Who Should Write the Flash After Joshua Williamson?

[Buried Alien]

Wally's sense of humor has definitely been grafted onto Barry, but with the nerd dialed way up.

Johns did the same thing with Hal in the New 52 Justice League Origin. He took dumb reckless jackass Kyle pre-fridging of Alex, and grafted that onto Hal.

Classic Barry and Classic Hal had some gravitas that Wally and Kyle lacked. In the 90s, when they represented the FLASH and GREEN LANTERN franchises in the Justice League, you never lost the sense that Wally and Kyle were the "kids" relative to Clark, Bruce, Diana, Arthur, and J'Onn, who had previously served with their predecessors.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[Dred]

Classic Barry and Classic Hal had some gravitas that Wally and Kyle lacked. In the 90s, when they represented the FLASH and GREEN LANTERN franchises in the Justice League, you never lost the sense that Wally and Kyle were the "kids" relative to Clark, Bruce, Diana, Arthur, and J'Onn, who had previously served with their predecessors.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

You definitely lost that sense with Wally. No one treated him as less experienced or like the group kid at all in JLA. They usually went out of their way to say the opposite. Superman even once told Wally he has more experience than all of them considering he'd been doing it since he was a kid and had no second life to live. Kyle's schtick was getting ragged on as the new guy for awhile.

[FlashEarthOne]

Wally's sense of humor has definitely been grafted onto Barry, but with the nerd dialed way up.

Which makes it NOT Wally's sense of humor since "nerd" is not really part of Wally's personality. They're giving him a nerdy sense of humor... that isn't Wally. I don't understand why some fans think Wally has ownership on a sense of humor (I say insecurity) . The same people claimed that Barry in YJ was being written like Wally and Weisman himself addressed that. I'd say the same for Death and Reign of Superman/Supermen. Giving Barry a sense of humor isn't making him like Wally. They have different senses of humor.

The same people say the CW's Flash is being written like Wally. Then they say that Miller's Flash is like Wally. Same for the animated movies and shows. Well... they're all different. It doesn't take Nostradamus to predict that basically ANY Barry/Flash incarnation will have the claim, "They're writing him like Wally!"

[Dred]

Which makes it NOT Wally's sense of humor since "nerd" is not really part of Wally's personality. They're giving him a nerdy sense of humor... that isn't Wally. I don't understand why some fans think Wally has ownership on a sense of humor (I say insecurity) . The same people claimed that Barry in YJ was being written like Wally and Weisman himself addressed that. I'd say the same for Death and Reign of Superman/Supermen. Giving Barry a sense of humor isn't making him like Wally. They have different senses of humor.

The same people say the CW's Flash is being written like Wally. Then they say that Miller's Flash is like Wally. Same for the animated movies and shows. Well... they're all different. It doesn't take Nostradamus to predict that basically ANY Barry/Flash incarnation will have the claim, "They're writing him like Wally!"

This is primarily because, if you read Barry from before he came back to life and read Wally from before Barry came back to life, new Barry acts a lot more like the latter than the former. He's essentially a new character with the bits of Wally they wanted grafted onto him. They also grafted a lot of Batman onto him, to the point where they've taken up calling him the second best detective in the world for some absolutely stupid reason.

Barry's like a DC focus group manufactured idea of The Flash and a popular hero, so you get Wally + Batman + Barry's original premise.

Barry does and did have a sense of humor. They just completely changed it to make it more quippy and snarky (especially in team up situations) because that is what people expect out of The Flash, because that is what Wally did. It's the same way that all the Speed Force exploration and knowledge and investigation was grafted onto Barry even though that was literally Wally's whole thing after Max showed him the truth.

[Buried Alien]

The same people say the CW's Flash is being written like Wally. Then they say that Miller's Flash is like Wally. Same for the animated movies and shows. Well... they're all different. It doesn't take Nostradamus to predict that basically ANY Barry/Flash incarnation will have the claim, "They're writing him like Wally!"

Since all those portrayals are pretty different from each other, it raises the question...so who's the *real* Wally?

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[Buried Alien]

Let's take this out of the Flashes for a moment to examine a parallel situation for clarity.

The Robins: over the years, were there ever instances of Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Tim Drake, and Damian Wayne oddly behaving like each other?

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[Dred]

Jason Todd was originally highly criticized for just being a Dick clone until later on when they edged him up. After that none of them are particularly similar to one another aside from superficial things (the most obvious one being appearance).

I wouldn't call it a similar situation though because Jason Todd never showed back up to kick Tim Drake out of the Robin position to be the "real" Robin. They just progressed to a fourth Robin.

[FlashEarthOne]

This is primarily because, if you read Barry from before he came back to life and read Wally from before Barry came back to life, new Barry acts a lot more like the latter than the former. He's essentially a new character with the bits of Wally they wanted grafted onto him. They also grafted a lot of Batman onto him, to the point where they've taken up calling him the second best detective in the world for some absolutely stupid reason.

I can see that to a certain point. I mainly agree. Where I disagree is where a certain few people keep saying, "He's being written just like Wally." It simply isn't true. There may be certain aspects that are similar... but Wally doesn't have any ownership on the concept of humor for the Flash or any mythos. The Speed Force is a Flash concept also and Wally doesn't have ownership of that either. Once he came back there were going to be Speed Force stories with him. Whether people agree with or not.

Barry's like a DC focus group manufactured idea of The Flash and a popular hero, so you get Wally + Batman + Barry's original premise.

Barry does and did have a sense of humor. They just completely changed it to make it more quippy and snarky (especially in team up situations) because that is what people expect out of The Flash, because that is what Wally did. It's the same way that all the Speed Force exploration and knowledge and investigation was grafted onto Barry even though that was literally Wally's whole thing after Max showed him the truth.

I disagree that he is snarky... maybe a little bit more quippy but also nerdy/cheesy in the comics (but not necessarily in is own series) and animation. Weisman addressed the Barry/Wally comparison very clearly and I agree with him. In the Flash tv series people still claim he is being written like Wally... same with JL. To me that shows a clear level of insecurity or dishonesty about the whole comparison. In other words people are going to claim it no matter what.

[Eto]

Definitely not Tom King nor Bendis.
Perhaps Humphries?
He’d a great run on GLs, IMO.
Then again, that’s his only work I’ve read so yeah.

[Adset]

someone already mentioned tomasi, but if patrick gleason is free whenever flash comes open i'd love to pair the two of them up again. i've enjoyed their work on green lantern corps, batman and robin, and superman. they work well together.

[Dred]

I can see that to a certain point. I mainly agree. Where I disagree is where a certain few people keep saying, "He's being written just like Wally." It simply isn't true. There may be certain aspects that are similar... but Wally doesn't have any ownership on the concept of humor for the Flash or any mythos. The Speed Force is a Flash concept also and Wally doesn't have ownership of that either. Once he came back there were going to be Speed Force stories with him. Whether people agree with or not.



I disagree that he is snarky... maybe a little bit more quippy but also nerdy/cheesy in the comics (but not necessarily in is own series) and animation. Weisman addressed the Barry/Wally comparison very clearly and I agree with him. In the Flash tv series people still claim he is being written like Wally... same with JL. To me that shows a clear level of insecurity or dishonesty about the whole comparison. In other words people are going to claim it no matter what.

It is not the concept of humor. It is the style and execution. It's horribly obvious in outside media representations (looking at you, animated movie features), but it pops up frequently in the comics, too.

The Flash TV series has him ripping off Wally in a bunch of different ways besides humor. The humor in that is very flat and rarely delivered from Barry, anyhow, but certainly the character arc and the Speed Force stuff is. Heck, Season 1 was like a backdoor Return of Barry Allen adaptation. I will admit I stopped watching after season 2 so maybe things have changed that I am not aware of.

The JL movie is some weird bastardization that is neither Wally nor Barry. But he's still the goof around snark of the team of otherwise super tough serious badasses, which was always Wally's role in the JL. Also the significantly younger thing. Barry was and is of a similar age group to the OG JL and when Wally was on the team his relative youth was played against the rest of the team. He's thematically similar to Wally but not close enough to either to be a ripoff. He's also awful so, hey, maybe people are just saying Wally's awful.

People will claim it no matter what because Barry will continue to directly pipe in Wally era themes, concepts, and plot pieces into any adaptation or comic he is in because Wally's era defined the current mythos they employ. So long as Barry is doing Speed Force stuff, he's in essence ripping off a huge chunk of Wally's character arc.

[FlashEarthOne]

It is not the concept of humor. It is the style and execution. It's horribly obvious in outside media representations (looking at you, animated movie features), but it pops up frequently in the comics, too.

The Flash TV series has him ripping off Wally in a bunch of different ways besides humor. The humor in that is very flat and rarely delivered from Barry, anyhow, but certainly the character arc and the Speed Force stuff is. Heck, Season 1 was like a backdoor Return of Barry Allen adaptation. I will admit I stopped watching after season 2 so maybe things have changed that I am not aware of.

The JL movie is some weird bastardization that is neither Wally nor Barry. But he's still the goof around snark of the team of otherwise super tough serious badasses, which was always Wally's role in the JL. Also the significantly younger thing. Barry was and is of a similar age group to the OG JL and when Wally was on the team his relative youth was played against the rest of the team. He's thematically similar to Wally but not close enough to either to be a ripoff. He's also awful so, hey, maybe people are just saying Wally's awful.

People will claim it no matter what because Barry will continue to directly pipe in Wally era themes, concepts, and plot pieces into any adaptation or comic he is in because Wally's era defined the current mythos they employ. So long as Barry is doing Speed Force stuff, he's in essence ripping off a huge chunk of Wally's character arc.

First of all I have to say I appreciate this discussion with you. Props for being able to go back and forth without degrading into something petty.

That being said I disagree about the animated feature movies. I don't think Flashpoint, the one with the Legion of Doom, or the Reign and Death executed in Wally's style... they may have been quippy but not snarky or overly brash. It definitely isn't the tone of JL/JLU Wally. You can even hear it in the actor's voice. I will agree that Johns tends to merge both Wally and Barry in comics and animated movies such as War and Throne. The Speed Force stories are now part of the entire Flash mythos so writing Speed Force stories with Barry isn't ripping off Wally. It is part of the Flash mythos now and it would make no sense to have Speed Force stories off limits to the title character of the Flash series. When people admit that they are going to claim it no matter what... then their points lose a large degree of credibilty.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

Which makes it NOT Wally's sense of humor since "nerd" is not really part of Wally's personality. They're giving him a nerdy sense of humor... that isn't Wally. I don't understand why some fans think Wally has ownership on a sense of humor (I say insecurity) . The same people claimed that Barry in YJ was being written like Wally and Weisman himself addressed that. I'd say the same for Death and Reign of Superman/Supermen. Giving Barry a sense of humor isn't making him like Wally. They have different senses of humor.

The same people say the CW's Flash is being written like Wally. Then they say that Miller's Flash is like Wally. Same for the animated movies and shows. Well... they're all different. It doesn't take Nostradamus to predict that basically ANY Barry/Flash incarnation will have the claim, "They're writing him like Wally!"

I think you're misunderstanding me and being overly defensive. I like Wally and Barry and Jay (and Bart & Jesse). I like The Flash. Period. That said, it's a simple fact that Barry didn't have much a sense of humor prior to his recent resurrection, whereas, during Wally's tenure as Flash, his sense of humor had become fairly prominent and was a popular element of the character. As a result, Barry became much funnier when he resumed being the primary Flash. It was not the exact same sense of humor, no, but the very idea of The Flash being a funny character making quips all the time originated during Wally's tenure. That's a Flash Fact.

[Dred]

First of all I have to say I appreciate this discussion with you. Props for being able to go back and forth without degrading into something petty.

That being said I disagree about the animated feature movies. I don't think Flashpoint, the one with the Legion of Doom, or the Reign and Death executed in Wally's style... they may have been quippy but not snarky or overly brash. It definitely isn't the tone of JL/JLU Wally. You can even hear it in the actor's voice. I will agree that Johns tends to merge both Wally and Barry in comics and animated movies such as War and Throne. The Speed Force stories are now part of the entire Flash mythos so writing Speed Force stories with Barry isn't ripping off Wally. It is part of the Flash mythos now and it would make no sense to have Speed Force stories off limits to the title character of the Flash series. When people admit that they are going to claim it no matter what... then their points lose a large degree of credibilty.

They're not "part of the entire Flash mythos." Wally was the only one who had stories like that because they were invented with him. Bart, in his short time, just built off what Wally did even if it was rather poor. With Barry they pretended to wipe the slate clean and then reuse the entire Speed Force story arc with Barry, but removing characters like Max and Wally's contributions to it. Barry discovering the Speed Force, studying it, learning it's dangerous to use, learning to enter the Speed Force, blah blah these are all directly Wally stories. It's not just that the Speed Force is involved (though that is still ripping him off, just less so), it's the nature and derivation of it.

If Wally's run was filled with him using his super speed to create backdoor science lessons on ways to beat his villains he would've been ripping off Barry. That is the narrative equivalent here. It was part of Wally's mythos because Waid decided to make something new. Every writer since who has written Barry has decided, instead of doing that, let's just cannibalize Wally, steal all his progress and credit, and give it to Barry.

Like seriously, do you think in the current universe Wally is the one who discovered the depths of the Speed Force, learned from Max Mercury about what the Speed Force was, and named it the Speed Force? Because he isn't, because all of that has been grafted onto Barry. Imagine if 1987 hit and Wally pretended like everything Barry ever did didn't happen and started doing the same things Barry did. Imagine if they treated it like the Rogues and Barry had never interacted before and Wally was the Rogues' first true enemy. This is what has happened with the Speed Force. Half of Wally's entire history and run were stripped from him and are no longer part of him, because they are now part of Barry. This is what we mean when we talk about this stuff.

[KC]

I think you're misunderstanding me and being overly defensive. I like Wally and Barry and Jay (and Bart & Jesse). I like The Flash. Period. That said, it's a simple fact that Barry didn't have much a sense of humor prior to his recent resurrection, whereas, during Wally's tenure as Flash, his sense of humor had become fairly prominent and was a popular element of the character. As a result, Barry became much funnier when he resumed being the primary Flash. It was not the exact same sense of humor, no, but the very idea of The Flash being a funny character making quips all the time originated during Wally's tenure. That's a Flash Fact.

I'm sorry, but this is blatantly not true. Barry was frequently quippy with his villains in his early Flash stories. He was only portrayed as not having much of a sense of humour after his death in Waid's awful take on the character that made him a boring saint.