"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.
Could it have been that DC wanted to capitalize on the Kid Flash animated version from Young Justice and that is why they wanted that particular slant to the costume? (Didio aside. We all know what he wanted.)
Concept art costume: Oh heck no. It looks like Wally's hero name should be The Harried Hornet. It is way too busy and that is the reason I despised DC52 Bart Allen's costume change (among other heinous acts done to him during that era.)
Kadabra is Wally's villain. He's been Wally's ever since Wally blew the wackjob up. Agreed that Barry can have Murmur.
Parental care is way exhausting. Gained insight into what my parents went through when I was a baby. Not fun, but what ya gonna do? (Read comics, obviously.)
DickBats was knowingly cut short (but that's another discussion altogether). The point here is that it worked. Because it's not that hard.
Which is a fair assessment, in theory. In practice, you can not build Wally back up from a Kid Flash into anything strong enough to justify going cross-media. His run was too long, the strongest Flash material published to date starred him, his fanbase is too vocal and, contrary to what DC and naysayers spent the last decade saying, apparently large enough.I fundamentally disagree with this impenetrable, inside baseball approach. Different characters should immediately be recognisable as different characters to the uninitiated.
You make him work as the Flash, or he just doesn't work.
From there, you can start tweaking shit.
And you do that with the source material, in this case, comics. And in comics, this is not really a problem.
Not really, you seem to have missed my point, so I'll clarify.If the only differences between the two characters are the boots/belt/eyes, the artists will continue to get those details wrong, intentionally or unintentionally.
If I'm not mistaken the drama over the Matina cover was how generic it looked (it did), while the costume was indeed "wrong". The 2000's cover is not 100% right either, though it's close enough, but that's beside the point: this kind of stuff happens a lot when you have one hero holding one particular look: although the V-Belt is the more classic look for Wally, there wasn't really an "on model" portrayal of it because he was the only one with that costume at that point. Sometimes it was an M. Sometimes he had boot-wings, or his eyes were blue (though that stopped after Walter's arc, mostly). Same is true for Barry now.In this very thread we've seen people get angry, and take it very personally, when these mistakes happen, whether it's a red haired Barry Allen, a blue eyed Wally West, a Barry Allen with white eye lenses, the wrong shape lightning bolt emblem, and so on. People were mad about the Flash #750 1990s cover getting Wally's costume wrong. People were also disgruntled about the Flash #750 2000s cover getting Wally's costume "wrong" - even though it actually got it 100% right, which goes to show that even the hardcore fans on the message boards can't keep the track of the minor differences.
Like you said, Scott Kolins draws the belt straight on Barry Allen's New 52/Rebirth suit. He also puts wings on the boots. Even though those features are off-model for that version of the suit, and contradict how all the other artists on the book draw it. On the cover for one of the Flashpoint tie-ins, Brett Booth drew Barry with Wally's belt, when someone commented on it he said he did it intentionally because it "looked cooler".
The reasons these artistic interpretations are allowed to pass are because these tweaks are not relevant. When they become relevant, they mostly disappear. (Sure, you can always point out a red-headed Barry here or there, but then we have to get in the state of things the 2 last of the Didio years were and, let's be frank, we don't want to.)
All that said, this is not a defense of the shiny suit for today. My only point is that it could be done successfully, and it can, but I'm on board with Wally having a unique look. Just nothing outside of the crimson gold, without a centered insignia, cowl-less or bootless. 'Cause he's the Flash.
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!
Yeah, I don't think DC is suddenly going to do right by Wally West out of the goodness of their hearts either, but rather out of a desire to do anything to make the few remaining readers they have happy. I just hope that these attempts to placate disgruntled fans actually produce some good comics. Flash Forward wasn't really that for me, although I appreciated Lobdel & Booth's efforts to course correct.
Last edited by Bored at 3:00AM; 05-22-2020 at 01:08 AM.
Flash Forward seemed more like a palette cleanser than attempt to deliver an epic story. It was very much dusting Wally off to tee him up for the next thing. It that fine, at least Linda and the kids remember/exist now. Just get Want Wally off his butt and start running again.
People accept Jay Garrick as a character named The Flash, but he's immediately distinguishable from Barry Allen. Barry and Wally should be as immediately distinguishable from each other as Barry and Jay are. It's one of the most important rules of character design.
How about wally's costume not having a mask at all? You know, he works like superman. Even then, we need something eye-catching in the suit or on his face that can be termed iconic.
Last edited by manwhohaseverything; 05-22-2020 at 06:59 AM.
Yeah, I think Flash Forward was mostly meant as half reset, half appology for *&^%ing the character up so badly in HiC. Presumably, the decks were being cleared for whatever is planned for Wally in Death Metal, but I'm hoping this Mobius Chair stuff gets resolved by the end of that story and we get a more recognizably Wally West incarnation of him moving forward, even if he's ends up being primarily a Multiversal speedster.
It may come from a little bit of goodness as well. Lee may just go "you know what? Why don't we stop acting like dicks and see how it goes?", because he is nice like that.
That particular rule can and should be broken in very specific cases (see, again: DickBats).
Regardless, as I said earlier in the same post you quoted: that's fine. Giving Wally an unique look is ok. Removing him from the Flash iconography is not.
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!