Reborn to Run

During the events of Final Crisis; Barry Allen a.k.a. The Silver Age Flash came back from the dead in order to fight Darkseid and emerged from some sort of time machine with The Black Racer (The Grim Reaper of The DC Universe) hot on his trail. Along with his wife's nephew, Wally West (who had up until recently been The Flash), they escaped The Racer but because Barry was still considered to be dead they both knew he would never stop hunting Barry down.

They came up with a plan however and after getting The Racer's attention they essentially used him as a weapon against Darkseid by moving out of the way just in time so that he would collide with the villain and collect his immortal soul.

The stress of trying to collect Darkseid's soul apparently was so great that The Black Racer was utterly destroyed or at least that was what was commonly believed. With Barry now seemingly free of The Grim Reaper forever Barry was reunited with his wife, Iris. The series begins with a mysterious murder incident that occurs at the Crime Lab where Barry used to work and the emergence of what appears to be a new speedster who somewhat vaugley resembles The Black Flash but is without the uniform.

Meanwhile Barry, who is trying to adjust to life in The 21st Century is reunited with his old friend Hal Jordan (the Silver Age Green Lantern,) and starts to reminisce about old times. However when he returns home he learns about the crime that was committed in the Lab where he once worked from an old colleague of his who is ecstatic to see that Barry is alive. At the same time Barry's grandson Bart, who has just returned from The 31st Century following the events of Legion of Three Worlds, is furious that Barry is just taking the mantle of Flash from Wally just like that.

Then there is the matter of two kids living in Barry's old hometown of Fallville, Iowa discovering the skeletal remains of The Black Flash (who is revealed to be the same being as The Black Racer) in a cornfield. As for Barry he is trying to track down leads surrounding the recent murder incident when one of Wally's foes, Savitar, emerges from The Speed Force and tries to escape so that he can once again take leadership of his Speed Force Cult.

But when Barry tries to stop him Savitar begins to age rapidly and in a very short span of time is reduced to nothing more then ash. This causes a massive surge of energy to begin flowing through The Speed Force and in turn gives Jay Garrick, Liberty Belle, Wally, his daughter Iris, his son Jai and Bart some sort of "Speed Seizure."

Barry is unaffected however and is unaware of what has happened and briefly talks with Hal Jordan about Savitar's death until Iris informs him of what has happened. Meanwhile Lady Flash, a faithful servant of Savitar, who was performing a ritual to bring him back, was forced to watch in horror as Barry accidentally disintegrated Savitar. Since this happened as the resurrection ritual was still in progress a Speed Force Surge sent a massive amount of feedback energy that killed almost all of Savitar's followers save for Lady Flash who in turn gained the power of the entire Cult and set out to destroy Barry for what he had done.

Later Barry and Wally learned that The Speed Force Surge had also affected the corpse of The Black Flash and left energy residue which led them all the way to Fallville, where they found The Black Flash's corpse in the same spot where the children who originally discovered it did. As they are inspecting the corpse, Barry and Wally are attacked by Lady Flash and easily subdue her but when they do she ends up dying the same way Savitar did.

As a result she unleashes all of The Speed Force Energy inside her body which in turn is fed directly into both Barry, Wally and the corpse of The Black Flash. Barry is infused with an unimaginable amount of Speed Force energy and is transformed into the new Black Flash as a result.  

Collected Editions 

• The Flash: Rebirth

Non-U.S. Editions 

• DC Premium #69