Note: I’m going to run this plea once again because it deserves to be pimped out to the fanboy community. Love the Teen Titans series or hate it, it seems that the lack of Justice League Unlimited episodes and the decision to pass on a season six of the Titans may (I can’t stress “may” enough) reflect the Cartoon Network’s desire to move away from hero based animated programs, which spells disaster for fanboys and fangirls no matter how you slice it.

Granted, this is all speculative so don’t take any of it as being factual…yet. Nothing official, other than the passing on season six, has been announced, but it would appear that the writing may be in the process of being etched upon the proverbial wall here.

If anyone is interested in attempting to save season six, the good folks over at the Teen Titans Animated Site have put together a letter writing campaign in hopes of urging the network to reconsider. So rally the troops and get those pens and pencils working overtime fanboys and fangirls.

As Madame Rouge tells Jinx at the end of "Lightspeed," “life is full of disappointments.” Historically for Flash fans, television appearances by the scarlet speedster have been nothing short of disappointing. Granted, they’ve gotten gradually less disappointing with each occurrence, but whether in animated Superfriends, live-action The Flash, or the various Justice League animated incarnations, Wally West has never really, well…kept pace with his comic counterpart.

Finally, we are given a Flash episode to rally behind, and it comes in the form of Kid Flash and the recently cancelled Teen Titans animated (sure, the fifth season will come to an end as scheduled, but its important to remind everyone that while we are getting increasingly better episodes as time goes on, we are also inching ever so closer to the grandest of finales). Admittedly, the bittersweet nature of things has caused this review to be all the more difficult to scribe.

Spending the last few days re-watching "Lightspeed" has reinforced my initial reaction to the episode, which is that writer Rob Hoegee and director Ben Jones have produced the definitive rendition of the Flash persona, covering nearly all the bases in one fell swoop.

Let’s dive into the plot, and tackle these nuggets of speedster goodness one by one. First of all, "Lightspeed" is another in a long line of potential season five filler episodes done well and effectively wiping the awful taste of "Hide and Seek" from fans’ collective palates.

Here we are given San Francisco left unguarded. While the Titans are off dealing with all manner of Brotherhood-related activities, the Hive Five is poised to make a name for themselves by plundering the Titans’ hometown in their absence.

The Hive Five consists of Jinx, Mammoth, Gizmo, Billy Numerous, See-More, and Kid Wicked. Just in case you’re double checking the headcount on your fingers, the Hive Five is actually sporting a sixth member, a factoid that Kid Flash doesn’t hesitate to point out in the midst of battle, but that’s getting a bit ahead of ourselves.

The Hive Five sets to work robbing banks and committing numerous acts most foul, only to be thwarted by a yellow and red blur again and again. Led by Jinx, the villains try to solve the mystery of what we all know to be Kid Flash, but the air of mystery mixed with the Jinx-perspective really helps this episode feel fresh and new. Sure, we know whose besting the villains, but seeing it from their perspective gives us the chance to see Kid Flash in action.

And oh what a lovely rendition of Wally’s speed powers it is. The Titan character designers and animators have finally done what has needed to be done with speedster characters for so long. Many shows involving speedsters seem troubled by a quandary, how do you portray the blur of speed while still enabling your audience to see your hero? It’s tricky, but if the approach is done correctly it works, and yet no one has succeeded until now.

Sticking to a purely simplistic rendition of speed based blur, Wally appears as a wall of yellow and red while in motion, appearing clearly but only briefly at each direction change. The point behind speedsters is that they move faster than anyone else can see, so its only logical that any normal eye only sees blurs of color if anything at all. Here we are given a Flash that personifies this concept of velocity while remaining vulnerable without seeming forced.

One could go on and on about methods in which the Justice League Flash has succumbed to villains and how out of character these sequences are for a speedster like Wally. “He could vibrate through that for cryin’ out loud!”

Let’s let it rest with the simple fact that we finally see Wally rendered to near perfection while vibrating through walls and cracking wise nearly as quickly as he moves. Not to mention the ladies' man mentality "Lightspeed" equips Wally with. It can’t be argued that West has dabbled in the art of cheesy pickup lines and cocky advances. Here he engages in such activity in regard to Jinx, but is never portrayed as insincere or less than heroic. Sometimes his smarmy advances trump his status as a hero in previous incarnations, but here the mix is captured perfectly.

Not to veer away from some well-earned Kid Flash kudos, but there is one other aspect of "Lightspeed" that deserves attention. Granted, putting such a greatly rendered speedster into a crappy episode would have still garnered a nod from a Flash fanboy such as myself, but the characterization and depth given to Jinx in this episode really puts it to the top of the heap. Excellent character development is often the lynchpin, separating the mediocre from the excellent, and the work here on Jinx takes the episode to the next level.

Her desire to gain approval from The Brotherhood of Evil, namely Madame Rouge, is directly tied to her childhood tendency to mess things up. She’s not only out to prove herself as a villain, she’s also looking for some much needed therapy in the process. Wally is right to see a “difference” in her in regards to her Hive Five counterparts. Perhaps the Five’s roster is more accurate than initially it seems, as Jinx seems to be headed in an unsuspected direction by the episode’s end.

Painting a successful portrait of The Flash is not an easy balance to maintain, yet somehow here it works. Unfortunately for Flash fans, and comic fanboys in general, it looks as though hopes of seeing further appearances of everyone’s favorite scarlet speedster may be cut short along with an excellent animated series.

Next Week: Get “Revved Up” for an ultra obscure cameo by Ding Dong Daddy. If that doesn’t scare anyone, nothing will. Tune it to see if season five continues its trend of excellence. See you soon!

Mario Anima