When did Barry Allen become Wally West?

[Sam]

I guess what I'm getting at is that Legends was a strong showing but, overall, Arrowverse Wally deserved better then he got.

Some of that's on Lonsdale wanting to do new things but a part of it was the writing, especially on The Flash.

Oh, Lonsdale definitely left before he could really make the impact his portrayal deserved, but for seven glorious episodes of Legends, I saw Wally West truly represented in live-action television.

[BohemiaDrinker]

Which is especially glaring when you see how the show ended up dropping the ball with their actual version of Wally.

You see, characterization-wise, I don't think so. After the initial portrayal dropped the ball a little, I think that TV show had enough of Wally in him, and enough charisma, to make it work.

But then we started seeing stuff like Wally tripping before a fight, or a season that started with a dead Barry Allen having "my name is Iris West" as the opening line...

Show Wally worked. And then he was sabotaged.

[Kyer]

I'm glad they're reopening the door to Barry's geekiness (a box of old comics was seen in the current issue of THE FLASH). They really need to reemphasize this aspect of Barry more.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

This! When reading Wally first introduced me to Barry Allen I was delighted that Barry was a comic book geek and that he did brilliant creations like his suit and the Cosmic Treadmill. This Barry looked to be fun in a different way that Wally was fun and I was ready and willing to embrace both as parts of The Flash Family along with Max, Bart, Jay, John, Walter, etc.

(D'you, F-Rebirth/Flashpoint/DC52)

[Dr. Ellingham]

Yes, they also established that Superman wasn't ever Superboy or joined the LSH, Wonder Woman wasn't a part of the Silver Age JLA, Hal Jordan was a murderer, Jason Todd was dead (along with Jor-El), Cyborg was never a Teen Titan, and the JSA didn't exist. It's superhero comics.

And specifically longstanding properties with decades of mythology and minutia.

The evolution of these properties is Darwinian. If a creator introduces a great costume in 1965, or a brilliant retcon in 1995, these ideas will survive - and grafted onto the current stories.

Put simply: Ever good idea can potentially be utilized in new stories, regardless of who stars in them. Wally, Barry, Jay - they don't have turf, regardless of whether we as fans think they do.

[AdamFTF]

To be honest, they weren't all that different. At least when I knew them. I never read much of Wally's early days as the Flash. But I see people on here saying that Wally was more of an everyman, but I thought Barry seemed like one from page one. At least by 1950s superhero standards. Compared to the aliens, billionaires, royalty and completely fearless test pilots of the era, Barry seemed pretty relatable. I also don't think Barry is necessarily the "serious one". Even back before the Crisis writers would have him cracking jokes, albeit corny ones. The main difference is that Barry's more cerebral while Wally's more emotional.

[BohemiaDrinker]

Put simply: Ever good idea can potentially be utilized in new stories, regardless of who stars in them. Wally, Barry, Jay - they don't have turf, regardless of whether we as fans think they do.

Yes, they do.

There are defining traits to these characters, and misusing or misplacing them is bad writing. Period.

[Frontier]

You see, characterization-wise, I don't think so. After the initial portrayal dropped the ball a little, I think that TV show had enough of Wally in him, and enough charisma, to make it work.

But then we started seeing stuff like Wally tripping before a fight, or a season that started with a dead Barry Allen having "my name is Iris West" as the opening line...

Show Wally worked. And then he was sabotaged.

Honestly I'm just bummed the most about how they completely fumbled his and Barry's friendship. They never felt as close as they should have.

[BohemiaDrinker]

Honestly I'm just bummed the most about how they completely fumbled his and Barry's friendship. They never felt as close as they should have.

Which is a fair criticism, just not a deal breaker for me.

[phantom1592]

It's the same as after hal came back he started using his ring like kyle. He went from bubbles to t-rex's and ships like kyle yet they said kyle was so good with ring due to he is a artist had had great imagination.
.

Yeah, but that was mostly a lie made up by people who didn't actually read Hal. Hal used to constantly make INSANELY complex and creative constructs... as did Alan. Pretty much half the fun of writing and drawing a Green Lantern book was to have fun with the constructs. Yes there were boxing gloves and bubbles too... but Hal had a LOT of creativity from silver age to his last real fight just prior to Emerald Twilight.

But isn't that just the case of people automatically assuming The Flash is Barry these days?

I really don't see how anyone who is familiar with the characters and read or watch those things could confuse the two in terms of characterization/personality.

To be fair, even when it was on there was some debate about WHICH Flash it was supposed to be. They eventually revealed that it was Wally right at the end of the series, but his origin was distinctly Barry. Same with Robin in Teen Titans. Came out the same time as John's book... wore Tim Drake's costume.... classic New Teen Titans line up... there was debate on who that was. Up until they saw the future and introduced Nightwing…

Wally always suffered from having SOOO much of his origin and motivation come from his sidekick status that trying to launch a property with just him has always been problematic.

He didn't.

Barry is currently the product of DC trying to modernize the character. Something he missed out on in the wake of COIE because he was dead. And to do this, DC gave him a bunch of modern traits. Wally does not own being funny or down to earth and even with the modernization, he still has traits associated with Barry Allen.

I still Love JLA:Year One. THAT was an excellent Barry Allen who was corny, serious, funny and competent... and distinctly BARRY. It was a glorious 12 issues of modernized yet classic Barry. And then Waid's Brave and the Bold mini series kept going with it. I think there is a lot of 'reinventing the wheel' going on here... We've seen Barry with modern writing and he worked just fine. For that matter, I even enjoyed him in the first 3-4 issues of Flash Rebirth. Hated how it ended... but that felt like a good start.

[BohemiaDrinker]

They eventually revealed that it was Wally right at the end of the series, but his origin was distinctly Barry. .

No, it wasn't. I'm pretty sure he was cooking meth in that scene.

[Starter Set]

Barry's complete lack of personnality doesn't help here.

[Buried Alien]

Barry's complete lack of personnality doesn't help here.

Myth. Barry has a well-defined personality; it's just not a loud or audacious type.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[Frontier]

Myth. Barry has a well-defined personality; it's just not a loud or audacious type.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

Which is probably why people seem to struggle writing him outside The Flash solo.

[married guy]

Barry's complete lack of personnality doesn't help here.

I'm surprised by some of the comments I'm reading here!!
Barry has ALWAYS had a personality, and as has been mentioned, Mark Waid showed everyone how to modernise him WITHOUT losing who the character is.
I'm also annoyed when I read Flash characters are interchangeable.
Barry and Wally are VERY different characters. The ONLY similaraties are that they both call themselves the Flash.
If written well, you should be able to tell them apart almost immediately by dialogue alone.

I find the problem NOW is that SO much of Wally has been grafted onto Barry Allen 2.0 that they've made Wally redundant. Which was of course, DC's goal.

[king81992]

Barry's complete lack of personnality doesn't help here.

Barry was usually the semi serious straight man to whatever bizarre situation was going on at the time.