Why do people hate Barry Allen?

[Dboi2001]

I don’t get why so many people hate barry allen so much or want Wally West to take over again. It just makes less sense considering people act like Wally never borrowed elements from Barry yet criticize Barry whenever writers borrow Wally elements

[caj]

I don't hate Barry. I grew up with him. But I also always found him pretty bland as a character.

I didn't know Jay very well, so Barry was the only Flash I knew. I liked his speed abilities and what he brought to the Justice League in the 70s and early 80s.

But Wally had better writers IMO and they developed a much more likeable and fun personality. And then we got to see him grow up, fall in love, and become a dad.

Wally just feels like The Flash to me - and always will. Barry died a hero's death and should've stayed dead IMO. Wally is The Flash to me now.

[Dboi2001]

is every silver age character bland and boring?

[sifighter]

I have no problem with Barry, but I assume the main problem is that he feels like a step backwards if you would. Wally was Flash for decades, I’m sure there’s some fans who had no idea who Barry was besides the occasional mention. Wally grew into the role, had entire stories about him growing into the role and expanding the Flash family and its mythos around him. Then Barry came back, and suddenly a character who we had spend decades with as Flash and who we had followed along the way became redundant or at the very least replaceable and indeed he was fully replaced and done away with when New 52 happened and Barry took up the main mantle again after so many years away.

So unfortunately Barry became an example that a characters growth, one that was 20 or 30 some years long, can just be thrown out for someone else.

[Zero Hunter]

Sifighter hit it on the head. To an entire generation Wally was the Flash. We saw years and years of Wally trying to live up to Barry and finally surpassing his mentor. Wally was the better Flash with way more character. Then Barry was brought back and Wally was sidelined. Then after Flashpoint he was completely erased all together and replaced with a new version. To many of us seeing Barry come back and replace a character we had been reading about for decades was bad enough, but then to reboot him as a totally different character was just a slap in the face. If you look at the TV show and especially the Justice League movie they base so much of both characters on Wally way more than Barry. It is like even DC knows Wally is better than Barry but they are to committed to keeping him around now to change it.

[Waterfall]

As of August 2020, I dislike all Flashes. It has more to do with cheap, lazy writing. Current Wally is worse than Barry. He is ridiculously boring. When Flash writers stopped writing about the world Flash is in, with the cast he interacts with, the series stopped being interesting.

Now it’s all about ~high concepts~ without any depth.

[Frontier]

I don't hate Barry but I think the one two-punch of Barry coming back and replacing Wally as the main Flash and taking so many concepts, stories, and characterizations from Wally made a lot of fans resentful towards him.

[Lee Stone]

I don't hate him, myself.
I just kinda dislike him.

When I first started reading DC, my gateway was the Superfriends cartoon and he really didn't have a big presence on it.
His comics at the time were okay, but I never could get into him.
Then the Trial happened.
I remember thinking 'OMG... is that still going on..?' near the end of his run.

Add in that I liked Wally in the Titans, which I liked reading a lot more than Flash...
And CoIE.
Then Wally gets his own title as Flash, and suddenly Flash was interesting to me. I bought a lot more of Wally's title than I did Barry's.
But, honestly, if the Trial hadn't happened, if he didn't die in Crisis and if Mike Baron had done a Barry Flash instead of Wally, I might've liked him a lot more.

Incidentally, this experience could mirror modern day readers' reaction to the characters I grew up with. Especially Blue Beetle.
I'm always wondering, 'Why do people hate Ted Kord?'

[skyvolt2000]

I don’t get why so many people hate barry allen so much or want Wally West to take over again. It just makes less sense considering people act like Wally never borrowed elements from Barry yet criticize Barry whenever writers borrow Wally elements

Folks did not like the way Wally was tossed aside after 20-30 years of growth. Then Barry got everything.

As if we haven't had a ton of speedsters running around.

Wally did not have to be ruin for Barry to be Flash.

Dick was about to become Nightwing. Why couldn't Wally take on a new name instead of tossed away and replaced.

[Dboi2001]

And Barry wasn’t tossed aside for Wally and Wally didn’t take ideas from Barry?

[Dboi2001]

Sifighter hit it on the head. To an entire generation Wally was the Flash. We saw years and years of Wally trying to live up to Barry and finally surpassing his mentor. Wally was the better Flash with way more character. Then Barry was brought back and Wally was sidelined. Then after Flashpoint he was completely erased all together and replaced with a new version. To many of us seeing Barry come back and replace a character we had been reading about for decades was bad enough, but then to reboot him as a totally different character was just a slap in the face. If you look at the TV show and especially the Justice League movie they base so much of both characters on Wally way more than Barry. It is like even DC knows Wally is better than Barry but they are to committed to keeping him around now to change it.

Now you know how Barry fans felt for 20 years. JL cartoon replaces Barry with Wally and never mentioned Barry. that’d be like if a spider man movie started off with Miles Morales and never mentioned Peter Parker

They even turned Thawne into a Barry Allen stan meaning Barry Allen fans were literally to villain to Wally

[Midnight_v]

Now you know how Barry fans felt for 20 years. JL cartoon replaces Barry with Wally and never mentioned Barry. that’d be like if a spider man movie started off with Miles Morales and never mentioned Peter Parker

They even turned Thawne into a Barry Allen stan meaning Barry Allen fans were literally to villain to Wally

I don't agree with this. Like at all... The cartoons aren't the same as the books and bringing a grudge over like that is silly

Further, the problem with this is it stands in the way of growth in the universe. The worst thing about comics is "No one dies or No one stays dead" when really you should be able to write period pieces
and tell stories of consequence.

I frankly DON'T hate barry but... bringing him back after 23 years seems needless and egregious and actully hurts the overall universe because he actually DID make a noble sacrifice that affected everyone.

Why undo that?
Do you just want characters in perpetuity? NO character you like should have a beginning, middle, or end?

[Dboi2001]

alright i should’ve explained myself i see people criticize Barry Allen and DC for combining elements of Wally and Barry for movie and tv like the CW series or the movie (particularly the CW series) saying that Barry fought villains like Magenta or Zolomon who were Wally villains but have no issue with JL and JLU where they use Barry elements for Wally

Now I understand your point for the New 52 but since it was a reboot of course they’d give the good parts of Wally to Barry. If they rebooted the universe to have Wally he the one and only Flash they’d give him Barry elements

I hate to break it to you but the nature of western comic books are never ending stories

Would you be fine with Bruce Wayne being killed off for good or Clark Kent and having their mantles taken up by someone else?

[Dred]

I don't hate Barry Allen. Though I do hate the consequences to my favorite comic series since his return. All the terrible justification and sacrifice that was forced to happen so he could be the most important.

Remove that context and I actually really, really love Barry. Some of Waid's best Flash writing involves him.

And Barry wasn’t tossed aside for Wally and Wally didn’t take ideas from Barry?

Very much no. Barry was given the greatest sendoff in Superhero history and for decades afterwards was spoken with and written about and even involved in stories with reverence.

Wally has never been given an iota of the respect Barry got when they got rid of him. It is night and day.

Acting like Barry was done dirty compared to Wally is the worst possible point to take in this contention.

Also, very, VERY importantly -- Wally didn't take anything from Barry. There was no magical retconning history where Wally was suddenly, always, Hal's best friend. Flip that on its head and suddenly Wally is no longer friends with anyone in the Justice League, one of his closest friends and allies in Hartley is suddenly Barry's friend, how the entire concept of the Speed Force journey of discovery that Wally went on was IMMEDIATELY retconned to being entirely centered on and derived from Barry...

Who's taking from who? Exactly what of Barry was taken by Wally that wasn't given due credit? Even after Wally came back he has been given no credit or reverence that Barry Allen got a billion times over. ****, if anything, Wally's return has had DC go out of its way to strip even more from him and demonize him even more than when he was freaking dead.

Now you know how Barry fans felt for 20 years. JL cartoon replaces Barry with Wally and never mentioned Barry. that’d be like if a spider man movie started off with Miles Morales and never mentioned Peter Parker

They even turned Thawne into a Barry Allen stan meaning Barry Allen fans were literally to villain to Wally

...

Wally West is the biggest Barry Allen stan in the world. You can't possibly mean this. Half of Wally's entire run is dedicated to honoring Barry. By your logic, Barry Allen fans are the hero of the story.




Here, let me put it this way. When they brought back Barry, they completely upended the entirety of the Flash franchise to make him the shining star at the center of everything. When they brought back Wally, we got the absolute most disgraceful, disrespectful, and actually racist bullshit ever. Do you think they would EVER, EVER dream of doing to Barry what they did to Wally in the New 52? That's what we hate. That clear cut dichotomy. That complete disdain and disregard for a character who is at least equal to Barry. I would argue greatly superior, but AT LEAST equal. But that's not the case and it hasn't been the case since 2005.

That hatred has nowhere to seep out, nowhere to talk about it, except when talking about The Flash. So it sticks to Barry because where else is it going to be? What other character has this terrible situation been created to prop up?

[Rend20]

They even turned Thawne into a Barry Allen stan meaning Barry Allen fans were literally to villain to Wally

When did this happen?

Thawne was trying to ruin Barry's legacy in The Return of Barry Allen, had no clue who was under the mask in Chain Lightning, and mostly battled Barry in Rogues War. If you're talking about ROBA, then Wally was the ultimate Barry stan in that story and pretty much throughout his entire run.