The Flash Annual # 3 *Spoilers*

[Arnoldoaad]

What does the 90's have to do with a character explaining another character's current situation? That's exposition, a valid writing tool and certainly not one relegated to the 1990's.

It was just a joke with no real reference
my point is that it is a very very VERY outdated trope

[Sacred Knight]

Ah. Sorry for taking it too seriously then, my bad.

[Uncanny Mutie]

I dont like the idea of black Wally, not because I have any problem with the race or simply with a black Flash, I would want a black Flash, but this move essentially makes this into a brand new character, so 0 nostalgia for Wally West because he is for all ways and purposes Not Wally West, and at the same time he is not a brand new character who can build up his own arc, fanbase and mythos on its own right and name because he is essentially sharing it with another character.
I dont want to insult anybody who actually likes this but to me it is just a very weird mixture and I really dont like it.

I'm black, and I SO agree with this!!! Very well said! That is the best I have seen anyone put it yet.

[Uncanny Mutie]

And yes, Flash is being written VERY generically and dull by the new creative team. But that's how Venditti writes his heroes...

[Uncanny Mutie]

Matt Fracion would write a great Flash run.

You say that now, but trust me, you'd eventually get tired of reading "Flash. Speed Force. Fast. Very fast." Fraption boxes every month.

[Kid A]

You say that now, but trust me, you'd eventually get tired of reading "Flash. Speed Force. Fast. Very fast." Fraption boxes every month.

Haha probably, but it would still probably be more interesting than this run. He can do sci-fi concepts and fun banter, so if he wasn't phoning it in it could be good.

I should probably list his Uncanny X-Men run in the "horrible comics that you kind of like anyway" thread.

[R0NIN]

Again, personality is what matters the most at the end and this is pretty much the same character as he appeared in Waid's Born to Run (the last retelling of his origin).

That argument is paper thin, and not even true. Comics by their very nature are a visual medium. A character's appearance matter a lot, regardless of what people say. Their are entire characters whose existence depended on them looking "cool" or "good" enough or whatever for someone to actually pick the book up and give it a chance to get to know the character. People can't help but judge things by their appearance. I'm relatively sure 99% of people don't date someone because they had a great personality, but weren't sold on their looks. You only even get/give the opportunity to get to know someone based on how they look.

[Kyer]

That argument is paper thin, and not even true. Comics by their very nature are a visual medium. A character's appearance matter a lot, regardless of what people say. Their are entire character whose existence depended on them looking "cool" or "good" enough or whatever for someone to actually pick the book up and give it a chance to get to know the character. People can't help but judge things by their appearance. I'm relatively sure 99% of people don't date someone because they had a great personality, but weren't sold on their looks. You only even get/give the opportunity to get to know someone based on how they look.

Absolutely correct. Sure it would be nice if everyone was color/shape blind and went by personality alone, but if this was a fact of nature, the whole advertising business would be an entirely different game than it is today. Heck, the cosmetics and fashions areas alone would go south real quick.

I grew to like Wally by his heroic actions in Justice League Unlimited. But it was those brain-swap scenes that really got my attention and made me go internet searching....wherein I found and fell lin luv with one Wallace Rudolph West, personality as well as those luscious locks of redness. Because facing it...I still think a typical The Flash costume looks weird even it it was improved quite a bit by the DC52 design (minus that chin strap.) IMHO, Dark Flash's was better and Kid Flash's was the best.)

This Nu-Wally/Not-Wally may be a Wally, but he will never truly be THE Wally West to me even if they started copy/pasting past dialogue from Messner-Loeb or Waid's runs onto this new book.

Call the character Wallace Ryan West and make him adopted by the Wests. Make a new personality stick so that he'll never be confused for old Wally West by anyone who does even a minimum of internet research. Maybe then I'll stop gritting my teeth.
(I'll still be frowning. Just not gritting my teeth.)

[Brian from Canada]

I don't care if Wally is black. If they were going to do that, they should have made Barry black as well. It would have made more sense. It would have been refreshing. They could have done the same story, and had Wally be related to Barry, only this time, they were a small bit different then the original story. This new Wally is just change for the sake of change.

Actually, I find this more of a change to match the upcoming television program, where the Wests will be African Americans. There's definitely a shift in Iris' skin colouring in the past issue and this one; note how she has darker skin in the present but not the future, as if one creative team is working off the original presentations, and the present one isn't.

My biggest issue with the skin colour change is going to be the same as the poster who complained about the cover of Teen Titans' relaunch: it doesn't match the nostalgia for the popular television series. Fans of Young Justice will open this book and see someone calling themselves Wally who doesn't match their expectation at all, since the Young Justice one is the same that matches the Teen Titans for decades before. (This is not meant to be offensive or flame-baiting, Mr. Moderator, but an identification of the short-term vs long-term nostalgia factor as it relates to sales.)

Honestly? I have less problem with the skin colour change as I do with the whole story overall. In the Reverse Flash storyline, no older brother exists when Daniel travels back to the past to confront his father — and even if their mother isn't dead, there's no mention by Iris at all of ever having a relationship with her older brother or the woman he left behind in all of the flashbacks up to this point. Not mentioning in "Zero Year" also means she has no connection with the kid until recently, so how would she know Wally's real potential? He's like the orphan stuck with an adult he barely knows, and she's using Daniel's lack of male role model to explain it for some reason. (Plus you'd think that the kid or his mother might have said something when Iris went into the time stream and disappeared for a bit.)

The relationship doesn't seem real to me. It's a forced character entry, and that takes away from my investment into the character.

[Mia]

Matt Fracion would write a great Flash run.

Dear goodness no. No. I don't want Fraction anywhere near Flash. I think he's an awful writer and all his stuff comes across as hetero male wish fullfillment fan fiction. Where the hero can inexplicably kick everyone's ass and every woman he comes across as wants to sleep with him. He would be disastrous on this book.

[Mia]

Actually, I find this more of a change to match the upcoming television program, where the Wests will be African Americans. There's definitely a shift in Iris' skin colouring in the past issue and this one; note how she has darker skin in the present but not the future, as if one creative team is working off the original presentations, and the present one isn't.

You know I thought that you were exaggerating, Until I went back and took a look at the issue. Yes present day Iris’s skin tone is darker in this issue. I wonder if this is the liberties taken by the artists or if this is a dictum that has come down from on high.

In the Reverse Flash storyline, no older brother exists when Daniel travels back to the past to confront his father — and even if their mother isn't dead, there's no mention by Iris at all of ever having a relationship with her older brother or the woman he left behind in all of the flashbacks up to this point. Not mentioning in "Zero Year" also means she has no connection with the kid until recently, so how would she know Wally's real potential? He's like the orphan stuck with an adult he barely knows, and she's using Daniel's lack of male role model to explain it for some reason. (Plus you'd think that the kid or his mother might have said something when Iris went into the time stream and disappeared for a bit.)

The relationship doesn't seem real to me. It's a forced character entry, and that takes away from my investment into the character.

I really don’t remember there being much of a story regarding Iris to begin with. Besides mooning over Barry and her accounts of her abusive background. She was never that fleshed out. It’s quite possible that there was a space in ages between Rudy and Iris and Daniel. And Rudy moved out of the house as soon as he was able to. Had a baby with the mother.