Wally West: The Flash Appreciation 2019

[Dred]

Tom King Promises Wally West Is Primed For Big Things After Heroes In Crisis: https://www.cbr.com/tom-king-promise...oes-in-crisis/

It is absolutely fucking baffling to me that Tom King thinks his pile of character destroying refuse is what Wally needed to finally be prominent and not DC Universe Rebirth, the comic that made people who literally never knew about Wally cry tears of happiness over the character.

Wally had one of the greatest moments to step forward in history and DC knowingly and maliciously squandered it. And have now done everything in their power to ruin him. And only now, now that he is finally fucked beyond recognition, are they willing to do anything with him?

All this says to me is DC was only ever willing to do anything with him as soon as he was no longer Wally West. Congratulations you character ruining jackasses.

In King's defence, I do think he does actually love the character and thinks that what he has done with Wally will serve him in the long run. He's certainly correct that this is the first time that Wally has been central to anything in the DCU since his own title was cancelled - aside for the Rebirth one-shot, of course. I just think he doesn't actually understand the character as much as he thinks he does (the entirety of issue 9 proves that) and that a story like HiC doesn't fit Wally at all. I understand that he thinks that Wally is fundamentally changed because he was brought back without his family - which was indeed a massive problem as long as there was a chance that he might remember them - but none of that changes that Wally was THE superhero who loved being a superhero, not to mention a master at controlling the Speed Force.

Sadly, it's often the case that a character's biggest fan should be the last person actually writing them.

Call me a King apologist but however much I hate HiC, I don't think it was ever Tom King's intent to destroy Wally or to further alienate the character's fans. He just massively misjudged the whole thing. Sadly, this is the flip side of ambitious writers who swing for the fences. We've had Vision, Mister Miracle and Omega Men so Heroes in Crisis now seems like the inevitable flip side to these ambitious successes. I generally prefer writers who do swing for the fences and miss than mediocre writers who stick safely to the bland and uninteresting. Unfortunately, this was a GIGANTIC miss and it was just a further blow to one of DC's most beloved characters who has unquestionably been treated like crap for 99% of the past ten years - so it's rather harder to forgive it.

You are a King apologist. And I'll tell you why.

You, like King, flagrantly gloss over DC Universe Rebirth, what can only be described as the most monumentally successful single comic DC's had in this entire era. A single comic selling as much on second printing as HiC. They intentionally threw away Wally being in the spotlight because they don't want WALLY WEST, the character as we know him, in the spotlight.

Hell, this shitty version isn't going to ever be in the spotlight. He's not suddenly going to be in JL. He's not getting a premiere solo title back. If your definition of being in the spotlight is being shunted off to some crappy team book or getting a miniseries then congratulations, he's now ascended to the notoriety of, what, Jonah Hex? Silencer? Jimmy Olsen? Amazing.

How about not in King's defense. How about we call a spade a spade. His damn interviews show as much. When Tom King saw DC Universe Rebirth he did not see a grand culmination of a great character. He didn't see what every other Wally fan reading that comic could so obviously see and love. He immediately saw a man who could never, ever, ever succeed. He saw a character who was too pathetic, too weak, too broken, to ever do anything but destroy his own life and the lives of others. That's Tom King's Wally West and pretending his lip service about "loving" the character is anything more than a copout that every writer says when they **** a character up is either gullibility or willful disbelief.

[byrd156]

Except don't forget that it was editorial that forced King to use Wally in this manner. His portrayals of Harley and Booster may not rank among the best but he did a perfectly OK job. The real character assassination here was Wally West, who was specifically chosen by (presumably?) Didio, presumably specifically to further drag the character down. And I still can't believe that I'm even typing such a sentence. Having a publisher going out of their way to specifically sink one of their best loved characters is bizarre beyond words.

I'm not forgetting anything, this whole post was pointing out that DC needs better editorial.

I think someone like Mark Millar is a pretty bad and messed up writer when given free reign but a good editor above him you get the STAS tie-in stuff that was award winning.

[byrd156]

But they do. The standard of "serving a function".

If Wally was looking good, I'm sure they'd have stepped int.

I was mainly trying to make the point that DC's editorial is hot garbage more than most of their writers. They have a ton of honest to god talent that I think would be shining better with a better editorial team that didn't let biases run the stories.

[TyttaMarzh]

I don't think King was forced.

The idea about about a hero killing a group of other heroes was from King. In itself, that's a pretty problematic idea.

DC (likely Didio) chose Wally for this. However, I don't think King has problems with this.

Wally "works" for his idea, since he wants to torment the hero for the murder of the other heroes. Also, Wally is popular.

And that's how you realize that King thinks like Hunter Zolomon: "The heroes need tragedy to be better"


This is so sad

[byrd156]

And that's how you realize that King thinks like Hunter Zolomon: "The heroes need tragedy to be better"


This is so sad

I think that's DC's motto.

[WallyWestFlash]

I cant believe King likes Wally at all. And I think it's pretty obvious.

This is not even up to debate for me. He literally did everything he could to destroy a character.

Made a sad, pathetic loser. Check.
Killer. Check.
Of his own friends. Double check.
Made crazy. Check.
Framed other people for it. Check.
Mutilated the corps. Check.
In prison now. Check.
Got kneed in the balls just for pure humiliation. Oh, triple check.

I mean what else is there that he is left to do to make someone go "Ah ha!!! Now I'm starting to think King doest actually care about this character"?

Piss on the bodies? Eat them? Really. What else?

This is just King trying to do damage control from the huge backlash and trying to deter blame from himself by claiming "I love the character" and "Now the character is in the spotlight". Very weak attempts.

He is also trying way too hard. This is like the third interview in like a week where he repeats that he loves the character and is now more popular than ever cuz he hasn't had a solo in ten years.

Oh thank you King. You've really saved Wally.

[byrd156]

I cant believe King likes Wally at all. And I think it's pretty obvious.

This is not even up to debate for me. He literally did everything he could to destroy a character.

Made a sad, pathetic loser. Check.
Killer. Check.
Of his own friends. Double check.
Made crazy. Check.
Framed other people for it. Check.
Mutilated the corps. Check.
In prison now. Check.
Got kneed in the balls just for pure humiliation. Oh, triple check.

I mean what else is there that he is left to do to make someone go "Ah ha!!! Now I'm starting to think King doest actually care about this character"?

Piss on the bodies? Eat them? Really. What else?

This is just King trying to do damage control from the huge backlash and trying to deter blame from himself by claiming "I love the character" and "Now the character is in the spotlight". Very weak attempts.

He is also trying way too hard. This is like the third interview in like a week where he repeats that he loves the character and is now more popular than ever cuz he hasn't had a solo in ten years.

Oh thank you King. You've really saved Wally.

This is what DC wants, sacrifice a fan-favorite character at the alter for however much money and outrage they can squeeze out with minimal effort then when they're done they go on an apology tour suckering in a bunch of people back while culling the fans they no longer want. It's a massive win-win scenario for DC.

[Denirac]

I reread the whole event and it was EVEN worse in one go, It just reaffirmed my belief that Tom King is nothing but DiDio’s Hitman. He takes the characters Dan hates (Nightwing, Wally, Roy etc) and either kills or character assassinates them to the point there’s nothing left. And honestly thats sad and ironic with King’s career as part of the CIA. Honestly it also strengthens my Theory that DiDio hired Bendis hoping he’d do the same but Bendis backfired with his love of DC and its legacy- See Young Justice

[Talon1load]

The problem with Tom King is that he’s not just Dido’s hitman for characters he hates, he’s been doing the same thing to Batman for 71 issues now. He’s broken him into some ineffective, insane, broken version of what he once was. He did he same in Mr Miracle. He’s a one trick pony and people are finally getting tired of that one trick.

[Jekyll]

I reread the whole event and it was EVEN worse in one go, It just reaffirmed my belief that Tom King is nothing but DiDio’s Hitman. He takes the characters Dan hates (Nightwing, Wally, Roy etc) and either kills or character assassinates them to the point there’s nothing left. And honestly thats sad and ironic with King’s career as part of the CIA. Honestly it also strengthens my Theory that DiDio hired Bendis hoping he’d do the same but Bendis backfired with his love of DC and its legacy- See Young Justice

Dear lord man! Why would you do that?!

[Jekyll]

The problem with Tom King is that he’s not just Dido’s hitman for characters he hates, he’s been doing the same thing to Batman for 71 issues now. He’s broken him into some ineffective, insane, broken version of what he once was. He did he same in Mr Miracle. He’s a one trick pony and people are finally getting tired of that one trick.

Absolutely this! He rose to fast with a couple of well received books and now people are starting to see how overrated he is. Sith's always travel in twos master and apprentice, we knew Didio was the master and now Tom has outed himself as the apprentice.

[LLSmoothJ]

For those who are using the "Tom King likes Wally West" argument to cut him some slack. Remember that Identity Crisis was supposed to be a love letter to the Silver Age.

As for right now, I'm in "I'll believe it when I see it" mode. And yes, I've started to hate Harley Quinn as much as I hated her in Injustice 2.

[Hol]

Then you should blame editorial. Johns had wanted a Flash family book with Wally and Barry (with Kollins and Manapul) as well as a Kid Flash book (for Sterling Gates) after Rebirth and editorial took it away from him at the last minute. It was editorial under Didio who tried their hardest to bring back Barry and in essence messed up the Flash book and Wally just for the sake of it. We even have Didio's own confession.

No it was not Dan Didio's idea to bring back Barry Allen. It is not true. He said it was his idea but he is lying. Geoff and Ethan kept asking Dan to do it and he said no for a few years. He only ended up doing it because he wanted to recreate the success of Green Lantern Rebirth.

So yeah I blame Geoff and Ethan for what has happened to Wally West.

[Bruce Wayne]

No it was not Dan Didio's idea to bring back Barry Allen. It is not true.

But that's wrong. We have Didio's own words to back it up. https://i.imgur.com/tnb8AWY.jpg

There is no credibility or evidence to suppose he is lying. In fact there is more evidence that he's not. For example we know both Infinite Crisis and Final Crisis had heavy editorial involvement from him and were instigated by him as sequels to CoiE. We know that the writers for the first Barry Allen Flash tv show were given the Flash book (with Bart)? Why? Because Barry was suppose to come back in IC. We know that Didio had heavy involvement with Morrison in Final Crisis to the point that he was the one that wanted Batman to "die" and that he was the one that called the shots for bringing back Barry in Final Crisis when originally the Barry Allen in FC was probably just another alternate universe version of him like the Aquaman in FC.

Geoff and Ethan kept asking Dan to do it and he said no for a few years.

Ethan Van Sciver had wanted Barry back and has taken credit for the pitch that Didio approved. But Johns only did took the writing job for so he could get the Flash family and Kid Flash book that editorial then yanked from him. Giving how much effort Johns went through to bring back Wally even after he was written out of DC Comics, it's pretty obvious that he is not a fan of what has happened.

[Jackalope89]

Yeah, even though Geoff Johns wrote the return of Barry Allen, I sincerely doubt he wanted to get rid of Wally West. Just look at his work on Rebirth and Doomsday Clock. Brought Wally back with a bang (literally and figuratively), and showed Wally as a sign of DC's hope. Geoff set the table for Rebirth, but no one really capitalized on it for Wally going forward.

And since the end of Rebirth, that whole generation has been decimated in one way or another.