Wally West: The Flash Appreciation 2020

[andersonh1]

I bought the book for both the Jay and the Wally story, and I'm actually enjoying where they've gone with Wally. Short of retconning Heroes in Crisis away, the way they let him be heroic and save his children was probably the best way to bring the character back to who he really is. And if he is now supposed to be the one to fix the timelines, I think he's in a lot better place emotionally to do it than Hal in Zero Hour, which we see a shot of in Flash 750. I'm looking forward to where all of this goes next, and I'm hoping with Didio gone, we'll see some better treatment for Wally. Time will tell.

[Kyer]

This was a huge disappointment and has Didios fingerprints all over it. This is not a celebration of 80 years of the Flash and is a huge slap in the face for Wally fans.

There are 6 stories in here.

The first one is a Barry story and is just a continuation of the current run. Does not highlight at all the Flashs long history.

The next story is a Captain Cold story. The only connection it has to Wally is that it takes place in the Geoff John's era of Wallys run. Otherwise Wally appears for one page, not even as the Flash, not doing anything just reacting to what happened in the actual story and shows him in a negative light. (Reminds me what I disliked about John's run where Wally was a secondary character in his own book)

Next is another Barry story with the new 52 creative team and aspects. Obviously with the long, rich history and periods of the Flash we had to highlight this one cuz.....Didio and his new 52.

Next is yet another Barry story with Marv Wolfman??? I mean hes a good writer but what does he have to do with the Flash? If anything he should write a Wally/Kid Flash story from his NTT run. But that would be a Wally story so god forbid. The story is pretty generic. They touched on some of Flashs famous silver age adventures so at least that. Art is horrible in this one.

Next one is actually the only good one. It's a Jay story, so finally not a Barry/Flash story and is actually pretty good. Didio does have to stick a 5G plug into there though. Still.the best one since it actually highlights the Flash legacy. Art is also great by Marquez.

Last one is finally a Wally story but not really. It's just an epilogue of Flash Forward not highlighting Wallys 25 years as THE Flash at all. Just another push of current events. Wally is not even the Flash in his own story. With that being said Lodbell and Booth continue to do a good job on it.

So that's three Barry stories, a Captain cold one, a Jay one and a Mobius chair Wally one . Great.

Also there a few pin ups. One of Barry. One of Jay. One of Bart. One of Wallace even, and one of the Flash family.

Wait. I think I'm missing someone. Now who could that be? Eh, probably no one important.

What a load of bs.

Man, I hate being right.
On the plus side, spent no monies on this and am not bothering to trade wait.

[WallyWestFlash]

Man, I hate being right.
On the plus side, spent no monies on this and am not bothering to trade wait.

Yeah I was expecting this but had some hope for a moment there. Was actually going to start picking up the Flash again but this just left a bad taste for me so never mind. I'll just continue to maybe, pick up all two titles from DC.

[WallyWestFlash]

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[Frontier]

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A Flash fighting Reverse-Flash always makes me excited .

[sifighter]

Honestly I am just kind of glad that the Flash Forward epilogue didn't go, he's lost who he is to the chair and he is potentially dangerous, he went "no I'm different then everyone who has ever sat in this chair because of who I am, also I see a problem and you know what I think I can fix it" Like that did not feel like a power mad version of Wally but a version of Wally who has got this together and I'm cool with that.

I also really appreciated Jay's story in this issue. Overall I was fine with it.

[Kyer]

Was told the Wally/Chair story was pretty much what had already seen in a preview and then ran across the Jay story online....

Which was okay, but...

Why is Jay's hair yellow? Media keeps turning blonde's hair brunette for some reason and now we get a blond Jay? *sigh*

[Stingo]

Was told the Wally/Chair story was pretty much what had already seen in a preview and then ran across the Jay story online....

Which was okay, but...

Why is Jay's hair yellow? Media keeps turning blonde's hair brunette for some reason and now we get a blond Jay? *sigh*

As a fan of the Golden Age Flash for four plus decades, it's a bummer to me that they're now altering Jay with blond hair (seriously DC, what the what?!?) and changing his classic 1940s costume so that it looks like it stepped out of the New 52 blender. These changes make absolutely no sense and I would be quite curious to see an official explanation for the tweaks.

[Dataweaver]

Honestly I am just kind of glad that the Flash Forward epilogue didn't go, he's lost who he is to the chair and he is potentially dangerous, he went "no I'm different then everyone who has ever sat in this chair because of who I am, also I see a problem and you know what I think I can fix it" Like that did not feel like a power mad version of Wally but a version of Wally who has got this together and I'm cool with that.

I also really appreciated Jay's story in this issue. Overall I was fine with it.

After reading this, I can live with Wally in the Mobius Chair — for now. If G0 turns out to be “Wally saves the DCU”, great!

That said, I hope that by the end of G0, Wally is out of the Mobius Chair and reunited with his family. After all, Linda is his Lightning Rod; and while that was nullified for a time starting with New 52 and carrying through Rebirth, her memories of Wally are back now; so her role as his Lightning Rod is also back.

That said, I do want to see the payoff for Wally's “I've got this” at the end of this issue — and I'm hoping that with Didio's departure (and the resulting message that the higher ups weren't exactly thrilled with what he was doing), the plans for G0 can be altered to start healing the damage that Didio's tenure has done. We're getting a new timeline out of this, and I can now see the possibility (a long shot, mind you; but still a possibility) that the new timeline will exclude Heroes in Crisis. That might even be how Wally ultimately gets out of the Chair…

[Ascended]

Well, *if* the plan was to treat Wally like Parallax in the 90's, we're probably too deep in for the G0 and G1 (maybe G2 as well?) one-shots to make any real change to their plots. Maybe some minor adjustments, but the free comic book day stuff is probably already finished, printed, and waiting to be shipped. The G1 one-shot might be as well, for all I know.

But *if* Parallax Wally was the original plan (and I wouldn't doubt if it was because Didio hated us) the bright side is that DC *does* have the time to change the end of the story. I doubt the final generation one-shots are even out of the scripting phase yet. So *if* Wally is gonna go Hal-style crazy, it can still have a happy ending before the generation one-shots end and we fully enter the 5G era.

Of course, I don't expect to see much of adult Wally in 5G, nor any of his generation. I won't be surprised if we get a "early days" title with Barry where Wally is still Kid Flash, and possibly a NTT book (where Wally would also probably be Kid Flash). But in 5G, none of the NTT are taking over for their mentors and I feel like DC may quietly try to push Wally, Dick, and the others off panel. But then again, Didio's gone and DC is really investing in synergy under Lifford, so who knows?

[Ascended]

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That was my first ever issue of Flash.

I had no idea what the hell was happening.

[Lee]

I bought the book for both the Jay and the Wally story, and I'm actually enjoying where they've gone with Wally. Short of retconning Heroes in Crisis away, the way they let him be heroic and save his children was probably the best way to bring the character back to who he really is.

I don't think it's enough. As long as his actions in Heroes in Crisis still stand, I don't think he can ever really go back to who he was. It's too big to wave away and ignore, the character is tainted.

[Frontier]

I don't think it's enough. As long as his actions in Heroes in Crisis still stand, I don't think he can ever really go back to who he was. It's too big to wave away and ignore, the character is tainted.

Which is why they need to hard retcon it out of existence.

[Lee]

Which is why they need to hard retcon it out of existence.

Right.

Ideally, they need to "Parallax" it, so Wally was never responsible for those actions. A Dark Multiverse infection or something.

If they just do a thing where Wally uses his new powers to undo the event, then Wally is still someone who once framed people for murder and released his friends' confidential therapy session tapes.

[Jekyll]

Ok, I couldn’t resist I had to get the Flash 750 Jay Garrick variant. Glad I did because the Jay story was worth the price of the book. Joshua Williamson please give me more of my favorite Flash! That story was excellent!

The others were, “meh“