Wally West/Flash Appreciation 2024

[Refrax5]

Yeah but Wally in the CW is also barely a character so, you know, great adaptation there!



These are fine qualities to give as flaws, to eventually work out of. But I do not think it's a good idea to have a blatant sexist (and not just for hitting on women, but stuff like saying nonsense Women are biologically predisposed to being insecure compared to Men) as a flagship superhero for any significant amount of time. And Baron was not writing him with character development in mind. That's just Baron putting himself -- a coked out misogynist -- into the comic. Much like how Waid put himself into Wally to drive home the short temper and bluster, Baron was putting himself into Wally in all the worst ways.

Baron's work comes off as more benign because we have the incredible value of retrospect and the work of significantly better creators like WML and Waid following him and cleaning it up. Dude was putting out garbage stories about a morally dubious person and calling him a superhero, with little thought towards actually making him worthy of the title he came with. There are many flaws you can give a superhero without it undermining their status as a hero. And there are some flaws, like Baron's narrow world view, that you can give them if you plan to develop them out of it. And that's why we needed Baron off the comic and WML on it.

I've also always found it a little weird because it's crazy for me that Iris would raise a little sexist troglodyte like that, or that Barry would've ever put up with that. I get abrasive, hot headed, inconsiderate -- that's all the follies of youth. But sexism? That's taught, and who the hell taught Wally to treat women like garbage? It's not like Rudy was a bad parent before Waid so it didn't come from there. But I don't think Baron really cared about anything that came before, or anything that was coming after. Blowing through a bunch of cocaine will do that to your writing.

There's a big difference between what Baron was doing with Wally and, I dunno, a character like Sokka from Avatar. Wally's reformation was serendipity, but so was his being sexist in the first place.

Maybe a more on the nose and topical example is Wally and Pied Piper. Wally had no (known) experience with any openly gay person before in his life. Chances are, neither Barry, Iris, nor his parents ever would've taught Wally about it (at least not when the story was told), so all he has is societal pressures to inform his opinion on someone gay. WML wrote this well, with Wally being initially uncomfortable with it because his background created this flaw in his character. But, as a legitimate hero trying to do his best, he develops into someone more understanding and, finally, supportive of his queer friend. This is a character development arc that was seeded and thought out with the character in mind, and handled how a hero should handle their flaws. That was definitely not what we were getting with Baron.

I wasn't referring to Baron's version as benign. I honestly don't recall Wally saying that about women being biologically predisposed to being insecure, but obviously that's not great.

I was more saying that I enjoyed the Wally of Messner-Loebs and the Justice League cartoon, where he was mostly just flirtatious and immature. I never found those takes particularly egregious, although it's been a while since I've read Messner-Loebs' run.

Wally's homophobia is also something I didn't care for, despite him growing past it. Bigotry of any stripe is a sore spot and it felt very much a part of the "narrow-minded, Midwestern conservative" side of the character some writers like to emphasize.

But anyway, to clarify, my comments were about having a younger, more brash and immature Wally like WML's run and the Justice League cartoon being a fun idea for an "ultimate" book. I meant that in a broad, general way. I was definitely not saying he should be written like he was during the Baron era.

Fun, goofy, flirty Wally is cool. Sexist homophobe Wally is lame.

Sorry if I communicated that poorly.

[Mantis-Ray]

My experience on this forum has taught me that Wally's personality itself is not the problem for people, but how he was handled on S2, being absent and just returning to be killed, not having the chance to grow up as a hero, being represented as slower than Barry and Bart and others making fun at that, being more of a side character on Artemis' life and Weisman apparently not liking him or the speed force in general

I think Weisman is just disinterested in the Flash mythos in general since aside from disliking the Speed Force I also don't recall any Flash villains ever doing anything major on the show.

The most I recall is a joke of Captain Cold robbing a bank in front of a bachelorette party of several heroines and going oh crap when he realizes how screwed he is.

[Frontier]

I think Weisman is just disinterested in the Flash mythos in general since aside from disliking the Speed Force I also don't recall any Flash villains ever doing anything major on the show.

The most I recall is a joke of Captain Cold robbing a bank in front of a bachelorette party of several heroines and going oh crap when he realizes how screwed he is.

He also had Abra Kadabra as just some tech-based wizard guy instead of being from the future.

[Dred]

I wasn't referring to Baron's version as benign. I honestly don't recall Wally saying that about women being biologically predisposed to being insecure, but obviously that's not great.

I was more saying that I enjoyed the Wally of Messner-Loebs and the Justice League cartoon, where he was mostly just flirtatious and immature. I never found those takes particularly egregious, although it's been a while since I've read Messner-Loebs' run.

Wally's homophobia is also something I didn't care for, despite him growing past it. Bigotry of any stripe is a sore spot and it felt very much a part of the "narrow-minded, Midwestern conservative" side of the character some writers like to emphasize.

But anyway, to clarify, my comments were about having a younger, more brash and immature Wally like WML's run and the Justice League cartoon being a fun idea for an "ultimate" book. I meant that in a broad, general way. I was definitely not saying he should be written like he was during the Baron era.

Fun, goofy, flirty Wally is cool. Sexist homophobe Wally is lame.

Sorry if I communicated that poorly.

To be fair, the homophobia bit wasn't outright homophobia. He wasn't being discriminatory, just uneducated, and it makes sense for him to be so given the culture of the time. It took him a single issue to get his head on right and the worst thing he did was act a little awkward around Piper when Piper came out -- a very realistic scenario -- before it was all friendly by the end of the same issue. There was no outward hate, mostly just awkwardness that led to brief uncomfortability. It's actually a funny exchange because Piper and Wally are musing on the very heavily queer coded history of villains before Wally wonders if there's any actually gay supervillains, and Piper comes out to him. It's a bit of a surprise on top of everything.

And we're talking about the late 80s/early 90s here. This predates Northstar coming out over at Marvel. It was absurdly progressive for its time, and I felt did a great job showing people who might be in the same situation as Wally. Good people, who mean well, who are unfamiliar, uneducated, and given a chance can come around as friends and allies. Pied Piper coming out as gay is one of the biggest reasons Flash is my favorite franchise. This just was not a thing in superhero comics when it happened.

But yeah no worries on the Baron take. Just for reference, Baron's sexism was pretty atrocious. Like even for the time it was pretty outright awful and I'm not sure how it got past DC's editors (I mean, I CAN imagine how -- they didn't care, but still). There's a pretty infamous page that gets passed around for people to meme about/hate on Wally with from the first annual, where he basically goes on an aggressively misogynistic rant you can hear coming straight out of Baron's brain and into Wally's words.

And yeah I agree, flirtacious hot head is all well and good for a younger Wally. Lines up with WML, Giffen, and I guess even Baron despite my distaste for the man.

edit: here we go, wasn't too hard to find the page

baronwally.jpg

[Refrax5]

To be fair, the homophobia bit wasn't outright homophobia. He wasn't being discriminatory, just uneducated, and it makes sense for him to be so given the culture of the time. It took him a single issue to get his head on right and the worst thing he did was act a little awkward around Piper when Piper came out -- a very realistic scenario -- before it was all friendly by the end of the same issue. There was no outward hate, mostly just awkwardness that led to brief uncomfortability. It's actually a funny exchange because Piper and Wally are musing on the very heavily queer coded history of villains before Wally wonders if there's any actually gay supervillains, and Piper comes out to him. It's a bit of a surprise on top of everything.

And we're talking about the late 80s/early 90s here. This predates Northstar coming out over at Marvel. It was absurdly progressive for its time, and I felt did a great job showing people who might be in the same situation as Wally. Good people, who mean well, who are unfamiliar, uneducated, and given a chance can come around as friends and allies. Pied Piper coming out as gay is one of the biggest reasons Flash is my favorite franchise. This just was not a thing in superhero comics when it happened.

But yeah no worries on the Baron take. Just for reference, Baron's sexism was pretty atrocious. Like even for the time it was pretty outright awful and I'm not sure how it got past DC's editors (I mean, I CAN imagine how -- they didn't care, but still). There's a pretty infamous page that gets passed around for people to meme about/hate on Wally with from the first annual, where he basically goes on an aggressively misogynistic rant you can hear coming straight out of Baron's brain and into Wally's words.

And yeah I agree, flirtacious hot head is all well and good for a younger Wally. Lines up with WML, Giffen, and I guess even Baron despite my distaste for the man.

edit: here we go, wasn't too hard to find the page

baronwally.jpg

Ah, yes. I recall that now that I'm seeing it. Stephen King can write Cujo on a coke binge, but with Baron, we get this.

[Dred]

Coke binges just exacerbating what's already going on up top, I suppose.

[Stingo]

Ah, yes. I recall that now that I'm seeing it. Stephen King can write Cujo on a coke binge, but with Baron, we get this.

This may not be the best time to admit that, reading his run on Wally as they hit the spinner-rack, I actually LIKED Mike Baron's version of The Flash. It was absolutely unlike anything else on the 1987 comic book scene, particularly in the realm of a mainstream superhero book. That being said, I was an even bigger fan of the Loeb/Waid/Johns issues on the title. As I've always said, individual mileage (and tastes) vary.

[Refrax5]

This may not be the best time to admit that, reading his run on Wally as they hit the spinner-rack, I actually LIKED Mike Baron's version of The Flash. It was absolutely unlike anything else on the 1987 comic book scene, particularly in the realm of a mainstream superhero book. That being said, I was an even bigger fan of the Loeb/Waid/Johns issues on the title. As I've always said, individual mileage (and tastes) vary.

I bought all the back issues when I was in my 20s and with the knowledge that Wally was going to get an attitude adjustment later on, so I was coming at it from the perspective of "this is a short-lived take on the character from another time" so I was just accepting it for what it was. It was definitely a unique and interesting comic and having such an obnoxious protagonist made it fairly unpredictable. I mean, I've read the original James Bond novels, so I have a high threshold for dated and problematic content. I can appreciate the Baron issues for never being dull and having an interesting, if not especially likable, protagonist. I can get the appeal for a reader at the time. DC was doing a lot of experimental stuff back in those days.

But yeah, Messner-Loebs and Waid remain my favorite Wally writers.

[Holt]

Wally is getting a new figure from McFarlane.

[Batgrayson]

Wally is getting a new figure from McFarlane.

I still want it, but I am dissapointed it is just the Rebirth Flash Barry Allen figure with a new head and crest, and I am not a big fan of the mouth

[Refrax5]

I still want it, but I am dissapointed it is just the Rebirth Flash Barry Allen figure with a new head and crest, and I am not a big fan of the mouth

Yeah, I'm disappointed. Are the New 52 Barry and the Rebirth Wally figures the same mold? Because that's definitely the Rebirth Wally body.

It's also disappointing because the smile and the shading around the eyes make him look sinister. I get what they're going for, but it comes off creepy rather than cheerful.

But I'll still probably get it because it's a Flash figure.

Still hoping to eventually get a Walter West figure. That's my favorite Flash costume next to the classic.

[Drako]

I still want it, but I am dissapointed it is just the Rebirth Flash Barry Allen figure with a new head and crest, and I am not a big fan of the mouth

All the McFarlane toys looks ugly as hell.
They being doing all the Titans figures and i can't buy it cause they are all horrendous.

[sbp1972]

Wally is getting a new figure from McFarlane.

He kinda looks like he's been Joker-ized.

[Drako]

Connecting Variant Covers of Jay Garrick: The Flash #5 and #6 by Francis Manapul.
This is so beautiful.

[Frontier]

Connecting Variant Covers of Jay Garrick: The Flash #5 and #6 by Francis Manapul.
This is so beautiful.

Oh wow, they remembered Iris' New 52 suit. I guess that makes sense since Manapul designed it.

Jesse with long hair !

Although Linda and Iris still feel weird to be in there even if they had speed and a costume for a bit. Even moreso because Linda is in front of Judy when she's wearing a variant of her costume.