Flash #40 *SPOILERS*

[titanfan]

We've still got FLASH WAR coming up, so Barry's present predicament is temporary, but Wally has the book for the moment.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

Stop ruining people's dreams with your realism!

[Comic Book Addict]

I picked this up because of this thread. I grabbed Annual #1 as well the previous week. I have no interest in Barry (I do love the show) in the comics. Wally is my Flash, getting excited for Flash Wars.

Interesting. I'm interested in Barry because I love the show.

[SixSpeedSamurai]

Interesting. I'm interested in Barry because I love the show.

Wally was my Flash when I started reading. I had most of the issues of his series. My memory of Barry is his sacrifice in CoIE. Which to this day, I still think they spat on by bringing him back.

I do love the show though, except for most of season 3, it's pretty fun.

[Buried Alien]

Wally was my Flash when I started reading. I had most of the issues of his series. My memory of Barry is his sacrifice in CoIE. Which to this day, I still think they spat on by bringing him back.

I disagree. After twenty years, DC had squeezed every last drop out of the COIE sacrifice. It was a fine moment, but it also reduced Barry's entire life and career to that one moment...and basically stated that nothing he had done before that was ever worth a damn...that his entire life and career were nothing more than an extended prelude to Wally West's story.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[Godlike13]

Most interesting things with Wally have been since his return.

[Comic Book Addict]

Wally was my Flash when I started reading. I had most of the issues of his series. My memory of Barry is his sacrifice in CoIE. Which to this day, I still think they spat on by bringing him back.

I do love the show though, except for most of season 3, it's pretty fun.

I completely see what you're saying. I started watching the show right when I started watching comics again so it was natural for me to like Barry in the comics, too.

[HAN9000]

I disagree. After twenty years, DC had squeezed every last drop out of the COIE sacrifice. It was a fine moment, but it also reduced Barry's entire life and career to that one moment...and basically stated that nothing he had done before that was ever worth a damn...that his entire life and career were nothing more than an extended prelude to Wally West's story.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

Isn't that because Silver Age comics hardly make sense? The only two stories of Barry before he died listed as worth reading are the trial and COIE.

[K. Jones]

This definitely reads as 'temporary story beat and prelude to Flash War' but it's still nice. A nice nod to Wally's status, history, and man, every time I see a different artist tackle Wally's Rebirth costume I love it more. That's a damn good costume.

[Midnighter]

I disagree. After twenty years, DC had squeezed every last drop out of the COIE sacrifice. It was a fine moment, but it also reduced Barry's entire life and career to that one moment...and basically stated that nothing he had done before that was ever worth a damn...that his entire life and career were nothing more than an extended prelude to Wally West's story.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

I don't know. I always saw Barry's death as one of the most important deaths in comic book history.

Think about it. His creation ushered in the silver/bronze age. His death ushered it out. It's quite possibly the single most poetic death to ever grace a four colored page.

[Buried Alien]

I don't know. I always saw Barry's death as one of the most important deaths in comic book history.

...and so it was, but I adamantly object when people get this idea that nothing in the thirty-year run of THE FLASH starring Barry mattered until COIE # 8. Historically, only a relative handful of comic book characters have headlined his or her own series continuously for over thirty years. Many of the stories canonized as FLASH classics, and that provide the foundation for FLASH stories to this very day, originally appeared in Barry's original run: "Flash of Two Worlds," the countless clashes against Reverse Flash and Grodd, the constant duel of wits against the Rogues. I strongly dislike it when all that gets blithely diminished to mere prologue.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[Doctor Bifrost]

...and so it was, but I adamantly object when people get this idea that nothing in the thirty-year run of THE FLASH starring Barry mattered until COIE # 8.

I just don't know who's saying that. To say that Barry's death in CoIE was a brilliant and moving moment in the DCU's history/meta-history is not to say that no other story he was involved in was important, good, or even great.

His death in CoIE never wiped out my memory of "Flash of Two Worlds," even if CoIE removed that story (as written) from continuity.

[TheSupernaut]

Well it's nice to see Wally headline the Flash series again, even if it's only temporary. It's a far cry from the way things were just two years ago.

[SixSpeedSamurai]

I agree with those that say what Flash Silver Age stories matter besides Trial and CoIE? Even the show, a ton of elements are adapted from Wally's run, not Barry's. Even the stuff that is all Barry is mostly modern works.

[Waterfall]

...and so it was, but I adamantly object when people get this idea that nothing in the thirty-year run of THE FLASH starring Barry mattered until COIE # 8. Historically, only a relative handful of comic book characters have headlined his or her own series continuously for over thirty years. Many of the stories canonized as FLASH classics, and that provide the foundation for FLASH stories to this very day, originally appeared in Barry's original run: "Flash of Two Worlds," the countless clashes against Reverse Flash and Grodd, the constant duel of wits against the Rogues. I strongly dislike it when all that gets blithely diminished to mere prologue.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

Except DC diminished and absolutely disregarded Barry's Silver Age adventures since Flash:Rebirth and New52. Every single adaptation and most of modern comics use Wally's mythos and lore with Speed Force, not Barry's with quirky use of vibrations, inter-dimensional adventures etc.

Even the recent Metal crossover mentioned the only worthwhile thing Barry did was dying.

[Ilan Preskovsky]

I have no problem with wantting to tell modern stories with Barry Allen but it's probably telling that by far the best modern Barry Allen stories are flashback books by Mark Waid.