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[QUOTE=Lee;4644328]His personality doesn't need to be changed or anything.[/QUOTE]
Not what I'm talking about. Wally post-Rebirth is someone no one remembered, knew, or even missed. No milestone in his career is his anymore, his uniform sucks, his stories have been absorbed by his predecessor. Fix all of those things first, and then you think about what needs to be changed.
[QUOTE=Lee;4644328]But Wally West starring in "A FLASH SPINOFF" is, by necessity, going to be a different animal to Wally West starring in "THE FLASH".
Whatever it is needs to be a worthwhile spin-off IP, with its own hook, not just "more of the same".[/QUOTE]
As long as it's built from Wally west the Flash, not Wally West the time displaced sidekick that editorial tried to screw one too many times, again, fine. First you make Wally WALLY, than you go about mucking things.
[QUOTE]Nothing has been done, aside from a new costume. Everything has been on a story-by-story basis. No effort has been made to establish a long-term status quo or mission statement for the character.[/QUOTE]
A lot has been done:
- We had "Wally with a pace maker", which would be spun as [B]"The Flash who can't run"[/B]
- We had Wally remembering his lost family, which would be spun as [B]"The sad Flash"[/B]
- We had Wally killing a bunch of people and almost joining Suicide Squad, which would be spun as [B]"The criminal Flash".[/B]
- And now we have Wally with a big cosmic stick, which apparently will be spun as [B]"The Flash who hops the multiverse, so no other character has to talk about him or interact with him ever".[/B]
All of those (except for the last one) directions failed because they're crap, and they're built from the premise of "making the character suck to distinguish from Barry." That's what I'm saying; FIRST, you make Wally his former awesome self. You secure his status among the super-hero community, you give him back his relationships (as many as possible), a decent uniform, his most relevant feats. And THEN you think about setting him apart from his uncle.
What has been done sop far, and what they apparently are trying to do, as I said, is crap and should be (and, thankfully, has been) treated as crap.
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[QUOTE=Lee;4644328]Continuity has already been re-written to make Thawne the original Reverse-Flash again. Daniel West was a later Reverse-Flash.
Daniel is Iris's brother and Wallace's father. What is the advantage in making something more complicated than it needs to be, especially for the sake of a character who is dead? What is the advantage of stacking fixes on top of fixes, when the current fix already functions?[/QUOTE]
Having Daniel exist in the main universe already messed up the West family and erased their Iris’ sister and Wally’s cousins that existed before so this would only be correcting what was changed in the reboot. Also they can still have the new Wally exist in some capacity though I’d argue that it would be better if he had a different name and wasn’t related to the Wests of the main universe. So he could either be the son of Daniel who is from a different universe or just not a West. That would make a lot more sense than the current explanation we have.
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[QUOTE=Lee;4642946]And let's be honest - Wally needs to adapt and change too, otherwise he will become irrelevant. Every character needs to be as distinct as possible and have a well defined role in order to thrive.
Some fans don't want to hear this. Back when Barry Allen returned there was a lot of teeth gnashing and harrumphing that Wally didn't need a new costume - "he has a slightly different belt, his eyes are green, nobody will be confused!"
There's overlap between Barry and Wally. There's overlap between Wally and Wallace. Barry's role is clearly defined as The Flash, the series headliner. Wallace's role is clearly defined as Kid Flash, the sidekick. Wally is the character most in need of something new, something built to last.[/QUOTE]
Wally had an ACTUAL FAMILY that made him different than Barry. Yet DC don’t want non Batman heroes to have their own families.
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[QUOTE=BohemiaDrinker;4644429]A lot has been done:
- We had "Wally with a pace maker", which would be spun as [B]"The Flash who can't run"[/B]
- We had Wally remembering his lost family, which would be spun as [B]"The sad Flash"[/B]
- We had Wally killing a bunch of people and almost joining Suicide Squad, which would be spun as [B]"The criminal Flash".[/B]
- And now we have Wally with a big cosmic stick, which apparently will be spun as [B]"The Flash who hops the multiverse, so no other character has to talk about him or interact with him ever".[/B][/quote]
Most of the above are story arcs, not long term status quo. Wally's gone from story to story, but he's not been given a long term premise with any stability to it.
[QUOTE=KurtW95;4644519]Having Daniel exist in the main universe already messed up the West family and erased their Iris’ sister and Wally’s cousins that existed before so this would only be correcting what was changed in the reboot. Also they can still have the new Wally exist in some capacity though I’d argue that it would be better if he had a different name and wasn’t related to the Wests of the main universe. So he could either be the son of Daniel who is from a different universe or just not a West. That would make a lot more sense than the current explanation we have.[/QUOTE]
That's convoluted. What would be gained from doing that? How does that fit into Iris's history with Daniel and Wallace? Where does the character go from there? Why undo an element of Flash: Year One so soon after its publication?
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[QUOTE=Cmbmool;4646274]Wally had an ACTUAL FAMILY that made him different than Barry. Yet DC don’t want non Batman heroes to have their own families.[/QUOTE]
But you want to separate him from his cousin?
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[QUOTE=Lee;4646287]Most of the above are story arcs, not long term status quo. Wally's gone from story to story, but he's not been given a long term premise with any stability to it.[/QUOTE]
All of those are failed premises. The sad, pace-maker ridden or criminal Flash would each have been a long term direction had reaction not been an universal "this is crap" from those who care. Not seeing this is naive.
Which is thew point I"m trying to make here: from where he is [U]now[/U], nothing worthwhile can be done, because every attempt so far was based on the premise of "make him inferior". You have to first fix him, and then change stuff.
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Some would prefer to just erase the damn character and call it a day. Lol Then in the race war of Infinite Speedsters where speedsters are racing till infinity to save reality a hand will emerge from a speed force portal....
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[QUOTE=BohemiaDrinker;4647070]All of those are failed premises. The sad, pace-maker ridden or criminal Flash would each have been a long term direction had reaction not been an universal "this is crap" from those who care. Not seeing this is naive.[/quote]
His missing children aren't a long-term status quo. The moment they introduced that plot thread, they knew it was a story line with an endpoint. There's currently no indication that the Multiverse adventurer angle will extend beyond the mini-series (but we do know it will segue into the next DC event). The heart condition was an adversity to overcome, but it alone wasn't something that could define his role in the DC Universe.
With Batman, Superman, Green Lantern, Flash and others, we know what the status quo is. We know the foundations of those characters and those comics and what they're about. We know who they are, where they live, what they do, why they do it, what their abilities are, who their supporting cast is, how they relate to them. We know the high concept, the genre, the themes, the tone, the look, the feel. And when a creative team diverges from that status quo, we know it's a divergence, we can see what the twist is.
Since being brought back, Wally has had stories, but he hasn't had foundation.
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Wallace West, current Kid Flash will never get out of OG Wally's shadow, unless his name is changed. Wally, Wallace are both associated with Wally. OG Wally is just too popular. Im all for new Wallace getting a new name. I want him to have a chance to be his own character, to stop being overshadowed and being dismissed, its even worse now with OG Wally West back.
It would be a waste with all the things DC is doing with new Wallace, in Teen Titans and the like, to go unrecognized and under the radar. He is just seen as Black Wally who tried to replace the OG, instead of a new character thats growing and becoming awesome in their own right. And has their own place in the Flash mythos.
The name change would be a start, the other changes to separate him from OG Wally can follow also.
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[QUOTE=Ascended;4642690]>shrug< that's why I suggested he start going by Rudy. He hasn't been around that long that the change is going to really impact him too much.
.[/QUOTE]
I like this choice of Rudy West for him.
My other pick is Daniel "Danny" West Jr.
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changing Wallace's name is still the dumbest solution to a non-problem. let's be real, DC is never going to go back to change his name to anything other than Wallace because, again, it's a non-problem. the only people who have an issue with the name are Wally fans who can't get over themselves, editorial, Wallace fans, and the general comic audience [b]do not. care[/b] that one is Wallace and one is Wally. if we change his name then they need to either leave Wally's kids gone or change BOTH of their names; you know, to avoid confusion with Jay Garrick and Iris West. oh we also need to change Bart's name too, wouldn't want people confusing Barry and Bart since they both have the name Bartholomew. obvious sarcasm is obvious, that would be just as stupid as changing Wallace's name.
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[QUOTE=lemonpeace;4732529]the only people who have an issue with the name are Wally fans who can't get over themselves,[/QUOTE]
This isn't quite true as there are more than a few Wallace fans who think it's an issue for the character. The difference is their solution is DC should just get rid of Wally rather than changing names.
Though I do agree it isn't an issue as far as the comics are concerned.
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[QUOTE=lemonpeace;4732529]changing Wallace's name is still the dumbest solution to a non-problem. let's be real, DC is never going to go back to change his name to anything other than Wallace because, again, it's a non-problem. the only people who have an issue with the name are Wally fans who can't get over themselves, editorial, Wallace fans, and the general comic audience [b]do not. care[/b] that one is Wallace and one is Wally. if we change his name then they need to either leave Wally's kids gone or change BOTH of their names; you know, to avoid confusion with Jay Garrick and Iris West. oh we also need to change Bart's name too, wouldn't want people confusing Barry and Bart since they both have the name Bartholomew. obvious sarcasm is obvious, that would be just as stupid as changing Wallace's name.[/QUOTE]
I totally agree; the name is a non issue. Think about how many Italians are named Anthony, Michael or Mark; think about how many Mexicans are named George, Miguel or Jose; and on and on it goes.
I understand that for the OG Wally fans the New 52 did them really dirty, but that doesn't mean we should do away with Wallace; think about the fact that there's another mixed race family in the DC universe the other being Damian Wayne who is mixed.
So to simply erase him would be a big injustice who came on board to comics with the New 52; which remember, was back in 2011 nearly a decade ago and there are Wallace fans who only know him through that and the Flash TV show.
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[quote]I totally agree; the name is a non issue. Think about how many Italians are named Anthony, Michael or Mark; think about how many Mexicans are named George, Miguel or Jose; and on and on it goes. [/quote]But how many of them are in the same franchise? In comic books, or tv series? Fiction isn't the real world, and there's a reason name duplication is avoided.
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Personally, I just wouldn't continue with the character. I'd admit he was a bad idea from jump, and his continued existence confuses things, and I'd cut my losses.
One of his big problems is that he wasn't just an addition to The Flash family, he was created to be the new Wally West, as if to rewrite the old one. For that reason--not just his name, but there's that, too--he will ALWAYS be compared to Wally West, and reviled by a good segment of fans, or tolerated at best.
The character is just not worth even trying to salvage to me. Similar to Cyborg, I don't know why DC tried for so long to make him a thing instead of just admitting they messed up and move on. If you have something really awesome that needs some time to find its audience, I get that and it's normal. But when you crap the bed right from the get-go, I just don't see the point in holding on and trying to make that work.
