People hated Heroes in Crisis, has that change?

[Jekyll]

Never read it and never will. The only thing that I am grateful of from it is Adams fixed that mess in the pages of the Flash and it wasn't Wally.

[exile001]

I was quite excited for it, and it was totally not what I expected. I liked the confession panels for each character, even if some of them weren't totally "in character".

But the biggest issue to me wasn't what happened with Wally and the victims, it's the fact that what was pitched at first as a story about dealing with trauma, and getting to know a place where superheroes go to work on their mental health, turned out to be the next Identity Crisis instead. It was the totally wrong direction. I don't "hate it" but I'm just not very interested in what it turned out to be.

This. I was also hoping for a more grounded explanation for Sanctuary than Bruce, Clark and Diana whipped it up with Kryptonian tech, and thought it could make for an interesting and unique location in the DCU going forward.

As for the Wally thing, it's comics. As soon as Wally was revealed as the killer I knew it'd be eventually retconned or wiped in a Crisis. Lo and behold, here we are - it was Savitar all along!

On the original question, bear in mind this forum is a bit of an echo chamber for quite a specific type of comic fan. If you look at the Amazon reviews they're overwhelmingly positive.

[achilles]

It was terrible then, and it's terrible now, for the same reasons.

[The Cool Thatguy]

Time doesn't improve a story this poor.

Honestly, I'm glad that Wally and Roy were recovered from the crappy mini, but the other characters, Nemesis, Hotspot, et all should be brought back too. Killing a bunch of characters like that is beyond stupid.

[sifighter]

No, but thanks to recent resurrections and retcons it can largely be ignored now.

[Lee Stone]

What is this comic you speak of?
I must have blocked it from my memory.
(jk, I'm being sarcastic)

[thwhtGuardian]

Other stories that are almost readable(but still not great) can't make an absolute garbage story any better.

[Riv86672]

Have you guys been following the stories that I listed that expand on this wally storyline???

Clean up of a toxic waste spill doesn’t mean that spill suddenly becomes a good thing.

[ducklord]

One could argue that the only good thing to come out of Heroes in Crisis was that the backlash was SO severe that it inadvertently hastened Wally West's return from the lame-ass limbo he'd been wandering in.

I would not make that argument, but one could.

Other than that, well... I don't think you're going to find too many people coming around to the notion of HiC as an "underrated classic." If anything, I'd say that appreciation for HiC has actually diminished over time.

[ducklord]

In the spirit of this NOT turning into another "boy howdy, that Heroes In Crisis sure stunk up the joint" thread, allow me to pose a broader question:

Is there a DC story arc/mini-series/whatever that you didn't like initially, and was generally not well-received at the time, that you've come around to thinking "y'know, it wasn't THAT bad?"

Identity Crisis?
Cry for Justice?
War of the Gods?
Genesis?
Extreme Justice?

[Maxi]

It's a bad, bad story. Even without taking into account what they did to Wally (which was atrocious) it's just badly written. As in most Tom King stories, the characters read less like themselves and more like Tom King OCs with DC characters skins (like a videogame). It makes Identity Crisis look like Watchmen in comparison.

None of those stories you mention were planned to add to it, they were more reactions from other writers who clearly didn't like the story and tried to retcon the hell out of it to salvage whatever they could of that mess. For example, Williamson revealing in the last issue of his Flash run that Wally covering the crimes was an idea planted in his mind by Reverse Flash. A silly retcon for sure but what can you do when you're working with trash and try to save a character?

I don't think the idea itself is bad. In fact, I think it could have been great if done with original characters. But it had no place in the DCU.

But hey, it gave us the beautiful, awesome Flash Annual 2021, which is as far as I'm concerned the best single issue of the year and a beautiful love letter to Wally. Jeremy Adams took that pile of hot garbage and made gold out of it.

It was basically for Wally what Emerald Twilight was for Hal Jordan. And the first Adams arc in Flash was basically Wally West: Rebirth.

[Restingvoice]

No it hasn't changed because DC hasn't announced another series that has the making of being different, subtle or beneficial for the heroes and then not make it a murder mystery with same-old schlocky marketing like "WHO LIVES WHO DIES NOTHING WILL BE THE SAME"

[Green Goblin of Sector 2814]

I think in cases like this, the reaction that you're seeing from a lot of peopl cannot be divorced from the general context of Wally West's treatment by DC during Didio's tenure. And how fans were fed up with Wally's marginalization.

Heroes in Crisis plays with a lot of interesting themes and in some cases delivers on it's intended mission statement. HOWEVER, it does do its part to assassinate Wally's character. Having said that, though, it's worth considering whether the reaction would have been anywhere as bad as it was if it had literally been ANYBODY other than Wally.

Say, for example, it was Captain Atom or Firestorm who exploded and took out everyone there. Would the fan reaction be half as bad? I honestly think...maybe not. Whenever you hear someone talk about Heroes in Crisis, it's always through the lens of "they screwed over Wally" or "Wally deserved better" and that's valid. But...I've never really heard anyone talk about the other aspects of the story or the way that the story impacted other characters. The Wally criticism kind of overshadows all of that.

[Aahz]

I think in cases like this, the reaction that you're seeing from a lot of peopl cannot be divorced from the general context of Wally West's treatment by DC during Didio's tenure. And how fans were fed up with Wally's marginalization.

Heroes in Crisis plays with a lot of interesting themes and in some cases delivers on it's intended mission statement. HOWEVER, it does do its part to assassinate Wally's character. Having said that, though, it's worth considering whether the reaction would have been anywhere as bad as it was if it had literally been ANYBODY other than Wally.

Say, for example, it was Captain Atom or Firestorm who exploded and took out everyone there. Would the fan reaction be half as bad? I honestly think...maybe not. Whenever you hear someone talk about Heroes in Crisis, it's always through the lens of "they screwed over Wally" or "Wally deserved better" and that's valid. But...I've never really heard anyone talk about the other aspects of the story or the way that the story impacted other characters. The Wally criticism kind of overshadows all of that.

I think without Wally the hate would have been less extreme , but it still wouldn't be a good story.

Alot of other character seem ooc, the pacing terrible, the comic is supposed to be about a serious topic (mental health) but has some really out of place "humor", it is not that great as a murder mystery and trying to find out how all the references to pre flashpoint stories should fit in the current continuity will just cause you a headache.

[Maxi]

I think without Wally the hate would have been less extreme , but it still wouldn't be a good story.

Alot of other character seem ooc, the pacing terrible, the comic is supposed to be about a serious topic (mental health) but has some really out of place "humor", it is not that great as a murder mystery and trying to find out how all the references to pre flashpoint stories should fit in the current continuity will just cause you a headache.

Not to defend this terrible story but I think the continuity point is moot. DC has abandoned the idea of having something resembling a coherent continuity a long time ago and they just reference all their continuity whenever needed, which is IMO the best possible approach after the mess DiDio has done.