The Flash #30

This is issue #30 of DC's New 52 run of The Flash, titled "Lost Time," published April 23, 2014, and the first issue from the new creative team of writers Robert Venditti and Van Jensen with artist Brett Booth. The story follows the Forever Evil event: Central City has been devastated by the Crime Syndicate's attack, and Barry Allen, the Flash, is consumed by guilt, believing that had he made it back in time, there would have been fewer casualties. The police department requires all officers to undergo psychological evaluation before returning to duty, and Barry is interviewed by psychiatrist Rebecca Janus. While managing the conversation, he uses his super-speed to dash out and save lives whenever the doctor looks down at her files: recovering a little girl's lost dog, patching a breach at Iron Heights Prison, rescuing citizens from a collapsing bridge. Throughout the evaluation he insists, "What happened to me doesn't matter. What matters is that I could have stopped some of it." The issue closes with two future timelines: five years later, Iris West is hospitalized with injuries and a young man dies in a car crash; twenty years later, a Future Flash in a blue suit, guarding the watch Patty gave him, realizes he has lost two years, eight months, seven hours, fifty-six minutes, and twelve seconds, vows over a newspaper clipping that "this time I won't be late," and speaks the name Wally West for the first time. The New 52 version of Wally debuts in this issue, and the change to his ethnicity sparked widespread discussion at the time.