Wally West: The Flash Appreciation 2019

[WallyWestFlash]

Man, seeing anything from 'Ringo just makes me happy and sad simultaneously. I would have loved seeing him return to the Flash with his more refined style (though I still love the precious year he was on the book, to be damn sure) even just for a story or two but, sadly, that never got to happen.

Man, 'Ringo, Parobeck, Cooke... what is it with such brilliant and joyfully cartoony artists dying so young?

Your comment on Weringo and Fromper's on issues 80 and above have inspired me to check out that era again as I'm waiting for my Flash Geoff Johns tpb to arrive and I came across this.

2019-08-07 21.56.07.jpg

Lol. Everything is better with chocolate.

Moments like this is what made this series and Wally so great.

[twincast]

Writers very often don't know that editorial is planning a revamp or offing a character. Heck the originally brought on the TV show writers with the expectation that they'd be writing Barry, not Bart. The series wasn't even given official Flash numbering, it got an ancillary name that set it apart from Jay, Barry, and Wally's runs. That's hardly an accident -- it could've just been Flash volume 3 (like Barry's second run became) if the intention was that it was going to last.

Didio has said for years that he does not believe or support sidekicks or proteges replacing their mentors. Why do you think that total mentality suddenly changed for Bart?

I could maybe believe that they killed off Bart sooner than was intended due to cratering sales. Or that maybe the plan wasn't originally to kill off Bart but to have his run end sooner (which is all I was saying, not necessarily that the plan was always to kill Bart). It probably didn't go exactly as planned but Bart's run coming to an end, intentionally, was certainly the long term plan. They were literally buffering until they could figure out when to bring Barry back.

I'm not actually disagreeing with you. All I'm saying is that DiDio was lying about that supposedly grand long-standing plan of theirs of having Bart die within a year. I have zero problems believing that aging up Bart was a quick stop-gap to fullfill promotional promises of a Flash series after having decided not to bring back Barry in such a simple way. (And, of course, DiDio's go-to solution for when a character has "served their purpose" is to kill them off, so Bart got doubly shafted by their getting cold feet.) Endlessly spinning that promo image into something it clearly was not intended to be - and acting all smug about hiding their "plans" in plain sight - is what I found literally adding insult to the injury of losing one of my favorites for no real reason. And when you bring up that "Didio has outright said that Bart's run was never intended to last," that raises the whole ugly package of how he handled it.

[married guy]

Your comment on Weringo and Fromper's on issues 80 and above have inspired me to check out that era again as I'm waiting for my Flash Geoff Johns tpb to arrive and I came across this.

2019-08-07 21.56.07.jpg

Lol. Everything is better with chocolate.

Moments like this is what made this series and Wally so great.

Then he got home to an irate Linda who says "Those better not be for me."
To which Wally responds, "Of course not" and eats the entire box himself.

*sigh* Good times.

[WallyWestFlash]

Then he got home to an irate Linda who says "Those better not be for me."
To which Wally responds, "Of course not" and eats the entire box himself.

*sigh* Good times.

Yes. Great stuff. Then Linda and Frankie actually end up hashing it out. This has everything. Drama, humor.

Man this series was so amazing.

On a side note I really like Frankie as well. A really complex and fascinating character. I remember her from the NTT days. It was cool to see her journey and her back and forth with Wally.

She is a tragic character but with a lot sentimentality for Wally. I feel.like a lot of people can relate to that one person in your life that you care about and try to help but could also be dangerous for you. Frankie is that person for Wally.

[Bruce Wayne]

I'm not actually disagreeing with you. All I'm saying is that DiDio was lying about that supposedly grand long-standing plan of theirs of having Bart die within a year. I have zero problems believing that aging up Bart was a quick stop-gap to fullfill promotional promises of a Flash series after having decided not to bring back Barry in such a simple way. (And, of course, DiDio's go-to solution for when a character has "served their purpose" is to kill them off, so Bart got doubly shafted by their getting cold feet.) Endlessly spinning that promo image into something it clearly was not intended to be - and acting all smug about hiding their "plans" in plain sight - is what I found literally adding insult to the injury of losing one of my favorites for no real reason. And when you bring up that "Didio has outright said that Bart's run was never intended to last," that raises the whole ugly package of how he handled it.

Didio has never been very good with managing talent or the creative side. The whole post-Infinite Crisis where he tried to manage everything was a mess to the point that Wacker defected to Marvel and Tomasi quit being an editor. He might be good at smaller projects, but giving him the keys to the DC Universe was a mistake. Look at how many fan favorite character he has wrecked. He is utterly obsessed about imposing his vision of a status quo over the protests of everyone else one and trying to one up his critics like with Countdown or his treatment of Herald (in Outsiders). He was probably obsessed with wrecking Rebirth once he found out it was so well received by fans.

[Frontier]

Yes. Great stuff. Then Linda and Frankie actually end up hashing it out. This has everything. Drama, humor.

Man this series was so amazing.

On a side note I really like Frankie as well. A really complex and fascinating character. I remember her from the NTT days. It was cool to see her journey and her back and forth with Wally.

She is a tragic character but with a lot sentimentality for Wally. I feel.like a lot of people can relate to that one person in your life that you care about and try to help but could also be dangerous for you. Frankie is that person for Wally.

Agreed. I'm glad Williamson brought her back (even if that ended up going nowhere).

[WallyWestFlash]

Agreed. I'm glad Williamson brought her back (even if that ended up going nowhere).

That Flash Annual was such a great issue. One of my favorite single issues from the past few years. Wally was written great and it gave us a (false) sense of hope that Wally was finally progressing from his standstill he was stuck in in Rebirth.

I like the complexity that Williamson wrote Frankie with. I don't like when they write her as a full on villain. Like Johns did in his run. Then she's just another two.dimensional villain.

She is Wally's high school sweet heart and first love so she should know Wally very well and they should have a unique closeness. Not to mention the fact that they both grew up with powers as well. Although two.opposite experineces. In fact if I recall correctly her negative experience with her powers led her to convince Wally to quite the Teen Titans and even being a hero in NTT.

When written well Frankie is a great character and adds a lot to Wally, like in NTT, the Waid issues posted above and how Williamson wrote her in that annaul.

[Jekyll]

Didio has never been very good with managing talent or the creative side. The whole post-Infinite Crisis where he tried to manage everything was a mess to the point that Wacker defected to Marvel and Tomasi quit being an editor. He might be good at smaller projects, but giving him the keys to the DC Universe was a mistake. Look at how many fan favorite character he has wrecked. He is utterly obsessed about imposing his vision of a status quo over the protests of everyone else one and trying to one up his critics like with Countdown or his treatment of Herald (in Outsiders). He was probably obsessed with wrecking Rebirth once he found out it was so well received by fans.

Definitely agree with this!

[Ilan Preskovsky]

Didio has never been very good with managing talent or the creative side. The whole post-Infinite Crisis where he tried to manage everything was a mess to the point that Wacker defected to Marvel and Tomasi quit being an editor. He might be good at smaller projects, but giving him the keys to the DC Universe was a mistake. Look at how many fan favorite character he has wrecked. He is utterly obsessed about imposing his vision of a status quo over the protests of everyone else one and trying to one up his critics like with Countdown or his treatment of Herald (in Outsiders). He was probably obsessed with wrecking Rebirth once he found out it was so well received by fans.

Yeah, and yet there are a number of creators who have gone to bat for the guy. Didio is just a mess of contradictions. I think the biggest problem (if I may play amateur psychologist for a second here) is that he doesn't have the self-awareness to know the difference between his strengths and weaknesses. He has been brilliant with getting guys like Bendis,Way, Morrison and, HiC aside, King onto high-profile books and letting them do their thing, resulting in some excellent comics. When he butts in, though, with trying to impose his personal biases and preferences on creators, the result is, more often than not, a total trainwreck, resulting in bad comics and pissed off creators.

Further, while he sometimes misses the boat completely on a publishing and business level (his antagonism towards Wally West fans is even weirder than his antagonism towards the character himself), he has also done incredible things on that level like the concerted push to move DC beyond the Direct Market, the launch of graphic novel lines aimed at children and young adults, refraining from saturating the market with too many titles, improving the paper quality and page count for $4 after holding the line at $3 for longer than anyone else. Plus, he is also clearly a great buffer between the suits and creators as in his being honest with Mark Russell about the crap he would have to put up with if he kept Second Coming at DC and helping release the rights from DC in no time at all so that Russell could have it published elsewhere.

Just wanted to throw in a bit of balance because, unfortunately, the way that Didio has dealt with Wally West finds the dude at his absolute worst so it's easy to overlook his strengths as a publisher in a thread dedicated to Wally.

[Frontier]

I like the complexity that Williamson wrote Frankie with. I don't like when they write her as a full on villain. Like Johns did in his run. Then she's just another two.dimensional villain.

She wasn't though. She just came off like that with her mental instability. Once that wore off during Crossfire she turned on Blacksmith and helped Wally.

[Kyer]

It was Justice League Unlimited that got me very interested in Wally West.
It was stuff like that scene (Wally/Linda and the chocolates. Sorry. Don't know why it didn't show as a link) that made me hooked on comic book Wally for life. So. Much. Fun.
Really depressing to see what DC is churning out now [DCeased/HIC/Year of the Villain].

At the DC Publishers Panel at Comic-Con International: San Diego, DiDio said that Wally was going to be put “through the ringer” in Flash Forward, but that it would "lead into a big event next year."

I am not feeling terribly thrilled that the book looks to be a showcase for Didio's twice failed character/plot and not one for Wally to be improved from the mess Didio's HIC dictates put him into in the first place. Notice that the quote above says that Wally will be put through the ringer --which I can well believe he will do-- and NOT that Wally (as opposed to his own brainchild) will actually appear in that 'big event next year'.

[WallyWestFlash]

She wasn't though. She just came off like that with her mental instability. Once that wore off during Crossfire she turned on Blacksmith and helped Wally.

Right. She went full on villain because she went full on mental breakdown. Another aspect that just makes her another run of the mill villain instead of the unique character she is.

As I said above she should not be full on evil but she shouldn't be full on crazy either. A little emotionally off kilter and distraught is fine. But full on crazy. No.

Which is what Johns did.

[Frontier]

Right. She went full on villain because she went full on mental breakdown. Another aspect that just makes her another run of the mill villain instead of the unique character she is.

As I said above she should not be full on evil but she shouldn't be full on crazy either. A little emotionally off kilter and distraught is fine. But full on crazy. No.

Which is what Johns did.

That's what she was though, especially after she recovered and joined up with Jesse's "good Rogues." She didn't just become another villain and we were supposed to emphasize with what she was going through.

[Spider-Ham]

Currently reading Trinity by Busiek and Bagley. In the first few pages, Diana, Bruce and Clark are in Keystone, watching Wally, Irey, and Jai fighting Clayface. It’s so good it’s almost painful.

[Bruce Wayne]

Just shows it was never the lack of talented people willing to write the characters that screwed over Wally and his family..