels more. He’s inconsequential, but fun, whereas the return of Heatwave is tragedy unfolding.

Fernando Pasarin is the primary series artist, saved for the major moments like the title story, while the likes of Will Conrad and Christian Duce supply art for other chapters, each assigned to a story with a start, middle and finish, which is welcome. Down to imagination and detail Pasarin is by some distance the star turn, but while Conrad’s Flash can be posed, he and Duce are fine, and so is Brent Peeples, who’s not as keen on backgrounds.

Although he’s not been seen for a while, regular DC readers will suspect Eclipso as the title villain, and they’re right, although it’s not until the end that he manifests in the usual form. Until then Adams piles on the entertainment with the journey to reach him taking in a tour of Gemworld and cleverly converging what seems an entirely separate story featuring Irey and Jai. The entertainment is fully had, and a surprise at the end leads into The Search For Barry Allen.