Wally West: The Flash Appreciation 2019

[Spider-Ham]

It’s almost like Didio and King read Marvel’s secret empire recently........

Now you mention it ... I'd love to see Wally kicking IA-Wally's ass.

[The_Sneezing_Stormtrooper]

Yeah, seems like Wally is a red (headed) herring. That's a relief.

I'll still be annoyed if I'm wrong and this whole thing is one big attempt at character assassination but I'm going to try and calm down and enjoy this story for what it is until I'm proven wrong.

[Kyer]

Nice cover.

If they are using Walter Rudolph West....
I honestly don't know how I'd feel about that. Walter started off a killer when we met him, but then he got to be (for me) a fave. I'm still waiting impatiently for them to tradebook the Dark Flash arc. On the other hand... I really like Walter and to regress him back to a killer? After the crappy way they shoved him into hypertime and then decided hypertime didn't exist? Ugh.

[married guy]

I doubt they'll use Walter.
Although if Didio reads these boards, he might remember there's another version of Wally West to completely screw over.
Best keep it to ourselves......

[The_Sneezing_Stormtrooper]

You know what? If it means saving Wally, throw Walter to the dogs.

[WallyWestFlash]

I really liked Walter.

dark_flash_by_the_unbrilliant-d6xexbi.jpg

[Dred]

It might be good news actually. Since we know there is multiple Wally, one of them must be our boy doing the right thing (which is being killed these days) and the other must be a twisted alternate version and/or Sanctuary IA.

It's not a good thing to turn Wally West into a mass murderer. A story twisting the character into doing that means that they are inherently saying Wally has the capacity to be this way.

King is going to explicitly hammer home that "This is what happens to people who don't handle their trauma, they become monsters!" and he's going to ruin Wally to do it.

[Spider-Ham]

It's not a good thing to turn Wally West into a mass murderer. A story twisting the character into doing that means that they are inherently saying Wally has the capacity to be this way.

This is not what I said. I just think the Wally who killed everyone is Sanctuary's IA. Of course that turning Wally into a murderer is dumb.

[Denirac]

This is not what I said. I just think the Wally who killed everyone is Sanctuary's IA. Of course that turning Wally into a murderer is dumb.

Its still Character Assassination and doesnt absolve the whole even sucking with its Portrayal of Wally (dying by a Hammer to the Head from HARLEY QUINN)

[Ilan Preskovsky]

It's not a good thing to turn Wally West into a mass murderer. A story twisting the character into doing that means that they are inherently saying Wally has the capacity to be this way.

King is going to explicitly hammer home that "This is what happens to people who don't handle their trauma, they become monsters!" and he's going to ruin Wally to do it.

I'm sorry but I don't know how you ever got that from Tom King's work. His thesis has always been that not handling trauma can destroy you but there's never been any suggestion that he believes that it would turn a good person into someone evil. Further the way he speaks of Wally as DC's ultimate everyman, as his favourite Flash by far, suggests to me that while he may well deal with Wally struggling to come to terms with what he lost, the chance of him making Wally the actual murderer because of it seems like a huge stretch to me. More, Wally IS confronting his trauma by going to Sanctuary - even if King does believe what you say he does (and I really don't think he does), the internal logic here would be that Wally is confronting his trauma so he specifically WOULDN'T become a monster.

I've been saying right from the very off that Wally wasn't really dead and I've been saying for almost as long that I don't think King would have turned Wally into a murderer either. The latter seemeed obvious to me based on how he talked about the character in interviews and in the fact that it's just too obvious a twist for a great writer like Tom King. Will Wally be intimitely connected to the murderer? Clearly, almost definitely. But I don't think it was ever going to be as simple as Wally goes nuts and kills everyone. I may be wrong but King has a) too much of an affinity for Wally for that to be the case b) is too good a writer for something so hackneyed and c) has far too good an understanding of the psychology of anxiety, depression and PTSD to go for something that psychologically inane. At worst, the murderer will be a future version of Wally who was driven mad by his grief (I still think this is unlikely) but I do like the idea of the AI basiclaly creating an evil Wally defined entirely by his trauma and nothing else. It is the sort of thing that would make the Trinity have second thoughts about the whole enterprise and it would make for a good phsyical manifestation of Wally's "shadow self" to use a Jungian term. I'm a bit nehind on the series but this seems like a neat fit for what I think King is trying to do here.

[king81992]

It's not a good thing to turn Wally West into a mass murderer. A story twisting the character into doing that means that they are inherently saying Wally has the capacity to be this way.

King is going to explicitly hammer home that "This is what happens to people who don't handle their trauma, they become monsters!" and he's going to ruin Wally to do it.

Based on how Mr.Miracle ended,I think that King believes the only way to escape trauma is to retreat into a fake reality.

[Jekyll]

I really liked Walter.

dark_flash_by_the_unbrilliant-d6xexbi.jpg

So I finally have collected all of the Walter West issues and can now finally read that arc. I want to say that is one of the only major Wally arcs that I have never read.

[WallyWestFlash]

So I finally have collected all of the Walter West issues and can now finally read that arc. I want to say that is one of the only major Wally arcs that I have never read.

Nice. It's really good. I think you'r going to like it.

For me it's the last good Wally story. It's kind of a nice ending to Wallys story.now that I think about it.

[Dred]

I'm sorry but I don't know how you ever got that from Tom King's work. His thesis has always been that not handling trauma can destroy you but there's never been any suggestion that he believes that it would turn a good person into someone evil. Further the way he speaks of Wally as DC's ultimate everyman, as his favourite Flash by far, suggests to me that while he may well deal with Wally struggling to come to terms with what he lost, the chance of him making Wally the actual murderer because of it seems like a huge stretch to me. More, Wally IS confronting his trauma by going to Sanctuary - even if King does believe what you say he does (and I really don't think he does), the internal logic here would be that Wally is confronting his trauma so he specifically WOULDN'T become a monster.

I've been saying right from the very off that Wally wasn't really dead and I've been saying for almost as long that I don't think King would have turned Wally into a murderer either. The latter seemeed obvious to me based on how he talked about the character in interviews and in the fact that it's just too obvious a twist for a great writer like Tom King. Will Wally be intimitely connected to the murderer? Clearly, almost definitely. But I don't think it was ever going to be as simple as Wally goes nuts and kills everyone. I may be wrong but King has a) too much of an affinity for Wally for that to be the case b) is too good a writer for something so hackneyed and c) has far too good an understanding of the psychology of anxiety, depression and PTSD to go for something that psychologically inane. At worst, the murderer will be a future version of Wally who was driven mad by his grief (I still think this is unlikely) but I do like the idea of the AI basiclaly creating an evil Wally defined entirely by his trauma and nothing else. It is the sort of thing that would make the Trinity have second thoughts about the whole enterprise and it would make for a good phsyical manifestation of Wally's "shadow self" to use a Jungian term. I'm a bit nehind on the series but this seems like a neat fit for what I think King is trying to do here.

It's funny because I find myself disagreeing with most of what you said. There's an inherent contradiction here because Sanctuary is an awful, awful, awful place for dealing with trauma so far as we've seen, which was my point about Wally not actually dealing with it.

I don't see why you think King has a lot of affinity for Wally. This is literally the only time he's ever written him outside of having Catwoman knock him out like a chump. He's shown no affinity for the character that isn't what everyone knows -- he misses his kids and wife. He's shown no voice for the character because he hasn't written his voice. He's shown no personality writing or even character writing besides the ONLY thing King cares about -- his trauma. Wally West, as you might hopefully know, made a career out of being a hero not defined by his pain or suffering. Yet here we are, in the hands of King, reversing all of that. The only thing he's shown is Wally escaping into a delusion, whereas Wally has dealt with losing his Wife and children before! Heck we've seen Wally go to real therapy before instead of some cobbled together trainwreck by the Trinity.

There's a double, and it has to do with time travel some way or another (considering Wally is the one holding the rose). The Wally that Harley killed is going to be the one responsible because Harley has to come out of this as the most good character, and you can't do that without having the Wally she killed be evil. Maybe it's an AI aberration, but I don't see how the AI couldn't just make another one or keep doing what it was doing just because Harley hit it with a hammer. This is superhero comics, so there can always be an asspull, but it's not like it's been any good so I will continue to expect the worst.

[Ilan Preskovsky]

It's funny because I find myself disagreeing with most of what you said. There's an inherent contradiction here because Sanctuary is an awful, awful, awful place for dealing with trauma so far as we've seen, which was my point about Wally not actually dealing with it.

I don't see why you think King has a lot of affinity for Wally. This is literally the only time he's ever written him outside of having Catwoman knock him out like a chump. He's shown no affinity for the character that isn't what everyone knows -- he misses his kids and wife. He's shown no voice for the character because he hasn't written his voice. He's shown no personality writing or even character writing besides the ONLY thing King cares about -- his trauma. Wally West, as you might hopefully know, made a career out of being a hero not defined by his pain or suffering. Yet here we are, in the hands of King, reversing all of that. The only thing he's shown is Wally escaping into a delusion, whereas Wally has dealt with losing his Wife and children before! Heck we've seen Wally go to real therapy before instead of some cobbled together trainwreck by the Trinity.

There's a double, and it has to do with time travel some way or another (considering Wally is the one holding the rose). The Wally that Harley killed is going to be the one responsible because Harley has to come out of this as the most good character, and you can't do that without having the Wally she killed be evil. Maybe it's an AI aberration, but I don't see how the AI couldn't just make another one or keep doing what it was doing just because Harley hit it with a hammer. This is superhero comics, so there can always be an asspull, but it's not like it's been any good so I will continue to expect the worst.

Well, no surprise that you disagree with me...

To your points. First, King hasn't written Wally before but in his most recent interview on Wordballoon he made it clear just how much he loves Wally West as a character. I do understand ignoring that and judging him purely on his work but the only time he has written Wally is in a story that is specifically tailored, by the nature of its genre, to mislead the audience.

Second, fair point that Sanctuary has been a failure but that still doesn't mean he isn't trying to work through his trauma, which is the crucial point here. Going to a bad therapist while dealing with your issues may not help but teh very act of going means that the issues are being addressed. King is too smart not to know that.

Your final paragraph has to do with plot machinations and you may be entirely right. I don't know. But this is superhero comics so King has plenty of leeway to go nuts with the final revelations. He may well completely screw the finale up, don't get me wrong, but that doesn't mean that Wally won't come out of it better than when he came in.

Finally, my biggest issue with what you wrote is the whole idea of Wally not being a hero defined by tragedy. You're right about that but this change happened before King got his hands on him. Both Wally and Barry have had tragedy shoe-horned into their story, both by Geoff Johns, and it doesn't fit. Still, it is what it is and Wally is stuck having to face the eradication of his wife and kids and though I don't like this change to Wally any more than I like having Barry dealing with his mother's death and father's false imprisonment but it is where his character is right now and, for the themes that King is trying to explore, he is currently the perfect character to spotlight in a series about something like Sanctuary. What this means for Wally post-HiC is impossible to say, but even though the story is two-thirds finished, there's no reason to assume that King is, in any way, actually out to get Wally or to turn him evil.

Though, one thing, I'm not aware of the story where Wally goes to therapy to deal with the loss of his wife and kids. Which series was that in?