Wally West: The Flash Appreciation 2023

[Hol]

Barry's return does open the door for it. It's a little stupider to completely intentionally trash a flagship character. With Barry back, it was easy to just make Wally not a flagship character so you can turn him into trash and throw him away.

So while obviously everything is at the feet of the decision makers of the time, bringing back Barry was fundamental to what happened and everyone saw it coming. The most common question at Cons during the time was how Barry coming back was going to destroy Wally. They constantly lied and said it wasn't but it's obvious what bringing Barry back meant and was going to cause.

Yup. I remember on Geoffs Johns old message board (comicbloc) we kept asking him if Wally was going to be ok. And he said something like "Wally is gonna kick ass!". NOPE.

[Hol]

Don't want to turn this into another Wally vs. Barry thread. But I will say that, to me, Barry had a greater impact as the cherished, self-sacrificing, aspirational, inspirational figure that he was from his death in '84 until his return in '09 than anything done with the character since his return. Outside of Flashpoint, which was not a good look for him. And I blame all that on Didio, not so much the writers.

Yeah so few writers get Barry Allen. They make him into a mopey character and lean into the new dead mom aspect. That is not him at all.

Waid wrote him great in Dark Crisis Big Bang and Adams wrote him great too in his run. THAT is the Barry I want to see. Confident. Heroic. Little dorky.

[Maxi]

Yup. I remember on Geoffs Johns old message board (comicbloc) we kept asking him if Wally was going to be ok. And he said something like "Wally is gonna kick ass!". NOPE.

Well, people seem to believe Johns had more power than he did at DC.

[Mantis-Ray]

Well at least Wally's still the lead.

Disappointing that Adams is off the book though. Though least I hear generally good things about Spurrier.

[Hol]

Well, people seem to believe Johns had more power than he did at DC.

Well, in Johns defense I think his plans would have happened if not for The New 52.

[Hol]

Well at least Wally's still the lead.

Disappointing that Adams is off the book though. Though least I hear generally good things about Spurrier.

And at least we still get Adams on GREEN LANTERN.

[Drako]

And at least we still get Adams on GREEN LANTERN.

Yeah, and i will read Green Lantern again since Flashpoint.
This is good news for the GL fans, i don't particularly care about any of them (Maybe Kyle a little), but Jeremy Adams was able to make the Family family functional again so he will probably do the same if the Green Lantern corps.

[James Hunter]

And at least we still get Adams on GREEN LANTERN.

Exactly and I just hope he can rejuvenate interst in GL as much as he has Wally and the FLASH title. I've liked everything I have read of Si Spurrier's too so I am OK with him taking over. I also appreciate that Wally hasn't been relegated back to limbo which was always a risk.

We still have Adams issues to enjoy before he goes and I look forward to seeing what he does with/for Hal and the GL book

[Lee]

I'm very surprised they're not doing a Barry Allen series, especially given the movie. (On the other hand, maybe they want to distance themselves from the whole Ezra Miller fiasco.)

Hopefully Adams will get to tie up as many loose ends as possible.

I'm looking forward to Joshua Williamson's story. I hope he gets to write Wally again sometime.

I'm not sure Mike Deodato is a good fit for Flash, but hopefully we'll get some consistency, rather than the constantly rotating artists and fill-ins we've had recently.

With Flash #800 in June and Flash #1 in September, will there be any Flash Knight Terrors tie-ins in July and August? Or will the Flash book be on a break for those two months?

[Waterfall]

Conflicted feelings.

Sad to see Adams go because he was on the course to make an all time classic. I'll always treasure his one shots and two-parters and read them whenever I feel down.

Spurrier is a fantastic writer. I'm also open to the idea. It seems to me that they are taking Wally to cosmic to keep the family behind a little bit. I welcome that. A bit more Wally-focused arc sounds great to me. He opens with cosmic-horror because Spurrier is kind of good at that. He will return earth one way or another once the first arc is over.

I'm not a fan of artist though. Just doesn't fit Flash, too dated, again.

Absolutely buzzing about 800 being Wally focused! Waid being back on Wally again sounds fantastic.

[Johnny]

Mike Deodato's art is "dated"? I think he'll do well.

[Waterfall]

maybe the coloring didn't do it justice because I wasn't a big fan of the cover art

[Waterfall]

I was going through Spurrier's works and he seems to have worked on Doctor Who comics before. I wonder if he'll dip more into British sci-fi adventures tone then... I am not really opposed to a DW style cosmic adventures with Flash.

[Hol]

Mike Deodato's art is "dated"? I think he'll do well.

Yeah Mikes work is amazing! Wally is lucky.

[Maxi]

Conflicted feelings.

Sad to see Adams go because he was on the course to make an all time classic. I'll always treasure his one shots and two-parters and read them whenever I feel down.

This is what makes me sad the most. It could have been an all time classic but he wasn't given the chance. Now it's been left as a big missed opportunity. Such a shame. And why should I invest in what comes next if they're not going to be given enough time to build something truly great.

At least he's leaving Blink of an Eye and One Minute War as some of the all-time great Flash stories, but imagine what else he could have done.

So many things that will go nowhere (who the hell was behind that place Savitar was locked in? What were the Lords of Chaos preparing the Rogues for? We'll never know. The actual first encounter between Wally and Gold Beetle? Will probably never happen) or will be potentially ruined by upcoming writers (Ace? Will probably go back to being a badly written character. The kids? Probably going back to being generic annoying children as well). We won't see where Adams planned to go with Wally and Linda's second kid so he'll be left as a big waste of a character. He'll probably get Bendis'ed at some point lmao.