Page 4 of 13 FirstFirst 12345678 ... LastLast
Results 46 to 60 of 189
  1. #46
    Extraordinary Member Lightning Rider's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2015
    Location
    New York
    Posts
    6,911

    Default

    I haven't read Flash since earlier this year (just bought a ton of back issues to catch up) and don't read teen titans, but I think it's clear that the character has some very difficult obstacles considering a very problematic origin.

    For years DC tried emphasizing that this was THE Wally West, and that the original ginger who developed a long career and transition into adulthood before our eyes and defined what a legacy hero is didn't matter. That eventually folded, OG Wally is back, and it makes young Wallace look very very redundant. It's very difficult to escape that nightmare of a conception. The very core idea of his creation has been contradicted.

    Ascended commented that he has a distinct personality and set of relationships, but I've never seen him really break through in this regard. He's got a relationship with Iris, but it's a very typical one, and he's got the latest teen titans, where he's not treated too well from what I've seen. It doesn't help that his uncle-father was some forgettable, cheap imitation of a classic villain in Reverse Flash. After a few years of reading Flash I don't really know what his hobbies are. So what's left, really? Just a nondescript teenager with cliche angst and no concrete traits. It seems harsh but it's just my impression.

    Could he work with a good story and an appropriate place in the universe? Sure. Barry needs a Kid Flash anyway. But it doesn't seem like he has enough going for him. He was created as a strange replacement of someone who has fully returned. I don't know what to do with him.

  2. #47
    Astonishing Member 9th.'s Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2017
    Posts
    4,154

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Cmbmool View Post
    I usually associate the name Rudy with the film Rudy is how I view it.
    I associate it with the Cosby Show
    Reading List (Super behind but reading them nonetheless):
    DC: Currently figuring that out
    Marvel: Read above
    Image: Killadelphia, Nightmare Blog
    Other: The Antagonist, Something is Killing the Children, Avatar: TLAB
    Manga: My Hero Academia, MHA: Vigilanties, Soul Eater: the Perfect Edition, Berserk, Hunter X Hunter, Witch Hat Atelier, Kaiju No. 8

  3. #48
    Three Legged Member married guy's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2016
    Location
    Your mum's place
    Posts
    3,239

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Lee View Post
    They already came up with a fix for Wallace and Wally to co-exist in the same continuity. They're cousins, he was Daniel's kid all along. Why make it more complicated than that? Isn't one retcon enough? Do we really need another Donna Troy scenario?
    This.

    Look, I'm first in line to put my hand up and say I HATED the way the character was introduced. It was a simple **** YOU to every Wally West fan who had been asking for his return for years.
    That aside, DC has fixed the problem and has honestly made the character FAR more interesting to the point where I no longer cringe every time I see him appear.
    That in itself is a near damn miracle.
    "My name is Wally West. I'm the fastest man alive!"
    I'll try being nicer if you try being smarter.

  4. #49
    It sucks to be right BohemiaDrinker's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2014
    Location
    If i was a comic character, my surname would be DaCosta
    Posts
    5,173

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Tzigone View Post
    That's true. I like Bart, but even from the beginning, his origin was very weak - his dad's conception (and Iris being alive in future) was very shoe-horned in.
    Shoe-horned?

    Iris was alive in the future since before COIE. That's element was literally at the end of Barry's original Flash run.
    ConnEr Kent flies. ConnOr Hawke has a bow. Batman's kid is named DamiAn.

    To do spoiler tags, use [ spoil ] at the start of the sentence and [ /spoil ] at the end, without the spaces. You're welcome!

  5. #50
    Ultimate Member Ascended's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2014
    Posts
    19,547

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Lee View Post
    There's already a character called Rudy West.
    But he's not a hero or a Flash. Wallace could go by Rudy and not run into the "Wallace-Wally" name confusion nearly as often. I mean, when was the last time Rudy showed up at all?

    Quote Originally Posted by Cmbmool View Post
    I usually associate the name Rudy with the film Rudy is how I view it.
    Okay, so its not like a "racist stereotype" name or anything, just a personal thing.

    Quote Originally Posted by Lightning Rider View Post
    Ascended commented that he has a distinct personality and set of relationships, but I've never seen him really break through in this regard. He's got a relationship with Iris, but it's a very typical one, and he's got the latest teen titans, where he's not treated too well from what I've seen. It doesn't help that his uncle-father was some forgettable, cheap imitation of a classic villain in Reverse Flash. After a few years of reading Flash I don't really know what his hobbies are. So what's left, really? Just a nondescript teenager with cliche angst and no concrete traits. It seems harsh but it's just my impression.
    You're right, he is rather generic (his relationships and personality are all stock character dynamics). But better generic than offensive, and he can (and has been) fleshed out and developed more. He still has a long way to go, but he backtracked away from the "angry young black kid getting into trouble" and has entered "bland sidekick with late Silver Age/early Bronze Age angst" territory, and can continue to grow from there.

    Could he work with a good story and an appropriate place in the universe? Sure. Barry needs a Kid Flash anyway. But it doesn't seem like he has enough going for him. He was created as a strange replacement of someone who has fully returned. I don't know what to do with him.
    And serving as Barry's sidekick is really all I want out of him. In that role, he's serviceable. And his creation is problematic yeah, but lots of characters started out as cheap copies of other heroes and eventually developed into their own unique characters (like Arrow). All Wallace needs is some time and distance from his troubling creation, a little effort to round him out, and he'll be fine. He'll probably never become a major player but there's nothing wrong with him filling in the sidekick role indefinitely either. Someone's gotta do it, after all.
    Last edited by Ascended; 10-19-2019 at 07:58 AM.
    "We all know the truth: more connects us than separates us. But in times of crisis the wise build bridges, while the foolish build barriers. We must find a way to look after one another, as if we were one single tribe."

    ~ Black Panther.

  6. #51
    Ultimate Member Ascended's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2014
    Posts
    19,547

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by married guy View Post
    This.

    Look, I'm first in line to put my hand up and say I HATED the way the character was introduced. It was a simple **** YOU to every Wally West fan who had been asking for his return for years.
    That aside, DC has fixed the problem and has honestly made the character FAR more interesting to the point where I no longer cringe every time I see him appear.
    That in itself is a near damn miracle.
    I'm in the same boat. The biggest issue with the Wallys is now OG Wally's weird place in the continuity and that's easy enough to fix just by re-inserting his history and everyone's memories of him (and pretending HiC didn't happen).

    Wallace really, really pissed me off originally. But now? I don't read Titans and trade-wait Flash, but in Flash he's just a standard kind of sidekick character and I think that works. He gets to go through the typical sidekick stuff (which is actually kinda rare these days) and that gives Barry more stuff to do and gives us narratives we're not seeing much of these days. He's growing as a character, just slowly, since he's an ancillary character. But in the role of "Kid Flash" I don't think he's ended up being too bad. Not a stand-out character but I don't want to burn things when he shows up either. Given how this all started, that's a pretty big win for the kid.
    "We all know the truth: more connects us than separates us. But in times of crisis the wise build bridges, while the foolish build barriers. We must find a way to look after one another, as if we were one single tribe."

    ~ Black Panther.

  7. #52
    Moderator Frontier's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2014
    Posts
    115,005

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Ascended View Post
    But he's not a hero or a Flash. Wallace could go by Rudy and not run into the "Wallace-Wally" name confusion nearly as often. I mean, when was the last time Rudy showed up at all?
    He doesn't really feel like much of a "Rudy" to me but that could be because I'm so used to his new name.
    You're right, he is rather generic (his relationships and personality are all stock character dynamics). But better generic than offensive, and he can (and has been) fleshed out and developed more. He still has a long way to go, but he backtracked away from the "angry young black kid getting into trouble" and has entered "bland sidekick with late Silver Age/early Bronze Age angst" territory, and can continue to grow from there.
    I think his relationship with Barry is pretty dynamic, if only for how volatile it is. His relationship with Iris is sweet, and he's fun with Wally.
    And serving as Barry's sidekick is really all I want out of him. In that role, he's serviceable. And his creation is problematic yeah, but lots of characters started out as cheap copies of other heroes and eventually developed into their own unique characters (like Arrow). All Wallace needs is some time and distance from his troubling creation, a little effort to round him out, and he'll be fine. He'll probably never become a major player but there's nothing wrong with him filling in the sidekick role indefinitely either. Someone's gotta do it, after all.
    I think he's doing about as much as one would expect from a Kid Flash character (Being in The Flash book and being on the Titans).

  8. #53
    Astonishing Member
    Join Date
    Apr 2014
    Posts
    3,563

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Ascended View Post
    But he's not a hero or a Flash. Wallace could go by Rudy and not run into the "Wallace-Wally" name confusion nearly as often. I mean, when was the last time Rudy showed up at all?
    You don't solve a "two characters with the same name" problem by giving one of them another character's name.

    The older cousin goes by Wally, the younger cousin goes by Wallace. It's not an ideal situation, but it's the simplest, cleanest solution. DC just needs to carry on being consistent with it.

    Honestly, having one character called Wallace another called Wally is a lot easier to explain than why in the last month's worth of comics, DC has had six different characters called The Flash.

  9. #54
    BANNED
    Join Date
    Apr 2015
    Posts
    1,243

    Default

    If it was true then it will only cause further confusion and will ruin all the development that Wallace had with dealing with his father in my opinion.

  10. #55
    Ultimate Member Ascended's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2014
    Posts
    19,547

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Lee View Post
    You don't solve a "two characters with the same name" problem by giving one of them another character's name.
    Please, its not like we're talking about re-naming Wallace something like "Clark" or "Bruce." How many people even know there *is* a Rudy in the West family? Are there any big heroes at DC named Rudy? Pretty sure its just Rudy West, a minor, minor member of the family who is almost never talked about and who actually shows up on panel even less often. Can we even call him part of the supporting cast considering how rarely he's brought up? I dont think so. I mean yeah, we're still giving Wallace someone else's name but it's a much smaller problem with Rudy than it is Wally since Wally is actually showing up and people are talking to and about him.

    The older cousin goes by Wally, the younger cousin goes by Wallace. It's not an ideal situation, but it's the simplest, cleanest solution. DC just needs to carry on being consistent with it.
    That is true. DC can keep going by Wallace/Wally and it's different enough to be serviceable, as long as they're consistent. This is not a major issue (which was the point I was making about the improvements Wallace has seen since his debut) but it'd be one more way to disentangle the two Wallys and make them that much more distinct from each other. Its not something that Wallace *needs* but I do think it'd be a tiny help to him.
    "We all know the truth: more connects us than separates us. But in times of crisis the wise build bridges, while the foolish build barriers. We must find a way to look after one another, as if we were one single tribe."

    ~ Black Panther.

  11. #56
    Astonishing Member
    Join Date
    Apr 2014
    Posts
    3,563

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Ascended View Post
    Please, its not like we're talking about re-naming Wallace something like "Clark" or "Bruce." How many people even know there *is* a Rudy in the West family? Are there any big heroes at DC named Rudy? Pretty sure its just Rudy West, a minor, minor member of the family who is almost never talked about and who actually shows up on panel even less often. Can we even call him part of the supporting cast considering how rarely he's brought up? I dont think so. I mean yeah, we're still giving Wallace someone else's name but it's a much smaller problem with Rudy than it is Wally since Wally is actually showing up and people are talking to and about him.
    Iris was a minor, rarely seen character when they introduced a new Iris West. Then when they brought Iris back into the fold, they had to switch over to calling the younger one Irey. There's no advantage to duplicating character names in this manner.

    The current setup is serviceable. One character is Wally, the other is Wallace. Any lapsed reader who knew the younger one by the name "Wally" will be able to infer that "Wallace" is the same character. If a lapsed reader picks up an issue of Teen Titans and there's a Kid Flash named Rudy, then they have no way of knowing it's the same character.

  12. #57
    BANNED
    Join Date
    Dec 2018
    Posts
    1,278

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Badou View Post
    I'd rather they just erase the character.
    This is what I think. This character is such a horrible idea in the first place, and was used primarily as a weapon against the real Wally West and his fans. And I'm not a frothing at the mouth whiney Wally West obsessive. It was just obvious the character was one of DiDio's bizarre ploys, and I couldn't believe the lengths he was stooping to.

    The character should go away because...

    a) He's a bad idea.
    b) He was born of a bad intention.
    c) The real Wally West is back, anyway.
    d) His existence only serves to confuse things.

    Being a black human shield is exactly what DiDio wanted this character to be. If you don't like him, or if DC gets rid of him, it's RACISM!!! Forget that. I'm not accepting that.
    Last edited by Vampire Savior; 10-19-2019 at 11:29 PM.

  13. #58
    BANNED
    Join Date
    May 2014
    Posts
    6,868

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Vampire Savior View Post
    This is what I think. This character is such a horrible idea in the first place, and was used primarily as a weapon against the real Wally West and his fans. And I'm not a frothing at the mouth whiney Wally West obsessive. It was just obvious the character was one of DiDio's bizarre ploys, and I couldn't believe the lengths he was stooping to.

    The character should go away because...

    a) He's a bad idea.
    b) He was born of a bad intention.
    c) The real Wally West is back, anyway.
    d) His existence only serves to confuse things.

    Being a black human shield is exactly what DiDio wanted this character to be. If you don't like him, or if DC gets rid of him, it's RACISM!!! Forget that. I'm not accepting that.
    Sad, but true in a harsh reality sense of the word. I mean given the lengths Didio would go to get his way...

  14. #59
    Astonishing Member DragonsChi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2017
    Posts
    2,990

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Vampire Savior View Post
    This is what I think. This character is such a horrible idea in the first place, and was used primarily as a weapon against the real Wally West and his fans. And I'm not a frothing at the mouth whiney Wally West obsessive. It was just obvious the character was one of DiDio's bizarre ploys, and I couldn't believe the lengths he was stooping to.

    The character should go away because...

    a) He's a bad idea.
    b) He was born of a bad intention.
    c) The real Wally West is back, anyway.
    d) His existence only serves to confuse things.

    Being a black human shield is exactly what DiDio wanted this character to be. If you don't like him, or if DC gets rid of him, it's RACISM!!! Forget that. I'm not accepting that.
    This. I'm a black male who funny enough held Wally West as his favorite DC character for the longest time and would have LOVED if Wally had started out as a black male. But what Dan Didio (and co) did by creating a Black carbon copy is beyond insulting and screams Old White Man who is out of touch with the community and HIS own ingrained prejudice/Racism.

    If DC actually cares about "diversity" they will stop treating the black community as if they are stupid character hungry children and start actually putting their money where their mouth is with well formed original characters.

    If DC wants to keep Wallace around then they should at the very least change his powerset (Maybe a Time/Speedforce centric power but no Super Speed) and costume to something that fits the Flash family but carves out his own niche'. Because right now the character is embarrassing mess.
    Idea's Open Discussion And Growth. Silencing Idea's Confirms Them To Be True In The Minds Of Those Who Hold Them. The Attempt Of Eliminating Idea's Proves You To Be A Fool.

  15. #60
    Spectacular Member Modamy's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2019
    Posts
    233

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by DragonsChi View Post
    This. I'm a black male who funny enough held Wally West as his favorite DC character for the longest time and would have LOVED if Wally had started out as a black male. But what Dan Didio (and co) did by creating a Black carbon copy is beyond insulting and screams Old White Man who is out of touch with the community and HIS own ingrained prejudice/Racism.

    If DC actually cares about "diversity" they will stop treating the black community as if they are stupid character hungry children and start actually putting their money where their mouth is with well formed original characters.

    If DC wants to keep Wallace around then they should at the very least change his powerset (Maybe a Time/Speedforce centric power but no Super Speed) and costume to something that fits the Flash family but carves out his own niche'. Because right now the character is embarrassing mess.
    Wallace's creation is problematic, but retcons and pointless alterations aren't going to help in the least. He needs his own stories and development and it's already been discussed in this thread that retcon after retcon is just going to make the character all the more unappealing to potential readers. DC does need to better handle and promote its non-white characters, but just because one had a problematic creation doesn't mean these changes are going to help any.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •