Lightning Strikes Twice: August Heart/Godspeed Appreciation Thread

[lemonpeace]

A thread in appreciation of the black sheep of the Flash Family; Godspeed! I hope they complete his redemption arc and he gets to be a hero. I would like him to be part of a team like the Outlaws with Red Hood, Artemis, and Bizarro; or maybe he and the other Force Users (Fuerza and Psych) can become a team. I just want him to be used more.



(sidenote: am I the only one who reads him as Latino? Iunno why, but in my head I feel like he is)

[Raijin]

I think he's latino as well. He looks the part! But i wish he had a more ethnical sounding last name. August Hernandez, August Perez, etc.

[j9ac9k]

Honestly, does his specific ethnicity really matter? What if he were Indian or something would you like him (even a little) less? What if he were biracial? Just curious since y'all brought it up...

[lemonpeace]

Honestly, does his specific ethnicity really matter? What if he were Indian or something would you like him (even a little) less? What if he were biracial? Just curious since y'all brought it up...

Hmm, while I read him as Latinx, the importance of his race and/or ethnicity depends on context. As it stands right now, his background doesn't matter particularly because he doesn't show up too often nor do we get much in the way of character building because he's still in this weird nebulous place where he's not fully redeemed but he isn't exactly a full on villain either. However, it is important when/if they do decide to build on him because I feel that a characters race, ethnicity and/or culture should inform a character's personality and who that character is; as is the case in real life with people. I wouldn't really mind nor like him less if he were Indian or biracial or something like that. In all honesty though, I would be a bit disappointed (but not surprised) if he just turned out to be a white guy simply because it's usually the "default" choice and I am more interested (and would be more invested) in culturally and racially diverse characters at this point in my life. That's not to say it would actually make me love the character less if he were white, I would just see it as a missed opportunity and then not give it much thought after the fact.

That being said, DC hasn't exactly been very good at having their characters race/culture inform their character so i guess in a way it ultimately wouldn't matter because of how DC operates.

[J. D. Guy]

August Heart is definitely my not-so-low-key favorite thing about Flash Rebirth, and one of my favorite things about Rebirth in general. I was looking forward to the prospect of Barry having someone like August around in a hero-partner capacity. It saddened me that he was the villain, due to the typical-ness of it, but they did have August sell himself on his own power-high, dark vigilante persona.

Like, those images in the opening post? I love them! They're so raw and powerful, how his true costume envelops over his rock-hard physique! And even though he's totes a bad guy there, there's something so enticing about how August revels during that scene.

I do wish we could have had slightly more time to follow August in his head early on, to see how his state of mind developed with gaining his powers and becoming more proficient in them. He'd have needed to have been elevated to dueteragonist-level during that time, but it would have been worth it to see things from his perspective. Especially since his instincts with the Speed Force was strong enough to develop his powers as quickly as he did, including the internal image of what would become his Godspeed costume. Granted, August was shown to be more daring and experimental with exploring what he could do, which also explains how he progressed so fast (in-universe; outside it, it was mostly time constraints), but I still think August's natural instincts with the Speed Force had a lot to do with it, too.

I was always hoping August would seek redemption, obtain it, and become a hero, 'cause I think his is a story worth telling as a hero. To that end, I hope the upcoming story with Godspeed will grant the character more than being someone else's pawn, and that it'll have positive results for August.

I also want them to explore August more on a personal level. In spite of his relative prominence, we know rather very little about August as a person, beyond his anger towards the death of his brother and that he was a friend of Barry's within the CSI department, one who apparently helped Barry come into the flow of things on the job early on. I want to learn more about that point in their history. And I would love to learn about August's family life, including his brother whom he was implicitly very close to but whom we know nothing about, not even what he looked like.

Learning more about his family could also help shed light on his ethnicity, which I do feel is something worth shedding light on. August isn't Caucasian, that much is apparent. Hispanic is a popular fan guess, but I get the feeling August is some decent of Native American. That's my guess. Confirmation whichever way would be nice (if Williamson has a twitter or something, I'd love for one of you guys to try asking him what August's ethnic background is, and maybe if he'll explore more about August personally in the future).

Last but not least, I want to know whether or not the implications Williamson wove into August/Godspeed's character mean anything or will pan out, specifically regarding his emotions towards Barry. When it comes down to it, Barry and his opinion means a lot to August.

I want Williamson to explore August and Barry's relationship more in-depth, from both perspectives.

[J. D. Guy]

A cool capstone for August's redemption and transformation into his own hero could be to have him be confronted -- in a similar, power-high and emotion-high manner -- by a relation to the guy he burns to the bone that he assumed was his brother's killer, but that wasn't. I think the younger the relation, the better. It could end with August gaining the relation's forgiveness, with August helping them not go down the path he did.

We're likely a long way from that point, if we can even get that far, but I thought that would be a cool bookend idea.

[Korath]

(sidenote: am I the only one who reads him as Latino? Iunno why, but in my head I feel like he is)

For me, he's White, just, you know, Southern European. I've got family and friends from Spanish descent like me who are distinctively darker skinned than the usual image of Western Europeans but they are certainly not latino (at least not in the sense used in the US, even if today, hispanic peoples in France do call themselves latin/latines).

But on topic of Godspeed... I really hope we'll see more of him. I really like his character, and I think he could really function as the blacksheep of the Flash-fam.

[lemonpeace]

For me, he's White, just, you know, Southern European. I've got family and friends from Spanish descent like me who are distinctively darker skinned than the usual image of Western Europeans but they are certainly not latino (at least not in the sense used in the US, even if today, hispanic peoples in France do call themselves latin/latines).

But on topic of Godspeed... I really hope we'll see more of him. I really like his character, and I think he could really function as the blacksheep of the Flash-fam.

maybe his mother is Southern European, I wonder if Williamson will ever give us the specific countries his parents are from. his father is Latino but where from? his last name was Corazóne so it narrows it down to the Spanish speaking countries.

but then again, can we consider it canon until we see that revelation on page? I'll work under the assumption it is simply because it's coming from the creator of the character.