Wally West: The Flash Appreciation 2020

[TheSupernaut]

I hate this. I miss my every man Wally.

[transformers03]

I've read a lot of hot takes about how dumb of a idea that Wally gains Dr. Manhatten powers, which to be fair it is very silly, but it at least continues the connection between Wally and Manhattan that Geoff Johns first set up in DC Rebirth. I found it weird that Johns didn't have Wally play a bigger role in Doomsday Clock, so it is at least somewhat gratifying to see that connective tissue continue. It is still a stretch to see such a grounded hero like Wally take up an omnipotent position within the DC universe, but it is what it is.

Side note, thanks to Wally's new color and costume (which I'll just say right here that I like), I hope now that Wally can have new merchandise that separates him from Barry Allen and the Kid Flashes. While I hope he will always be referred to as a Flash, I also hope that marketing will give him a nice new marketable name. Cosmic Flash? God Flash? Manhattan Flash (or Manhattan Wally)? The possibilities are endless.

[Mr.B]

Cobalt Blue, Pollux, Blue future Barry, Blue Hope Barry. Blue Wally.

[Waterfall]

https://www.cbr.com/interview-geoff-...-three-jokers/

Am I reading this wrong or is he saying that the story will be about Hunter? Hopefully this means we will see Wally too.

[Cmbmool]

I've read a lot of hot takes about how dumb of a idea that Wally gains Dr. Manhatten powers, which to be fair it is very silly, but it at least continues the connection between Wally and Manhattan that Geoff Johns first set up in DC Rebirth. I found it weird that Johns didn't have Wally play a bigger role in Doomsday Clock, so it is at least somewhat gratifying to see that connective tissue continue. It is still a stretch to see such a grounded hero like Wally take up an omnipotent position within the DC universe, but it is what it is.

Side note, thanks to Wally's new color and costume (which I'll just say right here that I like), I hope now that Wally can have new merchandise that separates him from Barry Allen and the Kid Flashes. While I hope he will always be referred to as a Flash, I also hope that marketing will give him a nice new marketable name. Cosmic Flash? God Flash? Manhattan Flash (or Manhattan Wally)? The possibilities are endless.

I am in agreement with the idea of DC trying to continue the connection between Wally and Dr. Manhattan, but I am also curious to know what were Geoff Johns original plans for Wally if he inserted him into Doomsday clock outside the brief cameo appearance.

[Cmbmool]

Looks like they're turning Wally into Parallax from Zero hour.

Well we all know how well that ended. You know what they say about absolute power...

[Mr.B]

Wally's entire Job in the multiverse is to fix it. Rebirth and Doomsday Clock already goes into this.

[Dred]

Which is why the first significant thing he did was break the universe looking for his kids then kill a bunch of people after he couldn't find them.

[Mr.B]

Which is why the first significant thing he did was break the universe looking for his kids then kill a bunch of people after he couldn't find them.

That was then so it doesn't matter anymore.

[sifighter]

Which is why the first significant thing he did was break the universe looking for his kids then kill a bunch of people after he couldn't find them.

Which is why I am kind of worried. This is quite literally a very damaged by storytelling Wally who now apparently has vast knowledge and power to act on a universal scale after two separate poor moments in his recent history. Granted, he has been fighting the Dark Multiverse in Flash Forward and the freaking Batman who laughs is on the cover here so maybe that's our real villain or whatever it is Wally has to clean up. So this could go very well or it could go very poorly, it very much remains to be seen which is why I'm not passing any quick judgements before then. However, I will admit to being a tad concerned.

[Dred]

I mean, there's some precedence here. In a world when Wally wasn't a monster constantly trashed on by DC, he'd be the perfect person to put in this situation. Heck I remember that one JLA arc where the JL had to choose a member to jump into a wish granting machine to fix the world and save the day without accidentally letting their own deepest desires overwrite the the goal and wish for something personal. And they chose Wally, and he succeeded. They all looked at themselves and figured Wally would be the one least likely to fudge up being given unlimited power to save the day. Even Superman might want to, say, save Krypton (Or J'onn, who actually did end up messing things up later by wanting his people back more than anything in that same vein).

Wally has a long history and very deeply entrenched character arc about being tempted with a Faustian bargain and always making it back. Whether it's that JL story, or Terminal Velocity, or his constant disavowing of abusing time travel. In a different time, or different world, this is a story I could see being told with Wally. But damaged, broken, awful person version of Wally who's thrown away most of that moral backbone? With DC's current idea of him? That's a lot more worrying.

[Zaresh]

For once, I honestly feel that this synopsis isn't poining to something I can dread. It doesn't sound like Wally is going to be the villain this time, for me. I'm hopeful.

Also, that remnant of power? I feel like that burning and him fixing stuff in the universe may set him free from the seat after... whatever event it happens to get to G5. And maybe they decide to "retire" him from superheroics (temporally, at least), if he doesn't have a writer interested in writing him now or in the next year or so (which would be natural, if G5 is a big enough timeskip/timefix).

And we could always still get new content with him in limited series in the previous Gs any given time.

[Badou]

To me this feels like they are setting up Wally to cause the new Crisis. So that worries me a lot, especially with Lobdell attached as I don't trust him as a writer. I don't know if this is what will cause 5G, but I kind of think it is setting up maybe for the possible new reboot after 5G ends. Since I don't expect 5G to last long and I expect DC to basically reboot/relaunch again after it to get all their heroes young again, but to do that they need a new BIG crisis and this feels like they are positioning Wally to be the one to do it and that sucks. Since these kind of things don't really turn out well, but I really have no idea how important this book is meant to be. So I don't know.

[Godlike13]

I think DC has serious creator troubles.

[WallyWestFlash]

Wally's entire Job in the multiverse is to fix it. Rebirth and Doomsday Clock already goes into this.

I hope your right and that's all it is. And that Wally will just rewrite the universe as it should be without him going bad or something. But I have my doubts.

Because they have been putting Wally through the wringer for the past few years so my automatic reaction is "ok how are they going to mess with Wally more now?" Especially on something on such a grand scale.

Which is the second reason I think this role might not end up being so benign. Usually when they put a character in such a position of power they usually end up too controlling and the heroes have to stop them. Heroes are usually portrayed as more passive rather than so active as to rewrite the universe.

But I guess we shall see.

The title gen zero does seem to tie into the whole generations thing and 5G. So it's probably a set up for that.