When did Barry Allen become Wally West?

[KC]

That is a hell of a stretch.

Not really. The dialogue might be slightly better, but a lot of the post-crisis pre-resurrection Barry stories I have read still don't write Barry in a modern way.

[Frontier]

Not really. The dialogue might be slightly better, but a lot of the post-crisis pre-resurrection Barry stories I have read still don't write Barry in a modern way.

I feel like it's hard to define "modern" though.

Like, I really don't see much of a difference between Williamson's Barry and the Barry we see in Waid's flashbacks.

[Dred]

Not really. The dialogue might be slightly better, but a lot of the post-crisis pre-resurrection Barry stories I have read still don't write Barry in a modern way.

Can you quantify the difference? Because the people who wrote them only wrote in a modern way. They didn't suddenly turn their brains into some weird 1960s mode to write Barry, otherwise he would've felt really out of place in the stories he was in. Waid used modern dialogue and character writing in every instance of him writing Barry, even if you hate him and his writing for whatever reason.

[KC]

I feel like it's hard to define "modern" though.

Like, I really don't see much of a difference between Williamson's Barry and the Barry we see in Waid's flashbacks.

It is easy to see when it happens in my opinion.

As I said when you brought this up before, I can see the difference.

[godisawesome]

Can you quantify the difference? Because the people who wrote them only wrote in a modern way. They didn't suddenly turn their brains into some weird 1960s mode to write Barry, otherwise he would've felt really out of place in the stories he was in. Waid used modern dialogue and character writing in every instance of him writing Barry, even if you hate him and his writing for whatever reason.

I have to agree; I don’t think Waid’s style of writing Barry was old fashioned at all in terms of style or presentation.

Perhaps the difference comes down to Waid deliberately writing Barry as the “old Flash” and playing up his maturity and growth, and using a “square” personality archetype?

Because I could see how a more “modern” Barry would possibly compel a modern writer to update his personality towards a more “modern geek,” with an emphasis on his funky interests being accepted more by society while his social skills would take an endearing downgrade.

[KC]

Can you quantify the difference? Because the people who wrote them only wrote in a modern way. They didn't suddenly turn their brains into some weird 1960s mode to write Barry, otherwise he would've felt really out of place in the stories he was in. Waid used modern dialogue and character writing in every instance of him writing Barry, even if you hate him and his writing for whatever reason.

That's exactly how some writers wrote him. Sure the dialogue might have been more modern. But I found a lot of interpretations of Barry to be jarringly old fashioned. Waid is an example of this.

I also don't hate Waid's writing generally or Waid as a person. I hate how Waid wrote Barry Allen.

[BohemiaDrinker]

Not really. The dialogue might be slightly better, but a lot of the post-crisis pre-resurrection Barry stories I have read still don't write Barry in a modern way.

You said never, which is a very loaded word.

And then we have stuff like "Born to Run", which featured plenty of Barry (even though he wasn't the protagonist) and worked really well on his Flash/Barry dichotomy, we had Robert Loren Fleming planting the seed of what later would be the Speed Force by having Barry communicating with the lightning that hit him, and then we had a further revision for his origin in "Life Story of the Flash" that made him fit all too well with the then modern mythos. We have the moment of his death - now already a merging with the Speed Force - retold in glorious manner by John Ostrander. We had future Barry by Waid in Chain Lightining and via Flashback in Fastest Man Alive (though that was a glaring continuity mistake), we had a very grim look at some of Barry's darkest moments in Geoff's Johns tie-in issues of Identity Crisis, and a very good showing of a "learning the hopes" Flash in JLA Year One. Hell, we had the post-Crisis of his first meeting with Jay Garrick told by Grant Freaking Morrison, and we had a temporarily ressurected Barry cool enough to talk shop with Tony Stark in JLA/Avengers.

And pretty much all of those comics were written well and according to the sensibilities of the time they were being published, and featured a well defined and developed Barry, and most of them were written by some of the biggest names of the time (and hell, of today even).

Sure, Barry didn't have a significant post-Crisis run, but the argument that he either didn't exist or wasn't somehow updated for the times just cannot be made if one cared to look.

The only significant change Flash:Rebirth brought was the "dead parents" BS and some pretty widely hated logic behind the speed force, elements that made every witter post-Johns suffer to acknowledge, and honestly, the one creative team that really made some effort to "modernize", as you say, Barry, was Manapul and Booch. Johns wrote him like a relic (and a mopey one at that), and everyone else has just trying their best to make Barry read like Barry again. Except for Scott Snyder. Scott Snyder truly does write JLU Wally West on his JL book.

[BohemiaDrinker]

How many times in those stories did he have a crew cut and bow tie when they were both gone years before by the start of the Bronze Age?

Not that many.

The crew cut made some showings, but the only post-Crisis appearance of the bowtie I can remember of the top of my head was Robert Loren Flemming retold origin: and that was canon for, like, five minutes.

[The Darknight Detective]

Not that many.

The crew cut made some showings, but the only post-Crisis appearance of the bowtie I can remember of the top of my head was Robert Loren Flemming retold origin: and that was canon for, like, five minutes.

That's too many times, IMO, since that look was never, ever considered iconic by the '70s and '80s.

[KC]

You said never, which is a very loaded word.

And then we have stuff like "Born to Run", which featured plenty of Barry (even though he wasn't the protagonist) and worked really well on his Flash/Barry dichotomy, we had Robert Loren Fleming planting the seed of what later would be the Speed Force by having Barry communicating with the lightning that hit him, and then we had a further revision for his origin in "Life Story of the Flash" that made him fit all too well with the then modern mythos. We have the moment of his death - now already a merging with the Speed Force - retold in glorious manner by John Ostrander. We had future Barry by Waid in Chain Lightining and via Flashback in Fastest Man Alive (though that was a glaring continuity mistake), we had a very grim look at some of Barry's darkest moments in Geoff's Johns tie-in issues of Identity Crisis, and a very good showing of a "learning the hopes" Flash in JLA Year One. Hell, we had the post-Crisis of his first meeting with Jay Garrick told by Grant Freaking Morrison, and we had a temporarily ressurected Barry cool enough to talk shop with Tony Stark in JLA/Avengers.

And pretty much all of those comics were written well and according to the sensibilities of the time they were being published, and featured a well defined and developed Barry, and most of them were written by some of the biggest names of the time (and hell, of today even).

Sure, Barry didn't have a significant post-Crisis run, but the argument that he either didn't exist or wasn't somehow updated for the times just cannot be made if one cared to look.

The only significant change Flash:Rebirth brought was the "dead parents" BS and some pretty widely hated logic behind the speed force, elements that made every witter post-Johns suffer to acknowledge, and honestly, the one creative team that really made some effort to "modernize", as you say, Barry, was Manapul and Booch. Johns wrote him like a relic (and a mopey one at that), and everyone else has just trying their best to make Barry read like Barry again. Except for Scott Snyder. Scott Snyder truly does write JLU Wally West on his JL book.

Waid's Barry was jarringly old-fashioned to me. And so was Johns' Barry for the most part. The writers in question being big names does not really factor into this, only if they wrote Bary in a modern way, And I would still argue that a lot didn't.

Johns' post-resurrection, pre-Flashpoint Barry was still a bit old fashioned. Flashpoint is where they did start to modernize him more with Manapul's Flash and Johns' Justice League. And I would say that has continued for the most part.

I am not reading Snyder's Justice Leauge, but from the Superheroes he chose to be on the Justice League team, it does not surprise me that his Barry is written like Wally from the JL cartoon.

[Lightning Rider]

Despite the very sad lack of Wally West lately, I'd say that the Young Justice got it absurdly right.

Oh definitely. That was a refreshingly accurate take.

[Rend20]

Oh definitely. That was a refreshingly accurate take.

While I certainly wouldn't say it was an inaccurate take, Young Justice's version is easily my least favorite outside adaptation of Wally.

I thought they took the worst elements of the character, tossed out the reasons for why those things existed, and basically failed to show most of the good qualities that make the character special. He was basically the selfish jerk from NTT/Baron's run who doubled as the incompetent comic relief (like JLU but worse) that all the other characters laugh at.

I also don't associate being a full-fledged science geek with Wally, which was a pretty crucial part of his character, like I do with Barry. Though YJ did do an excellent job of making their speedsters distinct from one another.

[Buried Alien]

Not that many.

The crew cut made some showings, but the only post-Crisis appearance of the bowtie I can remember of the top of my head was Robert Loren Flemming retold origin: and that was canon for, like, five minutes.

It also permeated Waid/Kane's LIFE STORY OF THE FLASH. LIFE STORY was great, but it retconned out Barry's 1970s/1980s "Robert Redford" look entirely.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[BohemiaDrinker]

It also permeated Waid/Kane's LIFE STORY OF THE FLASH. LIFE STORY was great, but it retconned out Barry's 1970s/1980s "Robert Redford" look entirely.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

IT did? I can't check right now, but IO could swear he used mostly a regular tie there;

[Buried Alien]

IT did? I can't check right now, but IO could swear he used mostly a regular tie there;

Barry was bowtie and crew cut all the way in LIFE STORY OF THE FLASH.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)