A chosen one, and people in pods used as batteries? I can't believe this predates THE MATRIX by three years.

Also, I haven't seen 28 Years Later yet, but the previews give away a priest losing it and opening the doors to the rage zombies, which I feel like was a beat before in those films? But then, when I see a priest or organized religion in sci-fi, I usually assume the worst. Today, well, yeah, pretty much: from 1996, Flash Annual #9, "Silent Running" Written by Peter J. Tomasi, pencils by J.H. Williams III, inks by Mick Gray.

This was, of course, another of the "Legends of the Dead Earth" annuals; and finds a world deep in the throes of an ice age. The remaining people seemed to have a bit of technology, but that wasn't going to keep them afloat much longer, but they had faith. Namely, a Flash-based religion, that rather surprisingly doesn't specifically name Saint Barry, but does have a Book of Iris. The lightning, speed force, "flash of light," whatever, seems like it was trying to do something, but in mysterious ways: true believer Stevan Mallory survives the cold pilgrimage to get struck by lightning, which ages him but may show him the future. He encourages his firstborn son Bryan, who shares his Flash-logo scars, to heed the call of the lightning, which Bryan doesn't really believe. His jealous brother Tristan does, though: he's the creepy, culty, fire-and-brimstone style preacher; who carves his own Flash-logo into his chest before killing his father. Bryan and Tristan get into a fight at Stevan's funeral--which, since the ground was too frozen for burials, is basically dropping the corpse into a hole--but then start their own journey.

Tristan goes snowblind, the brothers are attacked (...or are they?) by a somehow familiar creature, but eventually make it to get struck by lightning themselves. Which heals but ages Tristan, and accelerates Bryan into a blur. While Tristan howls at being forsaken, he notices under the still-unconscious but vibrating Bryan that grass was growing again. Tristan then beats his brother to keep him out, and starts a new age, which was moderately better for the people: they lived on average to the age of 50 now, in a warm domed city. Meanwhile, while preaching the lightning gospel or whatever, Tristan was also sucking lifeforce out of the people to turn himself younger at regular intervals, as well as enslaving Bryan and other newly discovered speedsters in pods to keep the city going. (The lightning kept not giving Tristan powers, keeping him resentful and weird.)

One of the flock, a bald young woman, Deborah, finally can't take Tristan's reign anymore, and feeling sorry for the sad-but-pretty Bryan, frees him. Escaping Tristan's goons, Bryan vibrates them through a wall, and they end up outside, in the water, which is full of bodies of those sacrificed by Tristan. They are saved from drowning by a mysterious traveler, who gives Bryan the Flash's costume, frozen in ice. They realize it was J'onn J'onzz, who leaves it to them: he was returning to Mars, probably to die. Bryan then fights it out with Tristan, who has donned golden armor and brandishes a Flash-logo staff: the fight lasts about three pages longer than it probably should, but ends with Tristan falling down the grave hole, telling his brother he wasn't sorry. "I was fated to create a world, as you were to serve it."

Fifty years later, Deborah reads the story to children, who seem more interested in if she and Bryan ever hooked up. The people were happy and peaceful, and she looks on sadly, as Bryan still runs...or whatever...in his pod, to keep the city going. 

Again, the Speed Force works in mysterious ways, its wonders to behold...? Or, it's basically lightning, and probably a mistake to ascribe any sort of human motivations or reasoning to it? Stevan seems to realize his fate, killed by his weirder kid, as part of some grander scheme; but it feels cruel. That and Tomasi might be playing with the idea that the Flash is at its core the platonic ideal of a life of service to others. Or a joyless slog. Maybe both. I also feel like the brotherly hate angle is something that the reader should recognize, but I don't offhand. A Cain/Abel thing, or another Bible reference? I could be wrong there. though.

This maybe gets us to 16 of the 25 Legends of the Dead Earth annuals! How many of the rest are going to be just brutal to find...Off the top of my head, I know there's a Aquaman one that seems to be set in a future desert, and maybe a Guy Gardner/Warrior annual that's largely "Guy's descendants are all awesome, Hal Jordan's are all dicks."