Golly, Iris! Sorry I'm late! The Flash (Barry Allen) Appreciation 2023

[Tomkatie]

Convergence is an odd thing because it acts as if pre-Crisis Barry is a separate entity from post-Crisis and most other stories show him as being the same person. He even stated in a recent issue that he remembers all of his previous lives that were rebooted so I think he is the original. Maybe the Convergence version was a hypertime variant? It's hard to say and DC rarely seems to acknowledge Convergence anyway.

Convergence actually established that Barry was the same person pre-Crisis to post-Crisis. During his tie-in book with the Tangent Super Man, Barry was shown to be unmoored from the multiversal timeline even within the Convergence battle world, which is how he knew about the Speed Force and why Super Man had to sacrifice himself for Barry to preserve the multiverse. So Barry remembering his pre-Crisis and post-Crisis lives still fits with Convergence

[bat39]

Convergence is an odd thing because it acts as if pre-Crisis Barry is a separate entity from post-Crisis and most other stories show him as being the same person. He even stated in a recent issue that he remembers all of his previous lives that were rebooted so I think he is the original. Maybe the Convergence version was a hypertime variant? It's hard to say and DC rarely seems to acknowledge Convergence anyway.

Hypertime variant makes the most sense, especially when you consider that the Post-Crisis Superman and Lois from Convergence ended up being 'revealed' as the Earth 0/Rebirth Superman and Lois. IIRC, wasn't the whole idea behind Convergence that the cities were extracted from 'dead' timelines?

The way I saw it, Superman and Lois were a 'backup' from an earlier version of Earth 0 who ended up in the new version of Earth 0 (i.e. the New 52/Rebirth version), overlapping with their doppelgangers for a while. Then, the history of Earth 0 was rewritten again to reintegrate these 'backups' into Earth 0, in the process restoring a lot of the version of history that the 'backups' came from.

Of course, this still doesn't explain what happened to the 'backup' of Pre-Crisis Barry Allen who, theoretically, should still be out there.

[Tomkatie]

Pretty sure "pre-Crisis" Barry returned back to his timeline at the end of Convergence with Kara, Clark, and Hal so that he could still carry out his sacrifice?

[Dred]

The end of Convergence has them going back and somehow stopping the Anti Monitor from destroying all the multiverses, thus restoring them...again. No follow up on that aside from Parallax Hal popping up in the main comics for a brief stint.

[Tomkatie]

Right, but Barry and Kara still explicitly state they’re returning back to when they’ll have to sacrifice themselves. It’s only Hal and Clark (with Jon and Lois) who get to walk away, and we see them later on

[Dred]

I thought stopping COIE also meant that they also don't die in the process but maybe I'm mistaken.

[Tomkatie]

My understanding was their restoration of the multiverse happened after it was first destroyed during CoIE? We know the original multiverse still did die at some point cuz we saw its destroyed remains in Infinite Frontier, but the cooky Convergence quartet also did reset it, so most likely CoIE still occurred as written (with Barry and Kara still dying) and then the multiverse was restored without New Earth's knowledge? I also could be mistaken because DC's multiverse is wonky as heck and Convergence did not help that, but Barry's place within that at least feels linear

[Digifiend]

Kara being around in the silver age is back in canon (thanks to World's Finest), but I don't think she never died in Crisis. She still did, and instead of getting erased and rebooted, was now resurrected. Of course that resurrected version would've already been around by the time of Convergence, as Kara returned in around 2005, a decade before that event.

Back on topic, it seems that congratulations are in order. Barry and Iris will be remarrying, they get officially engaged again in today's issue of The Flash.

[Hol]

Kara being around in the silver age is back in canon (thanks to World's Finest), but I don't think she never died in Crisis. She still did, and instead of getting erased and rebooted, was now resurrected. Of course that resurrected version would've already been around by the time of Convergence, as Kara returned in around 2005, a decade before that event.

Back on topic, it seems that congratulations are in order. Barry and Iris will be remarrying, they get officially engaged again in today's issue of The Flash.

Yeah that was good. Wonder when we will see the event. Flash #800 is likely?

[Frontier]

Convergence feels like a fever dream even though it basically brought Post-Crisis Superman back.

[Lucas 35]

Yeah that was good. Wonder when we will see the event. Flash #800 is likely?

https://www.dc.com/blog/2023/04/01/d...ks-at-mega-con

Williamson also shared that his story will focus on Barry Allen and Iris West’s relationship and that preview artwork will be released soon!

I think this is what Williamson's story will be about, and that he still didn't have the preview he said he would release because he was waiting for the release of the today's issue

[Tomkatie]

Convergence feels like a fever dream even though it basically brought Post-Crisis Superman back.

Convergence was so incredibly convoluted and has been ignored by almost every DC writer since, but it featured characters I like so I feel obligated to fit it in somewhere

Back on topic, it seems that congratulations are in order. Barry and Iris will be remarrying, they get officially engaged again in today's issue of The Flash.

Finally! Took those slowpokes long enough!

[bat39]

My understanding was their restoration of the multiverse happened after it was first destroyed during CoIE? We know the original multiverse still did die at some point cuz we saw its destroyed remains in Infinite Frontier, but the cooky Convergence quartet also did reset it, so most likely CoIE still occurred as written (with Barry and Kara still dying) and then the multiverse was restored without New Earth's knowledge? I also could be mistaken because DC's multiverse is wonky as heck and Convergence did not help that, but Barry's place within that at least feels linear

The implication of the end of Convergence seemed to be that those four somehow altered the outcome of COIE and prevented the end of the Multiverse. We don't know about the hows and whys of it all. I suppose theoretically, Barry and Kara could still have suffered their COIE deaths, and the divergence happened later. But we just don't know.

You're right though that Barry's multiversal (Metaversal?) history is actually pretty linear, probably because he's the guy who's at the centre of these Crisis events! Barry dies during COIE and goes into the Speed Force. While he's in it, the multiverse collapses and becomes New Earth/Earth 0. Barry is resurrected on Earth 0. Shortly thereafter, he causes and then reverses Flashpoint, creating the New 52 timeline (with some intervention from Manhattan thrown in). We can argue forever about whether the current Superman is the same guy as the Silver Age Superman or not, but despite all the retcons and continuity changes, we can say with some confidence that Barry today is the same guy from Showcase # 4. Convergence Barry is just a 'backup' of an earlier version of him.

Kara being around in the silver age is back in canon (thanks to World's Finest), but I don't think she never died in Crisis. She still did, and instead of getting erased and rebooted, was now resurrected. Of course that resurrected version would've already been around by the time of Convergence, as Kara returned in around 2005, a decade before that event.

Back on topic, it seems that congratulations are in order. Barry and Iris will be remarrying, they get officially engaged again in today's issue of The Flash.

Wonder if the issue will acknowledge their 'previous' marriage...

[Buried Alien]

The implication of the end of Convergence seemed to be that those four somehow altered the outcome of COIE and prevented the end of the Multiverse. We don't know about the hows and whys of it all. I suppose theoretically, Barry and Kara could still have suffered their COIE deaths, and the divergence happened later. But we just don't know.

You're right though that Barry's multiversal (Metaversal?) history is actually pretty linear, probably because he's the guy who's at the centre of these Crisis events! Barry dies during COIE and goes into the Speed Force. While he's in it, the multiverse collapses and becomes New Earth/Earth 0. Barry is resurrected on Earth 0. Shortly thereafter, he causes and then reverses Flashpoint, creating the New 52 timeline (with some intervention from Manhattan thrown in). We can argue forever about whether the current Superman is the same guy as the Silver Age Superman or not, but despite all the retcons and continuity changes, we can say with some confidence that Barry today is the same guy from Showcase # 4. Convergence Barry is just a 'backup' of an earlier version of him.

One implication would be Barry remembering an upbringing in which both of his parents were alive and well into his adulthood and his father never went to prison, and another upbringing in which his mother was murdered and his father went to prison after being framed for the crime. He would also remember first meeting Jay Garrick first by crossing over to the Earth-Two universe, and another time by simply finding out that Jay and Keystone City had been sent to another dimension by the Thinker, the Fiddler, and the Shade. He'd also remember both forming the first lineup of the Justice League of America with Green Lantern (Hal), Black Canary, Aquaman, and Martian Manhunter, but he'd also remember forming the first lineup of the Justice League of America with Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern (Hal), Aquaman, and Martian Manhunter. Not sure how Barry can live like this without going nuts like Psycho Pirate.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[D.Z]

We already had discussions about convergence. Lets not bring up the event most writers don't care about.