If this sounds a bit confusing, well rest assured, the comic is confusing. There is something about how Barry Allen created the Speed Force and how it exists everywhere but how the Reverse-Flash is the anti-speed force. It is all as confusing as advanced quantum physics. Except that this is supposed to be just plan comic book physics so it really feels like the creators involved are just pulling out grandiose concepts to amaze the reader.

The strongest parts of the story are those that don't wallow in the whole 'speed-force' concept but just feature good, old-fashioned action with Zoom looking very menacing and the first Flash, Jay Garrick and the new Kid Flash, Bart Allen, trying to stop him from murdering innocents. Barry Allen's escape from the speed force and the way he almost casually takes Max Mercury with him, lacks the drama that the creative team was clearly seeking to achieve. The one thing that is really hammered through is the way that poor Johnny Quick got killed off just to make the big bad guy look even more intimidating.

The art is adequate for a rather confusing story. Admittedly it is difficult to illustrate what goes on in a theoretical universe of motion but at least it is easy to see what the main characters are doing, especially when the Reverse-Flash starts stabbing Barry Allen with a lightning-bolt-shaped device.

While this mini-series has been exciting and amusing, it isn't quite the tour-de-force that "GREEN LANTERN: REBIRTH" was. It feels like something that DC Comics felt compelled to put out just to set the stage for the inevitable FLASH and KID FLASH comic books.