Wally West: The Flash Appreciation 2023

[Frontier]

Eh, teenagers are usually drawn way too short/young, and girls can start puberty as early as eight in some cases. There's a meaningful chance a young teenage girl will already be their final height, and will probably have *some* degree of breasts. She looks a bit old for how Adams was writing her, perhaps, but her depiction is fine for a near-14 year old per the narration.

[And, re: her presumed age in Adams run - it's a bit "wut" to let teenagers run around as superheroes, let alone pre-teens. Aging her - and presumably Jai - up a bit might be for the best...]

I guess it just feels like it's all over the place how tall or "mature" she looks.

[SanityOrMadness]

I guess it just feels like it's all over the place how tall or "mature" she looks.

Well, there's a bunch to unpack there, but the twins have actually been all over the place in terms of how old or mature they are:

• They got SORASed severely while Wally was "missing" during Bart's brief run as the Flash (and their speed-aging there has implications for their socialisation which have generally been ignored...)
• They were then around for a relatively short period in the Waid II/Peyer runs before Johns deaged them a bit
• Then they largely disappeared until they were "erased" with Flashpoint/New 52, later revealed that they spent a full year trapped with no-one else there on Wally's Dark Universe Nightmare World (which has implications for their socialisation which have generally been ignored...)
• After a cameo at the end of Williamson's run, they then became regulars in Adams' Flash run, and he wrote them towards the younger end of the range, similar to Johns
• Now Spurrier has ignored the Johns/Adams deaging, and explicitly bounced them back up to their Waid/Peyer ages (plus a bit for the intervening time)

And that's notwithstanding that most US comic artists really aren't good with depicting kids and teenagers in the first place - they generally look either way too young ("kid" or "adult" with nothing in-between), or way too old (even young children drawn as short adults). If Thunderheart - and Surge. And Animal Girl by extension, since her age is apparently being tied to the twins - are consistently young teenagers going forward, Deodato's not doing a horrible job with their ages here (and it is possible that their being aged back up is to accommodate him not being good at drawing pre-teens...), but I don't expect them to be shown consistently during fill-ins/guest appearances/etc, because that's frankly too much to hope for.

[Frontier]

I'm still banking on them leading a new Teen Titans team with them in it .

[Dred]

Well, there's a bunch to unpack there, but the twins have actually been all over the place in terms of how old or mature they are:

• They got SORASed severely while Wally was "missing" during Bart's brief run as the Flash (and their speed-aging there has implications for their socialisation which have generally been ignored...)
• They were then around for a relatively short period in the Waid II/Peyer runs before Johns deaged them a bit
• Then they largely disappeared until they were "erased" with Flashpoint/New 52, later revealed that they spent a full year trapped with no-one else there on Wally's Dark Universe Nightmare World (which has implications for their socialisation which have generally been ignored...)
• After a cameo at the end of Williamson's run, they then became regulars in Adams' Flash run, and he wrote them towards the younger end of the range, similar to Johns
• Now Spurrier has ignored the Johns/Adams deaging, and explicitly bounced them back up to their Waid/Peyer ages (plus a bit for the intervening time)

And that's notwithstanding that most US comic artists really aren't good with depicting kids and teenagers in the first place - they generally look either way too young ("kid" or "adult" with nothing in-between), or way too old (even young children drawn as short adults). If Thunderheart - and Surge. And Animal Girl by extension, since her age is apparently being tied to the twins - are consistently young teenagers going forward, Deodato's not doing a horrible job with their ages here (and it is possible that their being aged back up is to accommodate him not being good at drawing pre-teens...), but I don't expect them to be shown consistently during fill-ins/guest appearances/etc, because that's frankly too much to hope for.

We saw during Wild Wests that, while they were aging at super speed, Wally functionally raised them at his own super speed level to avoid some of the Bart Allen style rapid aging maturity issues. Extreme homeschooling.

Admittedly being stranded in a hellish mental wasteland of insecurity birthed from their father's own fear of losing them should have some pretty traumatic lasting impact but this is superhero comics and that's kind of par for the course for superheroes like them.

The funny thing is there's at least an excuse for the weird age depictions with the twins due to their powers. Wally had these issues back when he was Kid Flash with none of those issues. Teaming up with Barry? He acts 10-11. Teaming up with the Teen Titans? Definitely a little older. Solo adventure backup starring just him? Suddenly he's a sixteen year old in highschool!

[Rac7d*]

I'm still banking on them leading a new Teen Titans team with them in it .

Would it be weird for Tim and Steph to be on that team

[Frontier]

Would it be weird for Tim and Steph to be on that team

Damian would probably be the Bat-rep.

[Digifiend]

Not necessarily the sole Bat rep though. That Young Justice team that got nixed because of New 52 would've included both Damian and Steph (along with Irey, Static, Blue Beetle, Miss Martian, and Supergirl).

[Tomkatie]

I'm still banking on them leading a new Teen Titans team with them in it .

I'd put actual money on a Teen Titans lineup with Jon Kent, Damian Wayne, Lizzie Prince, Jai & Irey West, and Andy Curry. I dunno which other Big 7 nepo babies are in the mix, Korg could supplant the Lanterns and will need a home after Tomasi leaves DC, then M'gann could age up the team age median or they could throw in a dark horse like Maxine or PJ. So long as they're a recent superhero kid

[Reddead]

I'd put actual money on a Teen Titans lineup with Jon Kent, Damian Wayne, Lizzie Prince, Jai & Irey West, and Andy Curry. I dunno which other Big 7 nepo babies are in the mix, Korg could supplant the Lanterns and will need a home after Tomasi leaves DC, then M'gann could age up the team age median or they could throw in a dark horse like Maxine or PJ. So long as they're a recent superhero kid

I think M'Gann is too old. She was part of the adult Titans in the second half of Rebirth. Hell, she was even in the Justice League replacing J'onn for a bit during Snyder's run.

[Digifiend]

Also Andy's too young, and Lizzie isn't even BORN yet, so they're both only possible via time travel.

[SanityOrMadness]

We saw during Wild Wests that, while they were aging at super speed, Wally functionally raised them at his own super speed level to avoid some of the Bart Allen style rapid aging maturity issues. Extreme homeschooling.

And that means that they spent the first (subjective) decade of their lives basically only interacting with their father and each other, not even their mother. Like I said, implications for their socialisation.

[Frankly, Bart's situation with a whole VR scenario would probably have been better than that if it had been better-programmed.]

I'd put actual money on a Teen Titans lineup with Jon Kent, Damian Wayne, Lizzie Prince, Jai & Irey West, and Andy Curry. I dunno which other Big 7 nepo babies are in the mix, Korg could supplant the Lanterns and will need a home after Tomasi leaves DC, then M'gann could age up the team age median or they could throw in a dark horse like Maxine or PJ. So long as they're a recent superhero kid

I think we're at a point right now where DC are reserving the "Titans" brand for Dick Grayson & co rather than slapping it on whatever their current set of young characters might be.

I think M'Gann is too old. She was part of the adult Titans in the second half of Rebirth.

Doesn't mean much, in the back half of Abnett's Titans, the group were a "training team" with largely young rather than adult members - remember, Raven & Gar were still deaged at that point with their N52 backstory, and we had the hybrid "Lazarus Contract" backstory where there was no NTT, just the Titans Hunt team (who counted Deathstroke amongst their enemies) until they were wiped from memory. It wasn't until TT Academy that the NTT history was restored, with them & Cyborg having been long-time members.

[Dred]

You can actually just assume Wally is a really good dad.