WARNING: The following contains spoilers for The Flash #769 by Jeremy Adams, David Lafuente, Brandon Peterson, Mike Atiyeh, Luis Guerrero, and Steve Wands, on sale now
The Flash is currently lost across the time-stream, body-hopping into different people across the history of the DC Universe. But his latest stop teases the kind of connections Wally West is about to have with the future of the DC Universe and hints at his eventual ally from that era.
In The Flash #769, Wally West's encounter with Gold Beetle effectively gives him the same kind of arc the modern version of Doctor Who has explored, finding himself with an ally who experiences their partnership from a different perspective in the timeline.
After being struck by an errant blast of Speed Force energy, Wally West has been flung across time and space, briefly inhabiting the bodies of speedsters from different points in the timeline. The Flash #769 focuses on Wally while being trapped in the body of Bart Allen, aka Impulse, in the years before he left the far future. At first, Wally is only barely able to stay ahead of the giant Dominator trying to catch him. But the time-displaced speedster gets some unexpected help from Gold Beetle. Introduced during the events of Future State, the time-traveling Gold Beetle is heir to both the Blue Beetle and Booster Gold legacies.
While she initially believes she's there as part of a team-up with Impulse, Gold Beetle quickly summarizes that it's someone else in his body, and figures out how to listen in on the conversation between Wally and Barry (who's back in the present day). Gold Beetle greets Wally as a dear friend, revealing that the pair have a great deal of history, at least from her perspective. It appears that down the line, Wally will become a consistent partner and friend to Gold Beetle, apparently serving as "captain" during their time together. The entire time, Beets, Gold Beetle's version of Skeets, has to keep reminding her about the dangers of accidentally spoiling too much about the future and upsetting the timeline.
Gold Beetle still teases various team-ups the pair will share, including the "Galactic Space Race" and a whopping five more Crisis level events. Gold Beetle helps Wally defeat the Dominator and gives him a massive hug when the mission is over, admitting she's really going to miss her captain when he returns to the past. This relationship is surprisingly similar to one of the longest overarching arcs from the modern incarnation of the BBC science-fiction series, Doctor Who. The show centers around a brilliant and adventurous alien known only as the Doctor, who uses his ship (known as the TARDIS) to visit different places across time and space.
In the two-part story "Forest of the Dead" and "Silence in the Library," the Doctor (then in his Tenth incarnation) came across a woman named River Song, who was revealed to be a future companion of the Doctor. From her perspective, River spent years traveling with the Doctor and becoming one of his closest friends, with a strong undercurrent of romantic tension between them. The Doctor's first encounter with her was also her final meeting with him, as River died at the end of that mission to ensure his survival. Across the next two regenerations, the Doctor encountered River at various points in her life -- developing a strong bond with her over the years even though their whole relationship was effectively out of order from both of their perspectives.
Although Gold Beetle and Wally West don't have as quick of a romantic bond as the Doctor and River (with Gold Beetle instead hinting that Wally's son Jai eventually grows up into a handsome young man), it's still a notable similarity between the DC speedster and the Doctor. Notably, Gold Beetle even has as bad of a habit of teasing revelations about the future as River, who has a habit of poking fun at the Doctor's questions by reminding him of the dangers of "spoilers." While Gold Beetle might not have that same impulse, she at least has Beets to assist on that front. It'll be interesting to see if this connection continues and if Gold Beetle truly becomes the DC Universe's answer to River Song.