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  • Harsher in Hindsight: The entire storyline and all the promotion it got suffers from this pretty badly when it became clear this was all just an excuse to ship Wally off to Sanctuary for Heroes in Crisis, which had him accidentally murder dozens of people (before it'd later be retconned to be the result of Savitar trapped in the Speed Force and not anything Wally did). It's especially horrible because Heroes in Crisis would use his newly rediscovered memories of the twins and Linda's continued absence in Wally's life as the cause of Wally's breakdown. The fact Heroes in Crisis ignores everything else established in this story beyond him going to Sanctuary just adds salt to the wound, this includes retconning when Wally 'remembered' the twins and completely ignoring that they are established to possibly be alive somewhere, which raises the question of why they even bothered with "Flash War".
  • I Knew It!: As soon as the story was announced, people figured that Wally would remember his kids and that this would drive a wedge between him and Barry.
  • Jerkass Woobie: The 'Jerkass' part is entirely up for debate, but Wally is the aggressor in the fight, threatening Barry because he's getting in his way and fighting to do something incredibly risky at a less-than-trustworthy former villain's say-so. However, he's doing this to save his children who are trapped in the same Speed Force limbo he was stuck in, as well as the other speedsters stuck inside, and this is after the Trauma Conga Line he's been on since Flashpoint sent him into the Speed Force in the first place.
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Hunter going from mentally disturbed Anti-Villain with unique and terrifying Time Master powers to a knowingly antagonistic Manipulative Bastard with a completely different power set has upset some of his fans.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Part 3 ends with the reveal that the titular 'Flash War' is not Barry vs Wally, but Barry and Wally vs Hunter, who dons Barry's original Flash suit and christens himself the real Fastest Man Alive. While this still fits the title of the story, and serves as a big misdirection that also avoids all the potential worries fans might have had, but it also means that the billed premise is a complete lie. One could argue this wastes the potential for a 'true' Barry vs Wally conflict.
  • Unintentionally Sympathetic: Wally West comes across as this, since the writer really tries to portray Wally being clearly on the wrong side per stated above — and in general portrays him as irrational and just randomly dickish in this story, even before his kids are brought into things. With a mix of how Barry is portrayed, Wally has become the Audience Surrogate character for the fans who are beyond exasperated by the erasure of the Flash Family and how the Speed Force has been abused as a plot point for the last decade. Some fans are genuinely rooting for Wally to destroy the Speed Force if that means the return of Wally's older stories and the beloved missing characters.
  • Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Barry, on the grounds that he is technically the one responsible for why the rest of the Flash Family are gone when he caused Flashpoint and left the DC Universe open for Doctor Manhattan to mutilate, with the way he's trying to stop Wally from saving Iris and Jai being entirely too hypocritical given how obsessed he was with saving his mom (although he does make a completely understandable point that Hunter Zolomon may just be manipulating Wally to drive them apart).

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