History ComicBook / HeroesInCrisis

''ComicBook/TheFlashRebirth'' and ''ComicBook/BatmanTomKing'' have a tie-in crossover to the event called "The Price", which features Barry Allen and Bruce Wayne's investigation into a suspect for the murders: Gotham Girl.

Catering to the high cost of trauma in the superhero community, Sanctuary was established, giving them a safe space to cope and recover from whatever's plaguing them.

* TheLastOfTheseIsNotLikeTheOthers: In Issue #9, all the Robins reveal personal crises concerning what about them stands out compared to the others. Come Damian and he smugly says nothing's wrong with him and in an amused tone asks what the others were talking about.

** The latest DC CrisisCrossover with the word "crisis" in the title, it also tackles a smaller scale threat concerning heroes' personal lives and a breech of their trust. It's basically the 2010s version of ''ComicBook/IdentityCrisis''.

''Heroes in Crisis'' is [[ComicBook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths the]] [[ComicBook/ZeroHourCrisisInTime latest]] [[ComicBook/IdentityCrisis entry]] [[ComicBook/IdentityCrisis in]] [[ComicBook/InfiniteCrisis a]] [[ComicBook/FinalCrisis long line]] of crisis crossovers with the word "crisis" in the title, but whereas most of those storylines (except ''ComicBook/IdentityCrisis'') were very cosmic and grandiose, this one is more existential and personal, inspired by a traumatic experience in King's life prior to the series.

** Comicbook/CommanderSteel mentions his numerous deaths and how this affected him, specifically referencing being killed by Doctor Ivo's android in ''Comicbook/{{Legends|DCComics}}'' and his subsequent return as a Black Lantern in ''Comicbook/BlackestNight''. Both of these incidents happened to Hank Heywood III, the [[LegacyCharacter second]] Steel, but the dated language he uses in ''Heroes in Crisis'' (such as "fisticuffs" and "donnybrook") implies this is Hank Heywood Sr., the ''original'' Steel.

** Other deaths include [[spoiler: Blue Jay, [[ComicBook/TeenTitans Hotspot, Lagoon Boy,]] [[ComicBook/GreenLantern an unidentified Green Lantern]], and [[ComicBook/JusticeLeagueOfAmerica Commander Steel.]] [[ComicBook/TeenTitans Gnaark, Solstice, Red Devil, the Protector,]] Gunfire, Tattooed Man, and [[ComicBook/SuicideSquad Nemesis]] are also implied to be dead as well.]]
* DueToTheDead: Harley drops a flower off of a bridge while lamenting the (apparent) death of [[spoiler:Poison Ivy.]]

** [[spoiler:It's later played straight by Booster Gold, who helps talk Wally down from committing temporal suicide]].

** Another metatextually dubious case of this occurs with Sanctuary itself: [[spoiler:delegating all the work to an AI programmed by three people with no qualifications in the fields of mental health or therapy, said AI making all its patients relive their traumatic moments, and then keeping the patients isolated from one another, wouldn't be anywhere near as effective for treating patients as it would in real life, but the comic appears to be broadly aware of this -- Wally's reasoning for hacking the computer is that based on the psychological abuse it was inflicting, Sanctuary might've actually been a trap for ''supervillains''. Unfortunately, [[AbortedArc this doesn't end up getting resolved as Sanctuary itself fades from the story altogether by the end]].]]

** Beast Boy laments the death of Terra, his first love. Terra isn't dead as of the New 52 and in Rebirth, she is a supporting character in ''ComicBook/DeathstrokeRebirth''.

** Comicbook/CommanderSteel mentions his numerous deaths and how this affected him, specifically referencing being killed by Doctor Ivo's android in ''Comicbook/{{Legends|DC}}'' and his subsequent return as a Black Lantern in ''Comicbook/BlackestNight''. Both of these incidents happened to Hank Heywood III, the [[LegacyCharacter second]] Steel, but the dated language he uses in ''Heroes in Crisis'' (such as "fisticuffs" and "donnybrook") implies this is Hank Heywood Sr., the ''original'' Steel.

''Heroes in Crisis'' is [[ComicBook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths the]] [[ComicBook/ZeroHourCrisisInTime latest]] [[ComicBook/IdentityCrisis entry]] [[ComicBook/IdentityCrisis in]] [[ComicBook/InfiniteCrisis a]] [[ComicBook/FinalCrisis long line]] of crisis crossovers with the word "crisis" in the title, but whereas most of those storylines (except ''ComicBook/IdentityCrisis'') were very cosmic and grandiose, [[SomethingCompletelyDifferent this one is more existential and personal]], inspired by a traumatic experience in King's life prior to the series.

** [[spoiler: Unlike the other victims, Lagoon Boy's death is shown early on in the series; he's impaled by a spear, seemingly not at all by accident. That doesn't line up in any way with what we're ultimately told happened, and many don't find Tom King's attempt to blame it on his own 'poor writing' (his words) that believable.]]
** Perhaps oddest of all, the previous issues and the solicitations for the last three issues seemed to indicate it would be the Trinity (plus maybe Barry) who would solve the mystery and confront the perpetrator. [[spoiler: This doesn't happen. They only learn Wally was behind it because he taped a confession, and the Trinity has virtually no involvement in the final two issues.]]

* AnyoneCanDie: Including [[spoiler:Arsenal]].

* ArtisticLicenseLaw: Lois receives the private confession videos from [[spoiler:Wally]] and ultimately decides to publish them with minor editing to hide the secret identities of those involved. At no point is it implied that she asked any of the individuals' permission before publishing them. While many of said individuals died in the massacre, many of them are still alive, and even in the case of the deceased, she's still in a very ethically dicey area. Privacy and speech laws involving these kinds of matters are still messy and undecided, but it's very likely most other journalists and journalist ethics groups would condemn her when they learned that, and she would likely be sued by just about every single person whose video she released if they were regular people. She's only protected by virtue of the people in question all being superheroes with secret identities, meaning they can't really sue her without exposing themselves.
* ArtisticLicensePhysics: The killer manipulates the bodies to disguise the cause of death, specifically to throw Batman and Barry Allen off the trail. As a result, some bodies appear bludgeoned, while others appear cut via laser. [[spoiler: Except all of them are killed via Speed Force electricity. Even assuming nobody could tell the difference between a smashy-smashy death vs. a pewpew lasers one, an autopsy would reveal death by electrocution for all involved.]]
* BackForTheDead: The first issue alone seems to exist for the sake of bringing back characters DC hasn't used in years, only to kill them off. [[spoiler: Including Hotspot and Lagoon Boy of the Teen Titans, and Commander Steel of the Detroit version of the Justice League.]]

** [[spoiler: Poison Ivy]] was killed in the initial massacre at Sanctuary, but comes back to life later. [[spoiler: She had placed a piece of her essence into a flower that she gave to Harley. Said piece was able to restore itself by merging with the Green, and Wally West uses his powers to accelerate her growth back to normal size]].

* CluelessMystery: Of the entire mystery, almost all the clues are misdirects or irrelevant to the larger story. [[spoiler: Making things worse is that the "solution" involves a retcon that makes no sense to anyone familiar with the ''Flash'' lore.]]

* ContinuitySnarl: Many, if not most, of the reasons why certain heroes were at Sanctuary cause problems for the current DC continuity. The reason for so many snarls is likely the result of DC continuity, at the time of publication of this series, being an even bigger mess than it usually is. DC Rebirth allowed writers to pick and choose what continuity they wanted to use for the stories they were writing, but plenty of stuff from New 52 stayed in. It seems King took advantage of this in the series to allow him to have confessionals with versions of the characters that would be the most traumatized and interesting to explore, without much concern for how it would all fit in, such as Beast Boy after Terra's death, or Ted Kord after dying in ''Infinite Crisis''. Granted, some of these snarls, specifically the ones related to the series own tie-ins and lead-ins, is likely the result of poor editorial oversight or the writer not being overly concerned with continuity. In a few cases, such as Dove and Doctor Light II, it's likely the result of the writer not being overly familiar with the character and writing them based on limited knowledge.
** Lagoon Boy was traumatized by the Titans East massacre at the hands of the Sons of Trigon, even though that would require Cyborg to have still been a Teen Titan even though that never happened in the post-Flashpoint universe.[[note]]Though Cyborg's past as a Teen Titan would eventually be restored to continuity in ''Comicbook/DarkNightsDeathMetal'', that wasn't released until 2020.[[/note]]

** Arsenal was addicted to painkillers and switched to heroin out of fear of damaging his kidneys. The only time Roy abused pain medication was after his arm was cut off in ''ComicBook/JusticeLeagueCryForJustice'', which explicitly ''never'' happened because his daughter doesn't exist in the current universe. Even post-''Flashpoint'', there's never been any mention of painkillers and Roy's addiction problems were related to either alcohol or heroin. ''Green Arrow'' #45 even ignores all this and reinforces his problems with heroin.
** Superman mentions his struggle with his duality of being both Clark Kent and Superman, with Clark being clumsy and Superman being perfect. Except Clark Kent hasn't acted clumsy in a ''long'' time, so this would have to take place extremely early in Superman's career, which it makes no indication of (the rest clearly take place a while into everyone's careers and Superman was active earlier than most of them). This stands out because Superman's continuity is slightly less of a mess thanks to Superman Reborn than the rest of the DCU characters.

** [[spoiler: Gnarrk is hinted in the third issue to be one of the people who died at Sanctuary, which makes absolutely no sense because he shows up in ''Green Arrow'' at ''Roy Harper's funeral'' which explicitly takes place after the massacre. The sixth issue even spends a great deal focusing on Gnarrk before he dies with Protector, but even more jarringly he's speaking like a stereotypical caveman despite how he ''hasn't'' spoken like that since he was reintroduced in ''Comicbook/TitansHunt2015''.]]
** Issue 7 also has Bruce and Barry bantering in a cordial way. This is after "The Price", where they had a falling out that is established to ruin the trust and friendship between the two that lasts well past ''Heroes in Crisis''.
** Wally West says being imbued with the Speed Force means that the person must always work to keep it contained, and [[spoiler: apparently him not being able to do so is what caused the shockwave that killed everyone at Sanctuary]]. This is completely new and doesn't actually make sense: In "ComicBook/FlashWar", the story immediately preceding ''Heroes in Crisis'', Barry explicitly says that Wally is faster than him because he cuts loose. Not to mention Bart Allen has pretty much ''never'' had self control when it comes to using the Speed Force, and he's never [[spoiler: accidentally murdered anyone because of it]].
*** Similarly, Wally's reason for being at Sanctuary doesn't actually make sense. He's there because, in the aftermath of "Flash War", time travel was closed off to speedsters, meaning Wally can't find his kids. Except it's revealed in the story that Booster Gold's time-travel technology is fully operational and Wally knows this. So... why didn't they use it to find his kids in the first place? Never explained. The need for a StableTimeLoop is also moot given that they were eliminated via CosmicRetcon, so there's no need to maintain their place at the point they disappeared.
*** The other reason for him being at Sanctuary is people not acknowledging his missing wife and kids and putting him up on a pedestal as a symbol of hope. Except several people ''have'' acknowledged Linda, Irey and Jai (more often than not, in fact), and the idea of Wally as embodying hope has never actually been claimed ''in-universe'' -- it's a statement from DC and the interpretation of many, many readers, but purely on a meta level.
*** Also, Wally's grief is clearly written as if Linda and the kids are lost forever. Not once does it come up that it's entirely possible he could get them back. This also contradicts "Flash War", which outright stated that Irey and Jai were alive somewhere, but Wally had no way to find them. Linda herself isn't even lost (though she hasn't been seen in quite a while, if you don't count the Sanctuary simulations), she just doesn't have her pre-Flashpoint memories, with the problem there being that Wally, for a reason that has never been adequately explained, can't restore her memories of their past life but can with characters like Magenta and his aunt Iris. This snarl is even worse when it's shown in ''Young Justice'' that Zatanna was able to restore Tim Drake's pre-Flashpoint memories of Young Justice, meaning there are other methods.

** Dove shows up in-costume bemoaning how she always has to take responsibility for Hawk. Dove cannot transform into her costumed identity without danger present, and her motivation since day one has been helping keep Hawk in line.
** Tim Drake shows up after the main events of the series, giving his own testimonial. He's labeled as "Red Robin", when he had already gone back to using the Robin name alongside Damian Wayne.
** Perhaps most noticeably, if only because of how reviled his current status quo is, Nightwing appears along with the other Robins, perfectly normal and seemingly aware of who he is, despite his current status quo at the time of this issue being released has him with amnesia and going by a different name. Some speculate that the final confessions could all be taking place either quite awhile after the events of the rest of the series(after Dick inevitably regains his memory), or, less likely but possible, before he suffered the injury that gave him amnesia.
** In Issue #7, Wally recites a poem he says Linda read at their wedding. Except she didn't. Wally and Linda's wedding occurred during Wally's solo series, and no poetry was involved -- the wedding explicitly contained nothing but the actual officiating of their marriage, because Wally rushed through the entire thing (ItMakesSenseInContext). And this can't be explained by ''Flashpoint'' or ''Rebirth'' creating an alternate version of the wedding (like could be claimed for Clark and Lois), because at present they aren't married, at least not in any way that's acknowledged in the current universe, so the only wedding they've had is the one depicted Pre-Flashpoint.
** Superman asks Batman if he has kryptonite in his belt, and is later surprised when it turns out he does. Superman knows that Batman has contingencies for the League going rogue and specifically that Bruce has kryptonite reserved for ''him'', and post-Crisis and post-Flashpoint, ''he's the one who gave it to Bruce''.
* CoversAlwaysLie: Issue 7's cover shows Superman breaking up a fight between Booster Gold and Harley Quinn; there is a fight, but Supes is nowhere to be seen on the inside pages. Even more frustratingly, the solicits for the issue stated the Trinity would learn the identity of the killer only to find they were being protected by the Sanctuary A.I. gone rogue. Absolutely nothing like that happens, nor does Wonder Woman appear much like Superman was absent. This can apply to most of the solicitations for the final few issues. They bear no resemblance to what actually occurs in their issues.

** Booster Gold's issue 9 explanation on how to solve all the problems with Wally's death counts as this, with special emphasis on the crazy.

* DeusExMachina: How the problem of [[spoiler: Wally needing a body]] is solved: Booster Gold [[spoiler: just jumps into the future and clones a body of Wally to put in Sanctuary]]. This device was never mentioned or even slightly foreshadowed throughout the series.
** How this would even work given that [[spoiler: Wally frequently broke his limbs and hands, which would leave scar tissue not found in a cloned body's autopsy]] doesn't get a mention.
* DevelopingDoomedCharacters: A common criticism of the book has been that none of the looks into the characters' psychological problems matter because they're almost all KilledOffscreen by the time the book starts.

* DisneyDeath: [[spoiler: To the surprise of no one, issue six reveals that Wally West and Posion Ivy are not really dead.]]

** [[spoiler:Superman allows Lois Lane to publish the secrets of Sanctuary and of all the heroes who went there for help. Absolutely none of the heroes who had their private thoughts exposed to the world hold this against Lois, or are even seen getting mad at her for what she did.]]
* EpicFail: To say Sanctuary was a massive failure could be the understatement of the century. Even if the idea of a center for heroes to get psychological help wasn't bad in ''theory'', [[spoiler:delegating all the work to an AI programmed by three people with no qualifications in the fields of mental health or therapy, said AI making all its patients relive their traumatic moments, and then keeping the patients isolated from one another, all of that combined together led to pretty much ''all'' of the patients only getting worse up until Wally West had a nervous breakdown that accidentally resulted in the deaths. Sanctuary's ineptness was so bad, Wally's reasoning for hacking the computer is he assumed the psychological abuse he was receiving meant Sanctuary ''was actually being controlled by supervillains as a trap''.]]

** Wally West during the massacre seems to have forgotten how to vibrate through things as well as, well, how fast he is. The scene plays out like the murderer had time to kill everyone by the time Wally got to Roy Harper, but "Flash War" established Wally as the fastest speedster ''in existence'', yet Barry Allen is demonstrably faster than Wally is shown to be in this same story. [[spoiler: There is a very good reason for this]].
** This seems to happen quite literally to Barry Allen. The revelation that the murder occurred due to [[spoiler: Wally's Speed Force connection unleashing a lightning storm]] should not in any way be a reveal to Barry, nor should the cause of death. Not only is Barry ''a forensic scientist'' -- meaning he should be able to identify the cause of death not being the post-mortem wounds inflicted -- but even if [[spoiler: Speed Force lightning is somehow different to regular lightning]], Barry, having those powers and being the preeminent science guy speedster, should still be able to identify that was what killed everyone. This should have ''immediately'' led him to the conclusion that [[spoiler:Wally's Speed Force connection]] went haywire and killed everybody, because he himself, by the logic of the story, should also have to [[spoiler: constantly fight to contain his powers]].
* FrameUp: [[spoiler: Wally West frames both Booster Gold and Harley Quinn for the Sanctuary massacre through the use of {{Gaslighting}}. Granted, it seems the frame up was never meant to actually have Harley Quinn or Booster Gold go down for the crime, as Wally's taped confession is what exonerates them and he seemingly always intended to confess, it was simply to keep the Trinity distracted for five days by having them chase Harley and Booster. But he did still frame them, and its entirely possible said chase could've ended with either of them getting killed accidentally or others being harmed in the hunt for them.]]

* GoMadFromTheIsolation: Every person in Sanctuary is given complete privacy for as long as they need. While this is supposed to be so that they can speak and act freely, the actual effect is that everyone's in solitary confinement. It's a wonder more people didn't go crazy.
* GoMadFromTheRevelation: [[spoiler: What happened to Wally. He had believed that Sanctuary was made just for him, that there was no way that other heroes were suffering like he was. He learned that the confessions at Sanctuary were always deleted and took that as a challenge. He was able to recreate all of the confessions and it broke him to know that he wasn't alone in such suffering.]]

* HeroKiller: The culprit is specifically targeting supers. [[spoiler:Except in this story, it turns out no one is 'targeted' at all. The deaths are all the result of an accident, and it's only supers that die because only supers were at Sanctuary. That said, one of the retcons to the story to fix what it did to Wally did retcon the explosion was caused by Savitar, but even then, he was trying to steal the Speed Force and the deaths were merely a result of it.]]
* HollywoodPsych: Possibly only in-universe, but Wally West seems terribly disappointed at not recovering in three weeks of treatment. In reality, treatment for most psychological issues, including the grief of losing children, is likely to last the entirety of the patient's life. The fact that his so-called "treatment" is only making him worse makes it seem like he just wants this to end and is upset he's not making any progress.

* {{Hypocrite}}: The Protector's confessional reveals that, despite his frequent anti-drug abuse lectures, he himself was a heavy drug user. It's all but stated that he maintained this double standard until he hit RockBottom and sought recovery.

* JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope: [[spoiler: Wally West accidentally]] kills all the heroes in Sanctuary. The next step? [[spoiler: Framing Harley and Booster instead of trying to reach out to anyone.]] For extra measure? [[spoiler: Defiling the corpses of his accidental victims, many of whom were his friends, just to leave red herrings for Barry and Batman.]]
* KarmaHoudini: [[spoiler: Wally is not this since he turns himself in and is in prison at the end. Inexplicably though, Poison Ivy and Harley are seemingly free and together. Yes, they had no part in the deaths, and ''most'' of Harley's questionable actions in ''this'' series could maybe be excused due to the situation, but they're both still criminals regardless of anything in this series, and Poison Ivy was sent to Sanctuary by Batman ''instead'' of prison (which its questionable he actually had any right to do in itself); the arc that got her there in Batman had her take over the minds of numerous heroes and use them to attack Batman and Catwoman, and that's just her most recent crime. And she arguably ends this story ''better off'' by dying and being brought back as a part of The Green, from her perspective it's possibly all she could ever ask for.]]

* MocksteryTale: [[spoiler:The massacre at Sanctuary was real, but Wally supposedly was too good at covering his tracks and he had to blurt out a MotiveRant for the investigators to finally figure things out. In the end, it's all about how much superhero life is incredibly traumatic in general and Wally's life sucks colossally in specific, and the massacre was just a (literal) side-effect of his FreakOut once it really got to him.]]
* MoodWhiplash: The final issue suffers from this, both within the issue itself and arguably the rest of the series as a whole. Characters such as Booster Gold and Harley Quinn act weirdly comedic given what their objective is, and you'd think the whole ragtag group was just going on a little road trip as opposed to stopping [[spoiler:Wally from killing himself]]. Not to mention many of the final confessions seem to be jokes or gags rather than serious looks at characters' psyche, which is in stark contrast to most of the confessions in previous issues. Also, Harley Quinn's GroinAttack on [[spoiler:Wally]] seems rather out-of-place to do right after talking him down from [[spoiler: suicide]], deserved or not.

** [[spoiler: Wally West]] is suddenly capable of compromising Kryptonian-level computer systems with Batman-designed security algorithms. The unlikelihood of this isn't even mentioned.
** The killings occur due to a previously-unmentioned PowerIncontinence that other, similar characters would find a useful ability in and of itself.
** Booster Gold can tell from looking at a photograph that [[spoiler: Wally's]] corpse is five days older than everyone else's. How he does this is explained only by him being a time traveler, even though Wally looks the exact same [[spoiler: when the two Wallys eventually meet]].

** Subverted with Poison Ivy, as the new power she develops has been heavily foreshadowed for decades.

** [[spoiler: The Trinity's decision to run Sanctuary with a computer programmed with their supposed best traits resulted in an AI that made the patients relive their traumatic experiences in ways that gradually wore them down and in fact worsened their mental health. This directly made Wally West suffer a nervous breakdown following weeks of isolation and dehumanization, essentially putting all the deaths on their shoulders due to their apathy and neglect. [[KarmaHoudini Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman are never punished for it]].]]
** [[spoiler:Wally's accidental killing of almost everyone else at Sanctuary due to PowerIncontinence is responsible for all of the misery that follows -- until it was retconned that the explosion was really caused by Savitar and the Speed Force and not Wally, though that doesn't excuse the Trinity's failure in the whole thing.]]

** [[spoiler:According to Wally's confessional, this is how/why he killed most of the others: his connection to the Speed Force went off due to him learning the truth -- at least originally. It was retconned that Wally had nothing to do with it: the Speed Force was trying to stop Savitar from hijacking it]]
* ProtagonistCenteredMorality: [[spoiler: In the final issue, Harley Quinn gets to GroinAttack Wally as payback for what he put her through and for temporarily killing (by accident) Poison Ivy. No one argues that what Wally did was wrong, but it has been pointed out that it is VERY hypocritical for HARLEY QUINN to get a TakeThat to Wally. She wasn't even supposed to be at Sanctuary, and she has committed FAR worse acts than anything Wally did in this event throughout her life. She herself spends the majority of the event wanting to kill Booster Gold (and attempting it twice, with the second time being treated almost as PlayedForLaughs), so it can come across as a bit ridiculous she gets a chance for payback when she herself gets off scot-free and at the end gets to have a nice walk with Poison Ivy while Wally is locked up in prison, where she herself should be regardless of not being the one who committed the massacre.]]
* RagtagBunchOfMisfits: Booster Gold, Blue Beetle, Harley Quinn, and Batgirl eventually team up to solve the mystery of the Sanctuary murders once and for all. [[spoiler: Though like with the Trinity, they don't solve the mystery either. The clue Booster Gold somehow obtained meant they were a bit closer than the Batman and Barry got, but it's still Wally's confession that explains what happened at Sanctuary. Though they are the group that ends up confronting Wally.]]

* {{Retcon}}:
** [[spoiler: Tom King retcons Arsenal's past drug addiction, which stemmed from depression and severe abandonment issues he'd suffered from (losing two father figures and getting shunned by his adopted community) before being neglected by Green Arrow, into Roy getting hooked on prescription pain meds given to him by doctors for injuries he got as a superhero before switching to heroin because he damaged his kidneys. ''Green Arrow'' #45, which takes place during Roy's funeral, completely ignores all this and retcons the retcon. Of course, its possible that both motivations contributed to his addiction.]]
** The series, bizarrely, retcons when Wally remembered his children. Wally only remembered his children in Flash War, which occurred immediately before this event and was the reason he was in Sanctuary in the first place. This is retconned to him having remembered them since he got back in DC Rebirth, with it handwaved by saying that he always 'knew', even when he didn't remember. There is absolutely nothing that suggests that in his appearances beforehand and is very clearly only done to make Wally's return and everything following it retroactively bleaker to justify his actions in this series.
** [[spoiler: Speedsters suddenly have to exert constant control to avoid causing massive devastation around them, even if they're not moving.]]
** [[spoiler: Doc Magnus is in love with Platinum]], despite literally decades of that not being true.
** And much like ''ComicBook/TheCrossing'' and its own retcons, the story ended up the subject of retcons to itself, more specifically [[spoiler:''ComicBook/TheFlashRebirth'' #761 retconning that Wally trying to cover up what happened was due to Professor Zoom screwing with his mind and ''ComicBook/TheFlashInfiniteFrontier'' Annual 2021 outright stating Wally didn't even kill the heroes at all; the explosion was really caused by a returning Savitar.]]

** Issue #8 reveals [[spoiler:why and how everyone died. As it turned out, Wally couldn't handle the idea that Sanctuary was designed for everyone, thinking it was made for him. When he recreated the confessionals of dozens of heroes and viewed them all nearly simultaneously, it broke him and accidentally caused alarms to go off when he escaped outside. When the others arrived, he lost control of his powers and killed them. Since Harley and Booster Gold were still inside, he was able to trick them into believing that the other was the real killer, killing a version of himself five days into the future and sending him back.]]

* SpaceWhaleAesop: [[spoiler: Some reviews of the final two issues have pointed out the sheer absurdity and comicbookyness of Wally's situation just renders the scenario hard to relate to real-life experiences, no matter how hard you try. All of Wally's problems that get him sent to Sanctuary are the result of events that could ''only'' ever happen in superhero comics, and the accident that Wally causes that kills all the other heroes is something that really has no real-world equivalent. King says that its suppose to represent a mass shooting, but there are so many things off about that analogy that most refuse to see it that way.]]

** [[spoiler:With later issues, many began comparing it to ''ComicBook/EmeraldTwilight''. To continue the comparison, it was originally going to directly lead into the Generation reboot, meaning it'd have gotten its own ''ComicBook/ZeroHourCrisisInTime'' until Creator/DanDiDio left and DC scrapped a lot of the G5 plans]]
* StrangeMindsThinkAlike: {{Inverted|Trope}} with the Robin's confessionals in the last issue. The three adult robins all compare themselves to the other two as well as Damian. When Spoiler's confessional comes up, she says "Did they mention me? I bet they didn't."

* ThereAreNoTherapists: [[spoiler:DoubleSubverted. The original goal behind the creation of Sanctuary was an explicit InUniverse defiance of this trope, but as the arc goes on it is shown to the audience that it was so badly-constructed in general and mistreated Wally in specific that it was just ''asking'' to [[GoneHorriblyWrong Go Horribly Wrong]] -- and [[FreakOut it]] [[AccidentalMurder did]], to a degree that looked at first glance like a CrisisCrossover. To make things worse (or weirder), it is seemingly Played Straight in the end. Sanctuary reopens and there's no indication they've added any therapists or human staff of any kind, or that any changes were done to the program. And also, apparently, the complete absence of real therapists is in no way responsible for the massacre, or at least the story itself never acknowledges it.]]

* UselessProtagonist: Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman to the degree that absolutely ''nothing'' they do in this story makes a difference to the plot. In fact, their actions made things worse and were in fact responsible for all the unpleasantness that ensued. [[spoiler:Their monstrous half-assing of Sanctuary led to multiple heroes being mentally degraded and abused until Wally had his nervous breakdown, their investigation revealed absolutely nothing, they were all beaten by Harley Quinn, and Superman's permission for Lois to leak the Sanctuary tapes did nothing except potentially humiliate the hero community while committing a massive violation of civil liberties.]]

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman have only cameo appearances following Harley fighting them off. Worse, despite Barry Allen's ties to Wally West, Barry disappears entirely after Booster Gold steals Barry's journals. Barry's not even present at Wally's arrest.

* WritingForTheTrade: The story's mystery elements don't advance every issue, and the psych sessions of some of the dead characters can come off as padding. It doesn't help that the series was supposed to be 7 issues but got bumped up to 9.
* YouAreNotAlone: Deconstructed. [[spoiler:Wally believed that he was alone in his suffering, that Sanctuary was just designed to help him and him alone. When he found out otherwise, he broke.]]