For me, they had the obvious solution all along right in front of them. Barry--the Flash in the 31st century/Wally--the Flash in the 21st century.
Barry settles down with Iris in her home time of the future, they raise their children and grandchildren--and the Flash is the hero of that age. This gives an opening for the Legion of Super-Heroes to build an audience. And Barry can always time travel once a year for a crossover in the present.
Meanwhile, Wally is the Flash in the present.
The problem is that they made Wally more and more like Barry--married with children. And then they made Barry more and more like Wally. So, even with the time difference, there's not enough to distinguish the two characters, because they morphed into each other.
Reading Grant Morrison's THE GREEN LANTERN SEASON TWO, I find it odd that Hal doesn't feel at home on Earth and would rather wander the stars. I always thought he was the Green Lantern of Space Sector 2814 who had the most connections to the Earth--with his wide circle of friends and family--and one of the other Lanterns would be more likely to choose the cosmos over their homeworld.
And now it seems like they are doing the same thing with Barry as the rootless vagabond who wanders the multiverse, just a rolling stone, wherever he lays his hat is his home.
That story has been told and told again ad infinitum, and everyone knows it by heart by now. This thread was started in the spirit of celebrating a new arrangement that does justice to fans of both Barry and Wally, and STILL people somehow can't just celebrate the fact that everybody finally wins and just has to air old grievances.
Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)
Last edited by Buried Alien; 03-04-2021 at 09:14 PM.
Buried Alien - THE FASTEST POST ALIVE!
First CBR Appearance (Historical): November, 1996
First CBR Appearance (Modern): April, 2014
If there's one thing comics fans are renowned for, it's not their ability to let go of the past
That unfortunately includes past grievances. Some fans are so locked into fighting against each other, they don't know how to act when attempts are made at reconciliation.
No that's just the art
Dr. Manhattan messing with timeline, but that only means he's the same age as Dick, Donna, and the rest of the Titans in the mid-twenties, when they're supposed to be close to thirties. He was wearing the Kid Flash costume when he appeared, because in the New 52-Rebirth timeline, he went missing to the Speed Force when they were all still in Teen Titans.
I actually really LOVE that idea!!
It opens up all sorts of story avenues.
I think DC again missed a real chance to build a Flash family of titles here.
Barry and Wally each in their own monthly title, Bart, Max, John and and the other speedsters featured in a Flash Quarterly title and then Jay and Jesse in the JSA title.
Past, present & future all covered with the opportunity to crossover, timejump, dimension hop whatever the hell crazy science fiction stuff you wanna dream up.
And there's so much story fodder there you wouldn't have to have Eobard Thawne show up for at LEAST the first year or so.
"My name is Wally West. I'm the fastest man alive!"
I'll try being nicer if you try being smarter.
As long as you guys are willing to concede that I have been absolutely right about absolutely everything for the past 10 to 12 years, I'm willing to only touch on the subject in conversations in which it is relevant.
Kidding aside, the bad man can't hurt us anymore and everyone has got their cake. Seriously, let's just enjoy the moment.
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!
I think the confusion may come from the fact that in some panels he's much shorter/smaller than Barry and in others they're the same height and size. I freaking hate Howard Porter's art and I don't see what people see in him at all.
And while I like that Wally is the main Flash again (a lot), the story was written as if it were before CoIE wrt to the Barry/Wally relationship. Apart from one toss off line where Barry said that Wally had done a good job in the past, it felt like this was Wally's first time as the actual Flash. And Wally acted like it was too and he did seem like a kid when he did. In addition to not seeing what people like about Porter's art, I don't see what people see in Williamson's Flash.
I fiercely wanted Barry back as The Flash and Barbara Gordon back as Batgirl. And then we got those things and I completely changed my mind. Once Barry was back, I really missed Wally as Flash and wished that Barry would be alive but not in the costume. That he would have supported Wally as the primary Flash and taken on a different role. It actually felt really disrespectful for Barry to swoop in and take Wally's gig away from him.
As for Barbara Gordon, I honestly had not seen a problem with her coming back as Batgirl. I was dying for her to be back that way. And then I got my wish and I immediately missed having a major hero that was permanently disabled. I guess it's cool that she's going to be Oracle again but the fact that she's also going to be Batgirl again still leaves us without a great, disabled character and it negates any reason for her to be Oracle in the first place. The great thing about Oracle was that she'd overcome that adversity and found another way to be a great hero.
On the other hand, I'm happy that Hal is back and I'm extremely happy that Ollie is. I loved GL Rebirth (the first Rebirth by Johns, not the more recent line-wide Rebirth) and the stories that followed and I never warmed to Kyle Rayner so it was win-win to me. I never really warmed to any new, 90s character, that decade being my least favorite in DC history. Similarly, nobody but nobody could take Ollie's place to me. I like Connor much better than I like Kyle but he's no Ollie.
But, even though Hal is back, I like him being somewhere away from the main DCU (as he was in Morrison's recent run) in favor of John Stewart, Jessica Cruz, and Simon Baz. That has something to do with representation but it has a lot more to do with how much I love those three characters.
I was partial to them each being a Flash of a respective city, but this is genuinely dope. Each has something to do and it feels like while Wally is getting the solo book, Barry is kind of getting a promotion too; he's practically in the biggest League there is, which considering what he did in CoIE, he uniquely deserves alongside Kara.
A Kamen Rider reference on CBR? What?
"Cable was right!"