WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Future State: The Flash #2 by Brandon Vietti, Brandon Peterson, Will Conrad, Mike Atiyeh & Steve Wands, on sale now
Future State has shaken up the status quo of the DC Universe dramatically, and it's possible that the Flash Family may just have gotten the worst end of it. After the former Flash Wally West is possessed and steals all of their speed, Barry leads the family on a years-long attempt to bring him back, resulting in the deaths of Bart Allen, Jay Garrick, and Max Mercury.
Despite the disbanding of the family Barry refuses to give up hope on his former sidekick, now resorting to a combination of his former enemies' weapons and creative use of his scientific knowledge to get his friend back, but it doesn't go how he hoped it would.
After the Flash family used the Rogues' weapons in place of their speed to fight Wally, Barry takes it one step further and combines them to create the ultimate power suit for his final stand against Wally. With his scientific knowledge and arguably unmatched mastery of the Speed Force, Barry strategically designs his suit to counteract Wally's strengths as a speedster. In addition to the look being reminiscent of Old Man Barry Allen fromThe Flash #70-75 by Joshua Williamson and Howard Porter, it is topped off with the Thinker's helmet, which has been modified to look like Jay Garrick's signature helmet, signifying Barry's new role as the elder statesman and final member of his Flash family.
Barry had hoped his superior knowledge of both science and the Speed Force would make up for his loss of speed, and while it came extremely close, it just wasn't enough. While Barry undoubtedly utilized his former enemies' weapons in a much more effective fashion than the Rogues ever could have, the suit was no match for the raw power of Wally West. Though he initially gains the upper hand on Wally, Barry eventually is forced to hit him with a modified version of his own DNA that destroys Wally's bones and prevents him from running.
Yet disabling his former sidekick doesn't do the trick, as Famine reveals both his true form and intentions, only to restore Wally and, in his final attack, move Barry into a moment just outside of time effectively making him an immortal ghost. Despite his lack of Speed Force knowledge, Famine showed that his use of Wally's raw power was more than enough to beat Barry despite all the tricks used against him.
The Flash comics have often made it a point that raw power alone is rarely enough, with Barry often dishing out science-inspired Flash facts to readers or his young sidekick, to explain how he uses his super-speed to fight enemies. Despite his attempts to once again utilize this theme to restore his friend and defeat an enemy, though now with the powers of the enemies he so often faced, Barry and science come up short in their final battle against brute power.