Justice League's Funniest Story Is Also Flash's Most Heartbreaking Adventure

Published Sep 20, 2026, 8:30 AM EDT

Derek is the Training Lead for ScreenRant. Before his current position, he spent 20 years working in games, TV, and film while also writing for several entertainment sites.
Derek is also the co-host of three pop culture podcasts: Across the Omniverse, The Bad Batch, and Watch Men.

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In the history of comics, there has never been anything like the Keith Giffen/J.M. DeMatteis Justice League International run before or since. The series managed to mix superhero action with pitch perfect comedy, giving birth to the famous "One Punch" as well as the infectious "Bwahahahahaha!" And while the five-year run is rightfully regarded as one of the greatest eras of DC's premier team for its sense of humor and character interactions, it was also a series of titles that wasn't afraid to get serious and heartbreaking at times.

Giffen's ability to mix humor with tragedy may have been perfected in Justice League Quarterly #3, a story that was both amazingly funny and odd as it was touching and human. In the tale, a special group is put together to chase down Kilowog and Mitch Wacky, who have traveled back in time and to another reality hoping to stop an apocalypse that destroyed an entire world. And while the story has the expected laughs, it is the pain the team faces — especially Flash — that makes it truly stand out.

An Attempt To Save A World Destroys It

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An ongoing story during the Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis JLI years is the tragedy of Angor, a world that is not unlike Marvel's 616 Earth that suffered a terrible fate when the Extremists, a team of villains, kill almost every living thing in a nuclear holocaust. The few survivors from the world, including the heroes SIlver Sorceress and Blue Jay, and Walt Disney stand-in Mitch Wacky were able to travel to DC's Earth and start new lives, but Mitch dreamed of finding a way to save his home world. With the help of Kilowog, Wacky builds a machine that will send them back in time and through dimensions so that they can travel to Angor before the Extremists come into being with the goal of stopping the villains from ever gaining their powers.

Because messing with time is always a bad idea, the League sends a crew that includes Captain Atom, Guy Gardner, Power Girl, and Flash (Wally West) after Kilowog and Wacky. The only thing no one counted on was that the machine they use would shrink the travelers down to the size of a cockroach, making the mission that much harder. In the end, Wacky is unable to keep the Extremists from coming into power. In fact, he causes it, essentially being the reason his world will be destroyed. But once the two groups are together, they run into a new problem: they have no way to get home.

Luckily, Silver Sorceress has the power to teleport everyone through dimensions, but not through time. The gang is able to make their way back to the DC Earth, but are still trapped a decade or so in the past. And are still very, very small. Still, now back in their own reality, the team figures out a way to get back to the right decade, but to do it, Wally West will be forced to face the most heartbreaking moment of his life.

Wally West Has The Chance To Save The Man Who Means The Most To Him, But Can't

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Trapped in the past, the very small Leaguers, with Mitch Wacky in tow, head to Happy Harbor and the first base of the original Justice League of America. The plan is to steal some of their technology and use it to build a new time machine so they can get home. It is there, in that cave where the world's greatest team first came together, that Wally West sees the one thing that could break him: a very much alive Barry Allen, the former Flash and his mentor.

Wally took over the mantle after Barry Allen died saving all existence during Crisis on Infinite Earths, and, at this time in the comics, he still hadn't come to really see himself as the new Flash. Deep in his mind, he was only wearing the suit — literally the same one Barry Allen wore — until the closest thing he had to a loving father came back. And to see Barry sitting there, joking around with the other heroes, is too much for him. Captain Atom sees this and knows what Wally is planning to do. Wally makes his plea to Captain Atom, the pain of already knowing the answer in his eyes...

"But he's there, Cap. He's right there! If I could just... just for a second..."

Captain Atom, knowing full well that changing the past will only cause chaos, keeps Wally from warning his personal hero of what is to come. The two discuss it later, and while Wally knows Atom was right, that doesn't keep him from being filled with regret. Soon enough, the tiny League gets the time machine built and makes it home. Finally home, and resized (but not before Guy Gardner gets swallowed up by Major Liberty's dog), Blue Beetle fills everyone else in on the adventure, playing it up for laughs. But for Wally, who is usually down for a good joke, the happy setting doesn't sit well. He heads off to the roof of the Justice League embassy and looks out at the stars, thinking of Barry.

During this period in the comics, Wally West was a bit of a jerk. He was a womanizer who, having gone bankrupt, joined the League for a paycheck and tended to only think of himself. For fans, this moment was a reminder that for all his bluster, Wally West was a good man who cared about other, especially the ones he thought he would never see again. And while he still had a ways to go before finally accepting that he worthy of carrying on Barry's legacy, this moment helped him remember why he wanted to do it in the first place.