Tom King's Thoughts On Wally West

[Stingo]

A very insightful interview with writer Tom King which I found quite illuminating. I must say, I subscribe to his thoughts on Wally West. I've loved this character ever since I picked up Mike Baron's 1987 Flash 1 and I think the best is yet to come for him.

https://comicbook.com/dc/2019/05/22/...tion-and-more/

[Dred]

It's been posted in all the relevant threads already. It's illuminating, though it does not assuage any of the problems. If anything it just explains why the problems were there in the first place. Not to mention some absolute BS spin on his part to justify himself.

[Eto]

You go back to what I did with Booster in the beginning, and I did it in Batman. It was like "what? What did you do to Booster? You made him so terrible." And now as you see in Heroes in Crisis, he came back from being terrible and now he's kicking ass again. This was always about those three characters. It was a Harley story, a Wally story, and was a Booster story. As I've said many times before, I don't pick the characters for my story; I give my plot to the editors and then the editors pick the characters for me. So I told them in the beginning, "this is what it's going to be -- it's going to be about one hero who's made a mistake and it's going to be about the two heroes that get framed for that mistake." And they said, "okay, it's Booster, Harley, and Wally, those are the three characters." I mean they're a joy to write, I love writing them.

What? That makes no sense, he provides the plot and then afterwards the editors say which characters?
what the...

[Dred]

What? That makes no sense, he provides the plot and then afterwards the editors say which characters?
what the...

Yes. When Tom King told Didio there was going to be a hero who killed a bunch of other heroes, Didio told him to make it Wally West.

Just for any of those people who keep saying Didio doesn't have an axe to grind, who I still see pop up all the time to defend the man.

[Stingo]

It's been posted in all the relevant threads already. It's illuminating, though it does not assuage any of the problems. If anything it just explains why the problems were there in the first place. Not to mention some absolute BS spin on his part to justify himself.

Hi Dred,

Thanks for the heads-up on this being posted elsewhere on here...So many threads that sometimes I lose track!

I did find it interesting that Mr.King mentioned that it was DC Editorial who "inserted" the characters of Wally, Booster and Harley within his story of Sanctuary. Perhaps that is why many feel that some of the characterization is "off."

Confession time: I'm one of those dreaded fans that has actually enjoyed Heroes In Crisis with one or two minor reservations. Mr. King really made me care about a lot of characters I previously had either given up on or that I found boring to begin with. I'll be interested to see where Wally winds up after the series comes to a close.

[Talon1load]

He can say all he wants but his writing shows that he does not respect the character. He was right that he has been writing the same damn story through Batman, HiC, and Mister Miracle though. Some people seem to like that but I think it shows a lack of depth that is not a great quality for a writer. The fact that he thinks he elevated Booster Gold should really tell everyone something. That is what he thinks building these characters back up looks like. That's terrible.

[Dred]

Hi Dred,

Thanks for the heads-up on this being posted elsewhere on here...So many threads that sometimes I lose track!

I did find it interesting that Mr.King mentioned that it was DC Editorial who "inserted" the characters of Wally, Booster and Harley within his story of Sanctuary. Perhaps that is why many feel that some of the characterization is "off."

Confession time: I'm one of those dreaded fans that has actually enjoyed Heroes In Crisis with one or two minor reservations. Mr. King really made me care about a lot of characters I previously had either given up on or that I found boring to begin with. I'll be interested to see where Wally winds up after the series comes to a close.

Wally isn't ending up anywhere because this is not Wally West. Just like the New 52, they bastardized everything about him and slapped his name on it. I'm glad you're interested, but you're not interested in Wally West and probably never were.

[Stingo]

Wally isn't ending up anywhere because this is not Wally West. Just like the New 52, they bastardized everything about him and slapped his name on it. I'm glad you're interested, but you're not interested in Wally West and probably never were.

Hi Dred,

Your assumption is quite false: I was a constant reader of The Flash from 1987-2008. One of my all-time favorite story-lines in ANY comic book I have ever read (been reading since 1975) was Mark Waid's Return of Barry Allen in Flash 73-79. I love Wally West and part of the reason why I ducked out of DC's New 52 initiative was for the utter lack of this character in the rebooted universe. It was Wally's return in Rebirth that led me back to DC. I respect your choices as far as comic likes and dislikes and would never think of summarily dismissing your tastes just because we don't see eye to eye. I would just ask for the same courtesy in return. We can discuss our differences of opinions without insults.

[Dred]

I would ask, then, if you have read Wally's stories, why is he like this when he has experienced and fought through these exact things before? Why, now, do his powers kill everyone around him when if that were the case Bart and his kids would've been walking murder machines? Why, now, is Wally the smartest or second smartest man alive who could baffle Bruce Wayne for a week without him ever getting close? Why is he the most successful criminal genius in history? A myriad of other questions that rips him away from being anything resembling Wally West besides a powerset and a dead family.

And that is just my problem -- to King, Wally IS nothing but a powerset and his dead family. In all his interviews about Heroes in Crisis he does not ONCE talk about Wally as a character, merely as a being who lost his family. Look at this interview you just linked. All he does is take Wally, boil him down to his most basic traumas, ignore anything about who he is as a person and character, and then inserts himself and tragedy into it. He plainly admits he is purely writing himself, writing an extension of how he felt after coming back from War and forcing that headspace onto a wholly different situation and a wholly different person. I can't name a single thing about Wally West in this comic that is like Wally West besides the events that have happened to him. Tom King literally rewrote his wedding to Linda, one of my favorite moments in comics history, to insert his own somber selfmade poetry into it. I don't see how anyone who holds those comics dear even recognizes the character anymore. I sure don't.

Hell, at one point in King's own rambling, bumbling dialogue, he literally has Wally say, "I'm not good with words." Wally West, the man who made everyone in the world associate The Flash with being a quick witted and funny, whose entire comic run is built on the beauty of his inner dialogue...isn't good with words. The solution, of course, is that Tom King can't explain the things he made Wally did, so he makes Wally incapable of explaining the things he did with any sort of satisfaction.

[Rakzo]

"Illuminating"? More like "Triggering".

[Stingo]

[QUOTE=Dred;4378383]I would ask, then, if you have read Wally's stories, why is he like this when he has experienced and fought through these exact things before? Why, now, do his powers kill everyone around him when if that were the case Bart and his kids would've been walking murder machines? Why, now, is Wally the smartest or second smartest man alive who could baffle Bruce Wayne for a week without him ever getting close? Why is he the most successful criminal genius in history? A myriad of other questions that rips him away from being anything resembling Wally West besides a powerset and a dead family.[/QUOTE

Hi Dred,

I understand your issues with Heroes In Crisis and you might note that I mentioned I had one or two reservations about the series as a whole. One of those problems was with the penultimate issue: It seemed rushed in a way that the seven issues leading up to it hadn't and this came from - in my opinion - a not very solid rationale on Wally's part (as written by Mr. King) to alter the landscape of Sanctuary by burying any evidence that he was to blame for the deaths of his friends. However, there is still one issue left and I'm going to wait to see how things are tied up.

Again, I respect your right to not like this story without asking for your Wally "credentials." I can tell you're a huge fan of the character. It's cool. So am I. Doesn't mean we can't agree to disagree in a civil manner.

[Dred]

I suppose we will see tomorrow, but I think it's a fallacy to say not to judge a story before it's over. If a book is bad 8/9ths of the way in, then it is likely a bad book. Comics are no different. 22 pages of the most decompressed comic can not solve anything, merely wrap it up. #8 was the money shot issue. #9 is just the clean up. The idiot 4some will "save" Wally, who will reneg on his suicide and likely go into custody. We'll get some somber quote at the end delivered by the trinity and Harley and Booster will get an apology. I have not read it but I find it preposterous to think any of the issues will be fixed when King has stood by all his writing decisions with interviews like the one you've brought up.

"I love Wally" has been the rallying cry of King through all the rightful criticism. That reasoning fell deaf on me 3 months ago. Forgive me for wondering what you do like about Wally when you said you were a Wally fan. This is not an attempt to gatekeep, but an earnest curiosity to understand your position.

[Blue22]

King can say he loves Wally West till the cows come home but this series proves that he doesn't really know who Wally West is. I don't know who's been fucked over the hardest since Didio took over. Wally or Dick. Both of them have been put into positions where they're no longer allowed to be themselves. Both of them have had everything fans love about them unnecessarily stripped away. But whose situation is worse?

[Darkcrusade25]

Yes. When Tom King told Didio there was going to be a hero who killed a bunch of other heroes, Didio told him to make it Wally West.

Just for any of those people who keep saying Didio doesn't have an axe to grind, who I still see pop up all the time to defend the man.

He really hates legacy characters huh

[Blue22]

He likes pissing off his customers even more. Didio has always subscribed to the "pissed readers will buy to see what happens next" theory. And... unfortunately, he has a point. Even in an age where scans of entire issues are a simple Tumblr search away, people still buy just to see their favorite trainwrecks.