Whose side do you choose in the Flash War?

[Denirac]

That is fortunate. It doesn't make what Superman (the current Superman, of the current timeline) did any better than what Flash (not the current Flash, but a prior Flash of a prior timeline) did.



Who screw up with startling regularity. And allowed Flashpoint to happen.

Or INTRODUCE THE LEGENDS. Build a Team of Timetravellers who fix this type of thing. Use Rip, Booster and pick 5-6 random heroes (I'd always add Ted Kord to the team) and make protecting the Timeline from threats like THAWNE or in these examples Barry and Clark.

Also I'm saying that Current Flash is Pre Flashpoint Flash, proven by the conversation he had with Batman. Current Flash is Barry from before Flashpoint who lost his memories of his old life.

[Lee]

Or INTRODUCE THE LEGENDS. Build a Team of Timetravellers who fix this type of thing. Use Rip, Booster and pick 5-6 random heroes (I'd always add Ted Kord to the team) and make protecting the Timeline from threats like THAWNE

Jesus Christ.

You just spent 50 posts saying that Flash shouldn't have tried to protect the timeline from Thawne. You've completely and utterly derailed this thread with arguments that aren't supported by what's actually in the comics.

[Buried Alien]

2) Johns Barry pretty much sucked.

I think Geoff Johns has it in him to write Barry Allen very well if given half a chance to actually do it without undue editorial constraints.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[Frontier]

Maybe to end this once and for all we need a story called 'Trial of a Flash'. After things with Manhattan are resolved, Barry is put on trial by the Time Masters to judge his role in all of this. We could get multiple different stories out of it that last a whole year, one from his past, one from his present and one from his future. And for the prosecutor, we could have a darker Barry from the future out to steal his younger counterpart's youth.

I don't see how anything with that set-up could ever go wrong.

And you can go for that TV synergy since the show is finally adapting "The Trial of The Flash" .

Though I've honestly had my fill of evil Barry's.

I think Geoff Johns has it in him to write Barry Allen very well if given half a chance to actually do it without undue editorial constraints.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

I liked John's Barry when he was actually being The Flash and wasn't obsessing over his "dead mother, imprisoned father" shtick.

[Buried Alien]

And you can go for that TV synergy since the show is finally adapting "The Trial of The Flash" .

Though I've honestly had my fill of evil Barry's.

Yeah...Barry Allen doesn't wear "evil" well. He's not exactly INJUSTICE FLASH.

I liked John's Barry when he was actually being The Flash and wasn't obsessing over his "dead mother, imprisoned father" shtick.

And therein lies the rub. As the originator of the "dead mother, imprisoned father" trope for Barry Allen, Johns is all but married to it.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[Doctor Bifrost]

Or INTRODUCE THE LEGENDS. Build a Team of Timetravellers who fix this type of thing. Use Rip, Booster and pick 5-6 random heroes (I'd always add Ted Kord to the team) and make protecting the Timeline from threats like THAWNE or in these examples Barry and Clark.

I'm more stingy than most readers on giving away my suspension of disbelief. I don't just want an individual issue or arc to make sense; I want the whole shared narrative setting to make sense. (This often sets me up for disappointment.)

But even I accept certain conventions of the mainstream superhero genre. One is: when a problem occurs in a superhero's own comic, usually he and his supporting cast try to solve it. They do not sit down, figure out which of their many, many superpowered friends would be the best to solve it, give them a call, and step back.

I mean, unless the writer wants to make big use of a guest star, or write a crossover. Which is a metafictional consideration, not a fictional one. And of course, we see a lot more guest stars and crossovers these days than we did in, say, the Silver Age. (I'm not sure this always makes the stories better and/or more coherent.) But still, the convention is pretty strong.

What you seem to be suggesting is that, if the Flash is fighting the Reverse Flash in an issue of The Flash, and the Reverse Flash travels into the past and makes some malicious change, the Flash (contrary to what he and similar superheroes have previously done in such stories) should make a Cosmic 911 call to the Time Masters, and then sit back and let them take care of it. Or, someone like the Legends should swoop in, tell the Flash that this is their area of expertise, and he should just sit back and let them take care of it (which the Flash will then do).

And maybe, on some level, that "makes sense." But it doesn't sound like much a Flash story, or a Flash comic. Unless you want to highlight the conflict between Flash and the Time Masters (as Action Comics highlighted the conflict between Superman and Booster Gold, which will of course lead to them teaming up to deal with the issue), and make that the story. But if the writer is writing a Flash vs. Reverse Flash story, I doubt that's the way he'll want to go on a regular basis.

I mean, in the current issue of The Flash, he is facing a whole gang of superpowered villains underneath Iron Heights. Now, what he could do is - at a very fast speed, because that's his talent - call the JLA on their communicators, and ask them to come as quick as possible. Maybe they're not available, and then he has to figure out something else to do, but we should see him ask. And then Clark, Jessica, Simon, and Diana could be there in a matter of moments (they're also very fast), and Vic can tap into the local electronics, and they can all help Barry out. And the fight would be over a lot quicker, and not be so suspenseful and epic, or very much about the Flash, but hey, why wouldn't he do that?

The question is, is that the kind of comics writers want to write on a standard basis, or the kind of comic readers want to read? Especially if the comic is called The Flash.

Also I'm saying that Current Flash is Pre Flashpoint Flash, proven by the conversation he had with Batman. Current Flash is Barry from before Flashpoint who lost his memories of his old life.

"And gained the memories of his new life," right? And everybody else in his world has memories to match. And that new life - it did happen, right? It's not clear to me how much of the pre-Flashpoint Barry is left.

In any case: so you say. I say Current Barry was born as an infant in The New 52 universe, grew up there and operated there (until now when he's drifting into the Rebirth universe), and his acquisition of some of the memories of the pre-Flashpoint Barry, as well as the letter from Flashpoint Thomas Wayne, is some sort of time-travel aberration that DC has done nothing to explain, and that has very little to do with everything we've seen of Current Barry's life.

Even if what you're saying is true - that he is the pre-Flashpoint Barry, except that his memories have been completely overwritten, and he now has a different set of memories of experiences and adventures that go all the way back to his childhood and don't include "breaking the timestream" or spending time in the Flashpoint universe "even though in some sense he did those things" - the process by which he, at some arbitrary point, reacquired some or all of his pre-Flashpoint and Flashpoint memories, as well as the Matese Falcon-ish letter, is still some sort of time-travel aberration that DC has done nothing to explain, and that has very little to do with everything we've seen of Current Barry's life. It's complete deus ex machina, without even showing us the deus or the machina. So I don't know how we're supposed to come to any conclusions at all.

But Barry still told Bruce, and Bruce can tell the rest of the League if he thinks it's a good idea. Maybe he did. Who knows?

[BohemiaDrinker]

I think Geoff Johns has it in him to write Barry Allen very well if given half a chance to actually do it without undue editorial constraints.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

He sort of did already in his new 52 JL. But Flash:Rebirth was conceptually wrong, and the consensus was that he was using the first year of his title to "fix" the character slowly. Then they forced him to use the char to break everything else. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

That said, the insistence on the dead mom thing in everything Johns has half a finger on rubs me the wrong way.

[TimberWolf]

Wally all the way!

[Calvinr]

I’m a Wally fan, but I went with stalemate, as others have mentioned I don’t think there will be a war between the two.

[Denirac]

I'm more stingy than most readers on giving away my suspension of disbelief. I don't just want an individual issue or arc to make sense; I want the whole shared narrative setting to make sense. (This often sets me up for disappointment.)

But even I accept certain conventions of the mainstream superhero genre. One is: when a problem occurs in a superhero's own comic, usually he and his supporting cast try to solve it. They do not sit down, figure out which of their many, many superpowered friends would be the best to solve it, give them a call, and step back.

I mean, unless the writer wants to make big use of a guest star, or write a crossover. Which is a metafictional consideration, not a fictional one. And of course, we see a lot more guest stars and crossovers these days than we did in, say, the Silver Age. (I'm not sure this always makes the stories better and/or more coherent.) But still, the convention is pretty strong.

What you seem to be suggesting is that, if the Flash is fighting the Reverse Flash in an issue of The Flash, and the Reverse Flash travels into the past and makes some malicious change, the Flash (contrary to what he and similar superheroes have previously done in such stories) should make a Cosmic 911 call to the Time Masters, and then sit back and let them take care of it. Or, someone like the Legends should swoop in, tell the Flash that this is their area of expertise, and he should just sit back and let them take care of it (which the Flash will then do).

And maybe, on some level, that "makes sense." But it doesn't sound like much a Flash story, or a Flash comic. Unless you want to highlight the conflict between Flash and the Time Masters (as Action Comics highlighted the conflict between Superman and Booster Gold, which will of course lead to them teaming up to deal with the issue), and make that the story. But if the writer is writing a Flash vs. Reverse Flash story, I doubt that's the way he'll want to go on a regular basis.

I mean, in the current issue of The Flash, he is facing a whole gang of superpowered villains underneath Iron Heights. Now, what he could do is - at a very fast speed, because that's his talent - call the JLA on their communicators, and ask them to come as quick as possible. Maybe they're not available, and then he has to figure out something else to do, but we should see him ask. And then Clark, Jessica, Simon, and Diana could be there in a matter of moments (they're also very fast), and Vic can tap into the local electronics, and they can all help Barry out. And the fight would be over a lot quicker, and not be so suspenseful and epic, or very much about the Flash, but hey, why wouldn't he do that?

The question is, is that the kind of comics writers want to write on a standard basis, or the kind of comic readers want to read? Especially if the comic is called The Flash.



"And gained the memories of his new life," right? And everybody else in his world has memories to match. And that new life - it did happen, right? It's not clear to me how much of the pre-Flashpoint Barry is left.

In any case: so you say. I say Current Barry was born as an infant in The New 52 universe, grew up there and operated there (until now when he's drifting into the Rebirth universe), and his acquisition of some of the memories of the pre-Flashpoint Barry, as well as the letter from Flashpoint Thomas Wayne, is some sort of time-travel aberration that DC has done nothing to explain, and that has very little to do with everything we've seen of Current Barry's life.

Even if what you're saying is true - that he is the pre-Flashpoint Barry, except that his memories have been completely overwritten, and he now has a different set of memories of experiences and adventures that go all the way back to his childhood and don't include "breaking the timestream" or spending time in the Flashpoint universe "even though in some sense he did those things" - the process by which he, at some arbitrary point, reacquired some or all of his pre-Flashpoint and Flashpoint memories, as well as the Matese Falcon-ish letter, is still some sort of time-travel aberration that DC has done nothing to explain, and that has very little to do with everything we've seen of Current Barry's life. It's complete deus ex machina, without even showing us the deus or the machina. So I don't know how we're supposed to come to any conclusions at all.

But Barry still told Bruce, and Bruce can tell the rest of the League if he thinks it's a good idea. Maybe he did. Who knows?

I'm only saying Barry should call the Time Masters, Rip, Booster or the Legends when its a story about Barry going back in time. If Thawne is in the Present Day or the Future, Barry can go ahead and stop him but if Thawne is messing around in the Past like when he killed Nora then call someone who's job it is to protect the Timeline and maybe if for example The Legends had a title, it could be a crossover like Lazarus Contract or what seems to have been thought about for Booster/Superman's Timetravelling Escapades- a crossover with Batman Beyond.

And again, just like with the Reverse Flash remembering his Death at the Hands of Thomas Wayne, Barry is shown to remember causing Flashpoint in The Button, especially when he goes back there.

Aside- There would certainly be a lot of fun to be had with a DCU based Legends team 'swashbuckling their way through history' it'd be a great chance to see more of characters like Jonah Hex and Batlash and more on characters like Carter Hall, Vandal Savage and Ra's al Ghul who have lived for Centuries. Plus the conflicts they could have with characters like.Barry who have timetravelled before would be brilliant.

[KC]

I'm only saying Barry should call the Time Masters, Rip, Booster or the Legends when its a story about Barry going back in time.

Barry did not know about the Time Masters when he went back in time to save his mother.

[MajorHoy]

Barry did not know about the Time Masters when he went back in time to save his mother.

You might as well give it up . . . some people are too invested in the "Wally got screwed" / "and it's all Barry's fault" philosophy to ever admit that, just possibly, Barry really didn't do anything that he wasn't suppose to do in the first place.
(If anything, Barry was the victim of unforeseeable circumstances that were definitely not normal.)

[Denirac]

You might as well give it up . . . some people are too invested in the "Wally got screwed" / "and it's all Barry's fault" philosophy to ever admit that, just possibly, Barry really didn't do anything that he wasn't suppose to do in the first place.
(If anything, Barry was the victim of unforeseeable circumstances that were definitely not normal.)

Actually accepting that Barry didnt know about the Time Masters when he Flashpointed the Universe was why I didnt reply. But in Future, Let the Time Masters deal with altering the Past, not the Flash, hence no Liability.

[Lee]

"And gained the memories of his new life," right? And everybody else in his world has memories to match. And that new life - it did happen, right? It's not clear to me how much of the pre-Flashpoint Barry is left.

In any case: so you say. I say Current Barry was born as an infant in The New 52 universe, grew up there and operated there (until now when he's drifting into the Rebirth universe), and his acquisition of some of the memories of the pre-Flashpoint Barry, as well as the letter from Flashpoint Thomas Wayne, is some sort of time-travel aberration that DC has done nothing to explain, and that has very little to do with everything we've seen of Current Barry's life.

Even if what you're saying is true - that he is the pre-Flashpoint Barry, except that his memories have been completely overwritten, and he now has a different set of memories of experiences and adventures that go all the way back to his childhood and don't include "breaking the timestream" or spending time in the Flashpoint universe "even though in some sense he did those things" - the process by which he, at some arbitrary point, reacquired some or all of his pre-Flashpoint and Flashpoint memories, as well as the Matese Falcon-ish letter, is still some sort of time-travel aberration that DC has done nothing to explain, and that has very little to do with everything we've seen of Current Barry's life. It's complete deus ex machina, without even showing us the deus or the machina. So I don't know how we're supposed to come to any conclusions at all.

New 52 was a bit sloppy with how Flashpoint fit into Flash's new continuity. At the end of Flashpoint #5, Barry remembered Flashpoint, how it was created, etc and delivered the letter to Bruce.

But in the New 52 Flash series, Barry did not remember Flashpoint, he did not know who murdered his mother and he'd never heard of Eobard Thawne before. Barry and Eobard met each other for the first time in the Venditti/Jensen/Booth Professor Zoom story arc.

Rebirth changed things with Flash #19. A mysterious blue lightning bolt struck Thawne and he suddenly remembered Flashpoint again. In the following issues we see that it's not just a memory thing. Much like Superman Reborn, it looks as though both pre-Flashpoint Eobard Thawne and New 52 Eobard Thawne were merged and reinserted into the timeline. So when we see Reverse-Flash's origin, Flash is wearing his current New 52/Rebirth costume, and Thawne his wearing a "reverse" version of it. These aren't memories of a previous timeline, this is the current timeline.

So as far as current continuity is concerned - Barry grew up, became the Flash, met Eobard Thawne, had many battles with him as Reverse-Flash, learned that Thawne murdered his mother, went back in time, created the Flashpoint, undid the Flashpoint, then delivered the letter to Bruce.

[Buried Alien]

New 52 was a bit sloppy with how Flashpoint fit into Flash's new continuity. At the end of Flashpoint #5, Barry remembered Flashpoint, how it was created, etc and delivered the letter to Bruce.

But in the New 52 Flash series, Barry did not remember Flashpoint, he did not know who murdered his mother and he'd never heard of Eobard Thawne before. Barry and Eobard met each other for the first time in the Venditti/Jensen/Booth Professor Zoom story arc.

Rebirth changed things with Flash #19. A mysterious blue lightning bolt struck Thawne and he suddenly remembered Flashpoint again. In the following issues we see that it's not just a memory thing. Much like Superman Reborn, it looks as though both pre-Flashpoint Eobard Thawne and New 52 Eobard Thawne were merged and reinserted into the timeline. So when we see Reverse-Flash's origin, Flash is wearing his current New 52/Rebirth costume, and Thawne his wearing a "reverse" version of it. These aren't memories of a previous timeline, this is the current timeline.

So as far as current continuity is concerned - Barry grew up, became the Flash, met Eobard Thawne, had many battles with him as Reverse-Flash, learned that Thawne murdered his mother, went back in time, created the Flashpoint, undid the Flashpoint, then delivered the letter to Bruce.

Complicating matters further: in THE BUTTON, Barry and Bruce saw glimpses of what appeared to be the Pre-COIE and Post-COIE timelines, but they weren't quite sure what they were looking at.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)