Wally West/Flash Appreciation 2024

[Dred]

It wouldn't really. Wally and the rest of the original Titans must be about 30 by now. If Chunk's in his mid 30s he'd be old enough to have a teenage son. He could also actually be a nephew he adopted rather than his actual son - no Mom seems to be around and he had a bunch of relatives move in with him in the Messner-Loebs Flash run.

Jai and Irey might be joining a team.
https://twitter.com/TravisMercer15/s...06398425026607

Chunk and Wally were roughly the same age and his kid was Wallace's age. The only reason Wally has kids in spitting distance is speedster shenanigans. Also Chunk was just getting ready to tie the knot midway through Johns' run with Connie iirc.

But yes you could fudge it any number of ways really, but the general idea is just ignore Wallace's first few years of existence and move on with life because the more you delve the dumber it gets.

[Digifiend]

So explain it as a nephew. If he actually was married though, that begs the question - where on Earth is Connie!?!

[Refrax5]

It wouldn't really. Wally and the rest of the original Titans must be about 30 by now. If Chunk's in his mid 30s he'd be old enough to have a teenage son. He could also actually be a nephew he adopted rather than his actual son - no Mom seems to be around and he had a bunch of relatives move in with him in the Messner-Loebs Flash run.

Jai and Irey might be joining a team.
https://twitter.com/TravisMercer15/s...06398425026607

It's hard to say how old the Titans are supposed to be, since everybody was de-aged by the New 52 but apparently got some of the old continuity back in Doomsday Clock and Death Metal, maybe? Considering comic book characters age slowly and inconsistently, it's hard to say.

It's also interesting that Wally referred to Barry as "getting up there in years" in Adams' run because, even if they got all those missing years back, Barry was gone for a lot of them and "hadn't aged a day" when he came back, according to Rebirth, so you'd think Barry and Wally wouldn't even be that far apart in biological age at this point, right? I always figured Barry would only be physically in maybe his early 30s by now.

Either way, it's best not to try and figure out definitively how old they're all supposed to be, since DC will rarely ever state such things outright or put much thought into it.

[BohemiaDrinker]

It's hard to say how old the Titans are supposed to be, since everybody was de-aged by the New 52 but apparently got some of the old continuity back in Doomsday Clock and Death Metal, maybe? Considering comic book characters age slowly and inconsistently, it's hard to say.

It's also interesting that Wally referred to Barry as "getting up there in years" in Adams' run because, even if they got all those missing years back, Barry was gone for a lot of them and "hadn't aged a day" when he came back, according to Rebirth, so you'd think Barry and Wally wouldn't even be that far apart in biological age at this point, right? I always figured Barry would only be physically in maybe his early 30s by now.

Either way, it's best not to try and figure out definitively how old they're all supposed to be, since DC will rarely ever state such things outright or put much thought into it.

Og Titans are "around 27" and silver agers are "around 35".

Only way that stuff works. Whoever got deaged or reaged ends up just fitting with their original gen.

[Digifiend]

Jon Kent is the worst offender. He was born after the Lois and Clark wedding, itself after Conner's debut. Jon was 11 years old before his age up - shouldn't that mean everyone else who existed at that time (like Conner and the rest of Young Justice) should be about 12 years older than in the 90s? Of course they're not. Jon needs a new origin. Other things like Damian's aging (he's gone from 10 to 14 in the last decade) means they should be a few years older, but Jon ages everyone too much.

[Refrax5]

Og Titans are "around 27" and silver agers are "around 35".

Only way that stuff works. Whoever got deaged or reaged ends up just fitting with their original gen.

Yeah, I generally consider the silver agers to be in their 30s and the Titans in their 20s, but I guess I don't think of 30s as "getting up there in years" as Wally described Barry and I recall Geoff Thorne referring to Hal as being in his mid-40s not too long ago (and granted, that might just be his personal view, rather than anything official).

I don't mind them being a bit older. It gives a little more wiggle room for the younger characters and its not like people in their 40s are inactive (half the cast of the Avengers were in their 40s in the first movie). But I tend to agree with your approximation.

[Dred]

Og Titans are "around 27" and silver agers are "around 35".

Only way that stuff works. Whoever got deaged or reaged ends up just fitting with their original gen.

This kind of stuff is very silly with Wally in particular because he is one of the few characters given direct ages in basically every phase of his major stint as The Flash. We knew he was already 26 at the start of Johns run and the idea that he's 27 is worse time scrunching than any of the New 52 Batman nonsense.

It's part of the reason Wally seems to work better with the JL than the Titans. The Titans are held in perpetual deaging and arrested development because their intentionally hamstrung from aging or progressing anymore due to being secondary and tertiary characters, while Wally actually progressed as a primary character and didn't care how old Batman or Superman was -- his stories were his stories.

[Reddead]

This kind of stuff is very silly with Wally in particular because he is one of the few characters given direct ages in basically every phase of his major stint as The Flash. We knew he was already 26 at the start of Johns run and the idea that he's 27 is worse time scrunching than any of the New 52 Batman nonsense.

It's part of the reason Wally seems to work better with the JL than the Titans. The Titans are held in perpetual deaging and arrested development because their intentionally hamstrung from aging or progressing anymore due to being secondary and tertiary characters, while Wally actually progressed as a primary character and didn't care how old Batman or Superman was -- his stories were his stories.

Wally only seems older than the rest of the Titans because DC didn't undo him being married with kids the same way they did with Donna and Garth (well, they did, but they brought them back). Wally in Titans Rebirth definitely didn't seem older than, say, Donna in the latter half of New Titans. This is also why DiDio wanted to get rid of these characters so much, he thought the problem with the DCU was that the Trinity was like The Simpsons but everybody else was Harry Potter.

As for Cyborg, Raven, Beast Boy, Starfire... their ages don't really matter at all. Raven and Gar in particular constantly go from being Dick's age to being Tim's age to being Damian's age and then back to Dick's. Cyborg was actually JL age during the N52. Starfire is the only semi-consistent one because they want to keep her relationship with Dick canon. This lead to some arrested development but it also led to DiDio basically being fine with their existence.

Btw I do think Jai and Irei being 13 is ridiculous. Barry and Iris aren't even married yet.

[Rend20]

We knew he was already 26 at the start of Johns run.

To be fair, I think Johns later had Linda refer to Wally as being in his early 20's in issue #217. So we can't exactly go by what Johns wrote if he gave multiple ages himself over the course of his run.

[Dred]

Wally only seems older than the rest of the Titans because DC didn't undo him being married with kids the same way they did with Donna and Garth (well, they did, but they brought them back). Wally in Titans Rebirth definitely didn't seem older than, say, Donna in the latter half of New Titans. This is also why DiDio wanted to get rid of these characters so much, he thought the problem with the DCU was that the Trinity was like The Simpsons but everybody else was Harry Potter.

As for Cyborg, Raven, Beast Boy, Starfire... their ages don't really matter at all. Raven and Gar in particular constantly go from being Dick's age to being Tim's age to being Damian's age and then back to Dick's. Cyborg was actually JL age during the N52. Starfire is the only semi-consistent one because they want to keep her relationship with Dick canon. This lead to some arrested development but it also led to DiDio basically being fine with their existence.

Btw I do think Jai and Irei being 13 is ridiculous. Barry and Iris aren't even married yet.

Wally being shoved back onto the Titans in Rebirth was an attempt at knocking him back down to their arrested development phase. That's exactly my point. The same comic off screen ended his relationship with Linda so he could be in perpetual early 20s like the rest of them had been reverted to. When he's around them he tends to regress by proxy, as opposed to when he's with the JL.

[Leancarp900]

Wrong thread.

[BohemiaDrinker]

This kind of stuff is very silly with Wally in particular because he is one of the few characters given direct ages in basically every phase of his major stint as The Flash. We knew he was already 26 at the start of Johns run and the idea that he's 27 is worse time scrunching than any of the New 52 Batman nonsense.

It's part of the reason Wally seems to work better with the JL than the Titans. The Titans are held in perpetual deaging and arrested development because their intentionally hamstrung from aging or progressing anymore due to being secondary and tertiary characters, while Wally actually progressed as a primary character and didn't care how old Batman or Superman was -- his stories were his stories.

Nah, not really. Every one of the original Titans has had kids, divorced, or both. (With Dick being a nebulous case). Wally being 27 is fine.

[Refrax5]

This kind of stuff is very silly with Wally in particular because he is one of the few characters given direct ages in basically every phase of his major stint as The Flash. We knew he was already 26 at the start of Johns run and the idea that he's 27 is worse time scrunching than any of the New 52 Batman nonsense.

It's part of the reason Wally seems to work better with the JL than the Titans. The Titans are held in perpetual deaging and arrested development because their intentionally hamstrung from aging or progressing anymore due to being secondary and tertiary characters, while Wally actually progressed as a primary character and didn't care how old Batman or Superman was -- his stories were his stories.

I remember Johns referring to Wally as 26 back then, but the timeline and universe has been cosmically altered enough times that I don't think that's in any hard continuity.

I personally don't really care exactly how old Wally is, especially since he's not being written in a regressive way anymore. I remember thinking it was odd that Wally was supposed to only be in his early 20s during Waid's run because he was about to be married and seemed so put together by that point that I assumed he was older. To be fair, I was extremely immature and frozen in adolescence until I was maybe 23 or 24, so maybe I'm not the best judge.

But with all the time warping events and so on (and Wally's kids rapid aging initially), I think it's okay to just accept whatever age they're written to be at this point.

[Frontier]

Wally being shoved back onto the Titans in Rebirth was an attempt at knocking him back down to their arrested development phase. That's exactly my point. The same comic off screen ended his relationship with Linda so he could be in perpetual early 20s like the rest of them had been reverted to. When he's around them he tends to regress by proxy, as opposed to when he's with the JL.

That's just kind of funny to me in light of his characterization in the DCAU and how he could get every time he and Kyle were in a panel together .

[Digifiend]

Bear in mind, if it's supposed to be 15 years since the JLA was formed, it's probably at least 13 years since the Teen Titans were assembled for the first time. Assume they were 16 at the time and that makes them 29 now. Also, Wally's not the only parent among the Titans. Donna's a widow and lost a son, and Roy is a Dad to a teenager as well, though like Wally's there's shenanigans involved and Lian is older than she should be.