DC Comics has been making a concerted effort in 2020 to simplify the increasingly convoluted DC Universe timeline. A lot of that effort hinges on the Free Comic Book Day 2020 release Generation Zero, a follow-up to Scott Lobdell and Brett Booth’s Flash Forward miniseries that reveals what happens when former Flash Wally West becomes the new Doctor Manhattan. Unfortunately, with FCBD being delayed due to coronavirus concerns, Generation Zero is only just now seeing the light of day, and not as a standalone FCBD release.
Instead, this story makes its debut as a bonus epilogue included in the Flash Forward trade paperback collection released on July 7. IGN has confirmed with DC that the standalone FCBD issue has been canceled and the Flash Forward TPB is the only place Generation Zero will be published.
This move certainly raises questions about the fate of DC’s previously announced Generation miniseries and the mysterious 5G initiative the publisher has been alluding to over the past year. However, Generation Zero makes one thing clear – Wally West has a key part to play in remaking the DCU as we know it. Read on to find out what happens in this story and how Generation Zero connects the dots between key stories like Doomsday Clock and Dark Nights: Death Metal.
Warning: this article contains spoilers for Generation Zero, Flash Forward and Dark Nights: Death Metal #1!
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Wally West: The New Doctor Manhattan
If you’ve been following DC’s comics at all in the past four years, you probably know that Watchmen’s Doctor Manhattan was revealed to be the architect behind the New 52 universe. Following the events of the original Watchmen, Manhattan traveled from his universe to the DCU and began meddling with time. During the course of his experiments, Manhattan discovered the DCU is actually a “metaverse,” a constantly evolving cosmic structure with Superman at its center. The Watchmen sequel Doomsday Clock ended with Manhattan repairing the damage he had caused to the timeline, restoring the classic Justice Society and Superman’s parents to life.
Unfortunately, Wally West didn’t get a happy ending. He lost more than any other hero as a consequence of Manhattan’s actions. His family was wiped out of existence and he himself only survived by being dragged into the Speed Force. As Heroes in Crisis revealed, the trauma of that loss caused Wally to snap, inadvertently causing the disaster that claimed several heroes’ lives at Sanctuary.
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Flash Forward serves as a redemption of sorts for Wally, briefly reuniting him with his children and setting the stage for a brand new role in the DCU. Though Manhattan himself is gone, his power remains infused in the Mobius Chair (the artifact that grants the New God Metron his cosmic awareness). Flash Forward culminates with Wally taking his place on the chair and absorbing the powers of both Metron and Doctor Manhattan. Wally can now see everything that has happened and will happen in the DC Universe. And unlike Jon Osterman, Wally’s speed-enhanced mind allows him to process this information without completely losing touch with his humanity in the process.
Wally’s New Mission
Wally’s new powers allow him to see the entirety of the DC timeline and detect the fundamental damage caused by Manhattan and other time meddlers. He alone has the power to undo this damage and create a new, healthier version of the DCU. And that’s exactly what he sets out to do in Generation Zero.
In one instant, Wally sees the entire history of the DC Universe, including key events like Crisis on Infinite Earths, Blackest Night and the Justice League’s first battle with Darkseid, as well as possible futures like Batman Beyond and the classic Legion of Super Heroes era.
Wally then sets about building a new timeline out of these jumbled pieces, combining elements of the pre-Flashpoint DCU with the New 52 and DC Rebirth eras. In this new timeline, the New 52 Justice League is replaced by the classic incarnation of the team, while Batman: Zero Year supplants Batman: Year One as the Dark Knight’s definitive origin story and Wonder Woman is shown fighting alongside the WWII-era Justice Society.
However, before Wally can solidify this new timeline, his work is halted by interference from a villain who’s been at the heart of many recent DC stories – the Batman Who Laughs.
How Dark Nights: Death Metal Fits In
2017’s Dark Nights: Metal introduced the concept of the Dark Multiverse, a realm where entire worlds are forged from the nightmares of heroes like Batman. The Batman Who Laughs is a product of one of these worlds – a version of Bruce Wayne who kills the Joker only to become the new Joker. The Dark Multiverse is now growing and threatening to consume the regular DC multiverse, hence the urgency of Wally’s efforts to fix the timeline.
This story winds up creating a direct link to the Dark Nights: Metal sequel Dark Nights: Death Metal. As powerful as he is now, Wally can’t complete his work of fixing the DC timeline until the Batman Who Laughs and his mistress Perpetua are defeated. As we saw in Dark Knights: Death Metal #1, Wonder Woman has already taken care of this twisted Batman, but Perpetua herself is another matter. As the self-proclaimed “mother of the multiverse,” Perpetua wants to destroy her creation and build something new in its place. In a weird way, she and Wally actually have the same goal.
While it’s still unclear what DC’s 5G plans are (or even if they’re still moving forward with 5G at all), the events of Generation Zero at least suggest Dark Nights: Death Metal will have a profound impact on DC continuity. After all, that story’s tagline is “It all matters.” By the time Death Metal wraps in early 2021, the DC Universe as we know it will probably be remade as Wally intended – a place where the full scope of DC’s 80-year history is reflected and many older stories are brought back into continuity. With any luck, Death Metal will finish the job started by DC Rebirth, Doomsday Clock and Flash Forward and give readers a cleaner and more organized DC timeline.
That’s the hope, anyway. For now, check out our exclusive video preview of Joker War, another 2020 storyline with major ramifications for the DCU:
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Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.
Source: IGN.com Generation Zero: How Wally West Is the Key to Fixing DC's Broken Timeline