Warning: this article contains spoilers for Future State: Justice League #2
DC Comics' dynasty of crimson and yellow clad speedsters is one of the company’s crown jewels. There’s been a Flash in every premiere team from the Justice League, to the Justice Society, to the Teen Titans, Young Justice and even Future State’s Suicide Squad. What all of its members have in common is a connection to the limitless cosmic energy field known as the Speed Force. That’s not to say every Flash is equally fast or that their powers are identical to one another. In fact, there’s a well-established spectrum of powers and abilities within the speedsters’ ranks. And now, there’s a new Flash in town straight from the DC multiverse, and their name is Jess Chambers.
Not only is the newest member of the Flash family genderfluid (non-binary) and uses they/them pronouns, but they’re from an entirely different Earth. Chambers specifically hails from Earth-11 where they’re known as Kid Quick and serve in that universe’s Teen Justice team. But that’s not all that set this speedster apart from the rest. In fact, what makes this scarlet speedster so unique is the exact opposite ability of the fastest man alive Wally West.
In Future State: Justice League #2, written by Ram V. and Joshua Williamson and illustrated by Marcio Takara and Robson Rocha, the league has been stranded on analternate version of Earth whose surface is scorched in fire and ash. Back on Earth-0, the White Martian Hyperclan have put their shapeshifting skills to good use and assumed the Leaguers identities, and it’s only a matter of time before their nefarious plan comes to fruition. Luckily, Chambers has some tricks up their sleeve. Not only can they sense the vibrational frequencies of planets, but also track the frequency of other planets (including their home Earth) through the multiverse. And this is where things get even more impressive, Chambers can share their speed—presumably by expanding the Speed Force bubble they tap into—with the rest of the team long enough to jump across the universe. Other speedsters have done this before, but only with members of the Flash family.
This is a marked point of differentiation between Chambers, and the fastest Flash, Wally West, who earned his title in part by using a secondary ability of his own. Unlike Kid Quick, West can steal speed from others to supplement his own and not just other speedsters but anyone or anything that moves. For example, in writer Joshua Williamson and artist Jorge Corona’s The Flash (2016) #9, Wally uses the speed force to steal the speed of an explosion. It’s an impressive feat West has used on multiple occasions throughout his long tenure as the Flash.
Though readers might sometimes feel that there’s a glut of interchangeable speedsters running around the DC Comics multiverse, it’s important to be reminded that not every Flash is created equal. Their individual connections to the Speed Force make for variety in form and function, but most importantly allows for subtler contrasts. Ultimately, Jess Chambers may never be as fast as Wally West, but thanks to them, Future State’s Justice League has an easy means of cross-dimensional travel at its disposal, which may prove mighty useful in the ever-expanding comic book frontier.
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