Flash #20

The cover of Flash #20 says it all with its stark, unsettling question — "Down and Out?" — as Wally West crouches battered and disheveled against a graffiti-covered wall, his Flash costume torn and bloodied beneath a rumpled civilian jacket. It's a striking image from penciler Greg LaRocque and inker Larry Mahlstedt, showing the Scarlet Speedster at what looks like a genuine low point, red gloves still on but the heroic trappings otherwise stripped away. Writer William Messner-Loebs was pushing Wally into some of comics' most grounded, street-level territory in 1988, and this issue — titled "Lost, Worthless, and Forgotten..." — looks to deliver exactly that kind of raw, character-driven storytelling.