The Flash Vol. 2 #62

This is issue #62 of the series, published in May 1992. It is the first issue of Mark Waid's long run on The Flash and the opening chapter of the celebrated arc "Flash: Year One: Born to Run," titled "Thunder Struck." The story unfolds across two timelines. In the present, Wally West has succeeded his uncle Barry Allen as the new Flash and must find a bomb planted by terrorists at Central City Airport in mere moments; with no time to defuse it, he uses his super-speed to run up the belly of a plane for altitude and hurls the bomb into the sky. Exhausted afterward, Wally orders "one of everything" at a diner to replenish the calories burned by his super-speed metabolism, runs into his increasingly forgetful grandfather Ira West, returns to the old family home to sort through his late aunt Iris's belongings, and loses himself in memories amid dusty clippings and scrapbooks. In those memories, ten-year-old Wally is sent to live with Iris in Central City for the summer; just off the long-distance bus, he stumbles into a jewelry-exchange robbery, and when the clumsy Flash has a gun aimed at him, Wally thinks fast and opens a fire hydrant to save his idol. He also meets Barry Allen, hair still wet, for the first time over a boring lunch. The issue closes with the moment Wally, in the lab, witnesses the rainstorm and lightning that grant him his super-speed—the key starting point for understanding where Wally's Flash comes from.