“Cold Day in Hell” opens with Meena from last volume's cliffhanger. Barry and Kid Flash, Wallace West, work with Meena to help Barry handle the Negative Speed Force. Barry is still getting adjusted to his new detail at Iron Heights and has to handle a whodunit murder case at the prison. Meanwhile, pre-The New 52 Wally West Flash is still trying to come to grips with his existence in the current reality of the DC Universe.

Williamson has Barry on a journey, the destination unknown. Looking at the through line from the last volume to this one, Barry is being challenged primarily by himself. He has doubts in his character, in his abilities, and in some of his judgements. Clearly, this is all adding up to something big for Barry down the road. The questions: what is it, and will the pay-off feel worth it?

This volume felt more cohesive than the last one. While there are a variety of artists on this book, each style feels more in line with the others. I don't get a disjointed feeling from issue to issue. Personally, I was happy to see more of Pop Mhan on the book as I am a fan of his going back to Dark Horse's SpyBoy title. Again, the standout work on this book for me are the colorists. Case in point, Hi-Fi's work on Howard Porter vs. Scott McDaniel is an interesting contrast in how colorists can adapt to each artist's style. On Porter pages, the reds Hi-Fi uses are more vibrant than the flatter reds with McDaniel. It's a situation where I think the audience expects an artist's images to look a certain way. Jim Lee images look so "Jim Lee" because of the combined team of Scott Williams on inks and Alex Sinclair on colors. When I think about McDaniel, I immediately think back to his Superman work which had very primary flat colors. When Hi-Fi is doing this work, I just wonder if that is influencing the color palette used or if McDaniel himself has preference.

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