The Flash Secret Files #1

The Flash Secret Files #1 cover

Date:

November 1997

Title:

“Secret Origin,” “TIMELINE: FLASH,” and “FEATURE: Flash Family Tree”

Plot:

First Story: President Thawne narrates the story of the 20th century Flash dynasty.  He takes a brief tour of the 30th century Flash museum, then reveals himself to a group of anti-Flash cultists, while the Flash looks on from the shadows.

Timeline: Dates are given for the deaths of the Tornado Twins and the birth of XS.

Family Tree: Includes the Tornado Twins and XS.

Credits:

Mark Waid / Brian Augustyn (Writers) • Kenny Martinez / Humberto Ramos (Pencillers) • Anibal Rodriguez / Wayne Faucher (Inkers) • Tom McCraw (Colors) • Gaspar [Saladino] (Letters) • Frank Berrios / Jason Hernandez-Rosenblatt (Assistant Editors) • Paul Kupperberg / KC Carlson (Editors) • Steve Lightle / Patrick Martin (Cover)


CHANGE HISTORY

Date of Change
Content of Change
03/30/99
Posted
04/01/99
Typo corrections
04/06/00
Unified to a single file
06/27/00
Tracking corrections
Notes updates and additions to General, 27:3, 27:4, 27:5, 28:4, 29:4-5, 62-63, and 64.
08/01/00
Tracking updates from Impulse #21
05/04/01
Tracking update from Impulse #53
Added Appearance Counts and Notes items pertaining to them

Tinted cells and text indicate missing or incomplete information.

Character and Object Tracking

         

Name

Previous Appearance

Next Appearance

Heroes

XS (Jenni Ognats) No continuity appearance; mention and cameo image only
 
Flash III (Wally West) Previous Legion appearance:
     < >
The Flash #147
Impulse (Bart Allen) No continuity appearance; mention and cameo image only
Tornado Twin A (footnote #1) (Don Allen) No actual appearance; statue and mention only
Tornado Twin B (Dawn Allen) No actual appearance; statue and mention only

Villains

President Thawne Impulse #53 The Flash #147
 
One-shot or Untracked Villains:
     Cobalt Blue cultists (19)

Supporting Characters

Jeannie Chu (voice only) Impulse #25 Legion of Super-Heroes v4 #0
R.J. Brande No appearance; mention only

Locations

Talok VII None None to date
 
President Thawne’s office Impulse #25 None to date
Metropolis < > < >
Flash Museum (30th century), Central City Previous Legion appearance:
     The Flash #149
Next Legion appearance:
     The Flash 80-Page Giant #1
Super-Villains Row, Flash Museum None None to date
 
One-shot or Untracked Locations:
     unspecified cult location

Alien Races and Creatures

Talokians of Talok VII No appearance; mention only
 
One-shot or Untracked Creatures:
     Kyben

Technology

Cobalt Blue’s gem None in Legion books The Flash #147
 
One-shot or Untracked Items:
     President Thawne’s computer
     Flash hero and villain statues

1. “A” and “B” are merely assignments to separate the two.
[BACK TO TOP]

Analysis Notes

General Only pages 27-29 and 62-64 are dealt with here.
27-29 The blue captions here count as dialogue for Thawne.
27:3 Based on Impulse #25, the off-panel aide is Jeannie Chu, eventual president of the United Planets.
President Thawne is, of course, descended from Eobard Thawne, aka Professor Zoom, and backward to the 20th century from Barry Allen’s previously unknown twin brother, who became Cobalt Blue.
Note that Umbra is from Talok VIII, and Starman III (Mikaal) is from Talok III.  The holoreps from Talok VII are presumably another offshoot of the race.  We have seen blue-skinned, dark-haired sentients in the Legion books who appeared to be from Umbra’s people; maybe they are from Talok VII, instead.
Unknown what the “Kyben Treaty” is; assume that “Kyben” is a race of sentients.
Brande is R.J. Brande, eventual architect of the United Planets and president after Jeannie Chu.
Thawne is holding is the Cobalt Blue gem.
27:4 This is presumably Metropolis.
27:5 By the Legion’s time, the Flash Museum is undergoing archaeological reconstruction.  That implies that this museum gets destroyed in the intervening two decades.  Since the timeline in this issue indicates that the Dominator agents responsible for their death were dealing with Thawne, it is possible that the destruction of the Flash Museum was caused by the Dominators, too.
The two statues in the foreground are Dawn and Don Allen, the Tornado Twins.  The others cannot be identified as any specific members of the Flash dynasty.
28:1 Don and Dawn are the children of Barry and Iris Allen, conceived after Barry left the 20th century in Flash #350.  They are also the father and mother (separately) of Impulse and XS.
28:4 The statues are (left-to-right): Gorilla Grodd, Rainbow Raider, Captain Cold, Cobalt Blue, Big Sir, Neron, Heat Wave, Captain Boomerang, and Professor Zoom.  The one between Cobalt Blue’s legs has insufficient detail to be identified.
29:1 Thawne’s method of teleportation is unknown.
29:3 Why Thawne believes that the Tornado Twins were the last of the Allen line is unknown, given the births of Bart Allen and Jenni Ognats, the latter being two years old already.  Heck, Thawne’s daughter Meloni married Don Allen!
29:4-5 This is Wally West.  The story continues in The Flash #147.
62-63 The dates given in this timeline are actually relative — and in fact were out of date when this was published, unless we want to believe that XS is 19 circa Legion of Super-Heroes v4 #100, published two months later and ostensibly occurring in early 2998!  These dates should be seen as being relative to the current DC Universe 30th century, with the 2978 birth of XS actually being 16 years in the past of the then-current 30th century date.
The inset art of Impulse and XS here are from the cover of Impulse #9, by Humberto Ramos and Wayne Faucher.
The details of the deaths of the Tornado Twins are not completely known, although they were seen in part in Legion of Super-Heroes Annual v4 #6.
64 Items of note here include two siblings for Flash IV (only one, Barry, is yet known), a child for Impulse, and the Thawne surname for Barry Allen’s mother.  Also of note is that Iris West was actually a 30th century spirit inhabiting the body of the 20th century woman (or something like that), and thus Wally is not directly in her blood line.
[BACK TO TOP]


Appearance Counts

Character Name

Cover

Panels / Speaking

Heroes
XS (Jenni Ognats)   1 / 0
 
Flash III (Wally West) X 2 / 0
Impulse (Bart Allen)   1 / 0
Tornado Twin A (Don Allen)   1 / 0
Tornado Twin B (Dawn Allen)   1 / 0
Villains
President Thawne   13 / 12
Supporting Characters
Jeannie Chu   0 / 1
[BACK TO TOP]