That'd be nice.
And this isn't a knock on Barry. I too enjoy him. I wish DC could remember that he and Wally are different characters, write them appropriately, and give Wally proper usage, but I do enjoy Barry. And at this point I wouldn't even want him to die again, that ship has sailed. I just think he added more to the DCU when he was dead and enriched the tapestry more.
"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.
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10char.
My name is Wally West. I"m the fastest man alive. I"m the Flash.
Favorite Heroes - 1-Flash/Wally West, 2-Superman, 3-Green Lantern/Hal Jordan, 4-Nightwing, 5-Hawkman, 6-Firestorm, 7-Supergirl/Linda Danvers, 8-Zatanna, 9-Robin/Tim Drake
On the dropped Rebirth plotline/topic of the twins and Thawne's statement of Jai ruining Wally's life, I always had a sort of working idea for a story. Coming out of Rebirth we were supposed to get a Speed Force comic that would crossover with The Flash and be about the rest of the Flash family. I figured it'd primarily be about Wally, Jay, and Iris with splashes of Jesse and Max here and there (since Bart was in the main comic and was also supposed to get his own solo that got cancelled). The long form idea I had would be that Jai's loss of connection to the Speed Force via Thawne would've, much like Thawne's own powers, created something nasty and parasitic.
The idea was obviously he was going to become the next Turtle, but how, exactly? Well, if anyone's played KOTOR 2, I imagine Jai would function like the Exile/Darth Nihilus of the Speed Force. He'd emulate Turtle's speed sapping/draining/time slow effect by naturally drawing off any Speed Force user nearby. There'd be little hints dropped -- Wally being a little slower than normal when doing activities at home, Iris' mood shifting and becoming easily agitated with Jai (thus creating the tension needed anyhow) because her powers wouldn't work right when she's near him. There'd be some kind of near catastrophe that causes something bad to happen to Max or Jesse, Jai would realize it's his fault, and run away or some such. In my mind it'd be Max getting hurt, so the remaining adults (Jay, Jesse, Barry) would seek out Jai. And it'd be really easy because they'd nascently feel the drain on their powers he creates.
Well, obviously bad goes to worse as it often does. Grieving Jai would have his powers lash out and completely drain the powers of every speedster in Keystone. Wally's powers would be gone, but only temporarily as his "mainline" makes him permanently losing speed impossible (as shown in Dead Heat), Jay and Iris would lose all their powers though Jay would still have his metagene ala Bart's awful run. Jesse would be immune because while Jai would take her speed much like Wally did during Blitz, she could reignite it with the Formula -- her connection isn't like the rest, it's turned on and off rather than constantly on tap. Iris would be out of the picture, and Max would finally get to use his unique Speed Force skill: he'd be cut off but all the Speed he's stored for years would still be there, so he could still be active.
And Jai would suddenly have the Speed Force powers. All that draining would temporarily empower him like a normal speedster. He'd run off, trying to force himself to be a hero. Maybe even do a little bit of Thawne style work by being so desperate to prove he's good that he causes problems that he then fixes -- that last bit a more meh on but it'd be one of the ways to go if you're going pure villain.
So this would turn into an arc where you go through typical Flash stuff with the backup cast stepping in for Wally kind of like Emergency Stop's aftermath. They'd be chasing after Jai while being responsible for other Flash stuff. The second arc would be when Jai, slowly losing his new found superspeed, coming back almost like an addict. He wants to keep his powers, the powers his sister stole from him, and he goes after the rest of the Speedsters. There's a big fight, a lot of emotional back and forth -- Iris apologizing for making Jai feel unwanted and taking his half of the power, Wally apologizing for neglecting Jai for Iris just because she had powers, Max talking to Jai about Savitar and how he was following the same path. But at the end of the day Jai's power is the antithesis of a Speedsters and they can't stop him. Jai has them dead to rights, he's depowered everyone at this point (Max has run out of stored power, everytime Jesse resays her formula it powers Jai up more, Iris' power is long since gone, Jay's speed is negligible and maybe Jai's learned to fully speedsteal even non-speed force powers like the regular turtle at this point, etc etc) besides Wally who's tapping on his mainline as hard as he can -- which we all know is super dangerous to Wally.
And the ending I'd have in mind is Wally burns out his power, his mainline, sating Jai's speed hunger. The climactic scene of the arc would be Wally giving up his power to save his son, embracing him. And that's what Thawne meant by "ruining his life." Wally would never again be the fastest man alive, but the final act would bring Jai back around and it'd restore everyone else's powers that Jai was feeding off of.
This would eventually lead to an arc about how to deal with Jai's powers -- he still unconsciously, mildly drained on speedsters even with the permanent feed of Wally's main line. And his power would extend to other things around him ala The Turtle. I imagine we might get a scene of the Flash team getting Turtle out of prison to help Jai with his powers when they realize they function identically. Just as a spitball idea.
There's a lot of rough stuff to smooth over there. Obviously Linda would need to be included a lot more, but I was mostly thinking of the barebones mechanics of how it happens. My end goal would be for Iris and Jai to finally take up the fight as the main duo of the book once Jai is "fixed." Maybe something along the lines of Jai and Iris always being able to easily share their powers and while Jai can't give Wally back his mainline, he could give it over to Iris because of their latent connection. Iris would've gone through her own big arc long before this in my mind to "grow up" -- the Turtle stuff I think works better with a later teenage years Iris/Jai, Jai's inferiority coming to a boil and Iris' being just a step short of ready to take over.
Anyhow just a spitball I had in my head years and years ago when Rebirth first happened but just before all hope was ruined by them destroying the family with it in the same breath.
I like it except that Wally loses his speed at the end. There is a reason that I utterly loathed Act Of God.
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.)
It wouldn't be gone gone, but he'd take a step back Jay style. Legacy is so fundamentally important to Wally's character that it is more than natural for him to eventually pass the torch. I'd rather him do it saving the day than having his uncle come back and kick him out of the limelight. It is possible though that I crammed way too much into that story to get a bunch of ideas off my chest. I imagine that's where being an actual good writer would help instead of being a dude on the internet spitting out vague fan fiction.
Last edited by Dred; 03-24-2020 at 08:08 PM.
Binge reading the Waid run really hammers home just how much Wally went missing or got replaced. Linda is an amazing woman bc a lot of love interests wouldn't have the patience for that sort of thing. Only makes me love her more.
I am not sure what this entails but i think wally's history as justice league member and titans history with cyborg as members are back. Wally in league and titans with cyborg was shown in the legion book.
Titans history is, in some weird way, back. But there's been absolutely nothing connecting him to the League. No respect from any of them at any point. Not even when Superman was a Pre-Flashpoint survivor did he pay him the good graces of honesty.
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Uh, he got shown in Flash #750...
Also, Legion has in fact been a 5G book the whole time. They mentioned the present day being broken due to various crises that had caused texts (historical documents of pre-Flashpoint!) to be lost. And that Jon would become Superman.
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