Title: Impulse Issue: #46 Story: "When Barry Met Bart" Writer: William Messiner-Loebs Pencils: Craig Rousseau Inker: Barbra Kallberg My Comments Issue 50 just isn't coming fast enough. I mean come on with every kind of tie in to "Chain Lightning" we gets this literary piece of trash. Personally, I await the day for a writer to do a real story of when Bart meets Barry. The artwork goes from very good to the animated series garbage that some artists have been doing more and more of lately. Loebs is seriously killing his career on this book, because once I found him to be a great writer, but the last 8 or 9 issues of Impulse should be erased from existence, in my opinion anyway. 2 ½ out of 5 stars

As every issue lately we start with a review of Bart Allen's life to date. "Born in the future, reckless youth, yadda yadda yadda. We start this particular instance with Max harking on Bart about always being late and his responsibility as Impulse on patrol. We go on to see how this week has not been a particularly good week for Bart, and we see a synopsis of Monday through Sunday's events. Outside we join Max and Helen talking about the upcoming events regarding "Chain Lightning" and all the speedster's events to save Barry Allen (Bart's grandfather and former Flash) from the Barry's twin brother and the mysterious villain Cobalt Blue. Explaining to Helen that they had a couple minutes before liftoff, Max wanted to explain to her about what was going to happen, but also wanted Bart to read the book his grandma Iris wrote about Barry (See the Life and Times of The Flash) so Bart would also know a little history. One of the things that worried Max was one of the quotes, "He will learn a harsh lesson about life that will cost him a friend, but give him a lifelong companion..his greatest challenge will be his own dark twin". Helen asking for Max to help Bart deal with issues like that was matched with a reply of "I do think about him. I just can't protect him from his destiny". From there Helen expressed her worries about her father bouncing into time and then left with a smile as she was assured that her father would be fine.

In his room Bart struggles to get past issue 25 in the book. Bart suddenly falls silent and into a day dream as he envisions his life is Barry Allen became his guardian. His vision of Barry seems very naive. Barry first encourages Bart not to go to school for the day and claims that his more educational lesson will be a video game. As the boys played they were suddenly interrupted by "The Flash Signal", as with a tap of their rings, both The Flash and Impulse were in pursuit. The Flash not caring about the effects of their sonic booms on the glass skyscrapers found a decoy Captain Boomerang that exploded just after Impulse threw Flash out of the way. The decoy's explosion rained down hundreds of razor sharp boomerangs that were quickly demolished by a tornado all Impulse's idea. Soon though, The Flash soon became victim to the effects of the "dupl.-mirrors" of the Mirror Master and the icy effects of the Weather Wizard. Soon as The Flash and Impulse looked around they found themselves under the eyes of many of their greatest villains, including Despero, Gorilla Goould, Dr. Alchemy, Harm and many others. Using some quick thinking Impulse tricked Dr. Alchemy to turn the icy patch of ground that was tripping up the heroes, into a patch of gold enabling Impulse to save The Flash and give the heroes a chance to regroup.

Once Bart and Barry got home, Bart went into work planning on a way to defeat so many of The Flash's Rogue Gallery. After Barry gave Bart the encouragement of being a great tactician Barry revealed his fear of everything being so complex but put his faith in Impulse. From there the heroes put their plan into action, confusing the villains into using their powers against each other. In the end the dynamic speedsters defeated the Rogue Galley thanks to Bart's plan and stopped to get some dinner only to be interrupted by Professor Zoom, The Reverse Flash. As The Flash and The Reverse Flash raced towards there doom by joining the Speed Force, the Black Flash soon joined the plot against Barry, but with a quick speed burst by Impulse, The Reverse Flash catapulted into the Speed Force only to be joined by the Black Flash. Impulse had saved his Grandpa but the daydream ended as Max woke up Bart asking him if he had finished the book. It was time to go as the time to jump into the future with the rest of the speedsters was upon them. He left Helen with some parting words that Max was right, reading that book would be just like meeting Grandpa Barry.