Wally West/Flash Appreciation 2024

[Hol]

This is very interesting news if true.

Considering Lemire has been focusing on his creator-owned stuff, him willing to come back to DC indicates he would be given a lot of freedom with the character.

I checked and Lemire has been posting a couple silver age Flash covers recently. Maybe there is some truth to this. I am hopeful. Not sure if it means he is actually writing Barry or if it is just that Barry had the most zany covers and it is a sign of what kind of story he would tell.

[Refrax5]

I'm currently watching the Justice League animated series -- didn't many of those when they first aired. The treatment of Flash is very cringy to me. I don't relate the animated version to Wally at all, but I mostly avoided Flash during that era. Thank go, Mark Waid fiixed him.

Interesting. I thought the animated version was pretty universally beloved. In fairness, Messner-Loebs and Brian Augustyn are the ones who began to evolve Wally from being a horndog jerk into being a more stable and mature person. Even when he was immature, he still had likable qualities. He became the Flash at 19 after the loss of his beloved mentor and filled with insecurity from his dysfunctional childhood and the fear of the role he'd inherited. I doubt most people would have acted much better in his shoes.

[Dred]

The sort of chauvinistic side of Wally in the DCAU, while played more for yucks, hasn't really aged well there or in the comics it drew from. The other stuff like Flash and Substance did, though.

[Leancarp900]

I'm kinda skeptical of Lemire doing another DC book, mainly because he seemed burnt out with the big two (and DC in particular after 5G didn't go ahead). He had an exclusive contracts with Image as well but it might have ran out by now considering he is drawing an issue of Blue Beetle that's a homage to Giffen.

It would be kinda ironic as well considering Lemire was already involved in DC's last Ultimate Universe attempt.

[Digifiend]

So, a friend of mine is very close to some writers at DC. He told me something interesting. I do not know if it is 100% true or if all of it is true BUT he said that there will be an alternate style universe springing out of the summer event. It will not be called Ultimate DC but will be a new separate universe with about 5 monthly books first launching. It won't be a modern take on the characters like the original ultimate universe was but this will be more of a different take on these characters. He said Jeff Lemire will be writing a Wally West Flash book and giving him a new origin. I hope this is true. I love Lemires work. Can't imagine having two Wally West Flash books but then again I never thought we would get even one ever again. So fingers crossed!

If it's only five books, I reckon the others will be Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, and Green Lantern.

A new origin story actually could defeat the biggest criticism that naysayers have against the character and even open doors for him outside the comics.

Yeah, Wally's problem in adaptations is twofold: one, he started as Barry's sidekick, so the default would be to introduce Barry first; and two, the existence of Ace West, the modern Kid Flash, who was originally introduced as a rebooted Wally! The Arrowverse's Wally was based on the character now known as Ace (though they mixed in some elements from Max Mercury), since he was the current version of Wally in the comics at the time. Since Iris was black in the DCEU as well, just like that whole family was in the TV show, had there been a Flash 2 movie that introduced Wally, he'd have been based on Ace as well. If Wally had an origin they could use that disconnects him from Barry and Ace, then it would make him more viable for future adaptations.

[Drako]

Arrowverse's Wally is his own thing, he is not really based on Ace. Wallace was barely a character when Wally was introduced in the arrowverse.

[Frontier]

I was surprised to learn people disliked YJ Wally .

[Refrax5]

The sort of chauvinistic side of Wally in the DCAU, while played more for yucks, hasn't really aged well there or in the comics it drew from. The other stuff like Flash and Substance did, though.

I suppose not. I would agree that it was probably worse in the Baron era, but Messner-Loebs and even the cartoon made it seem fairly benign. He was kind of a d-bag, but a well-meaning one. I guess I personally don't see it as a big deal that a character that was written to be flawed and immature was shown to be a bit of a horndog. He was like a lot of us were at that age, and he wasn't doing anything that Hal Jordan, Ollie Queen, Tony Stark, or even Dick Grayson haven't done a million times over. He was just a college-aged guy that was a little too interested in the opposite sex. I don't feel like he ever came across as creepy or aggressive or anything other than just a normal person of 19-22.

[Batgrayson]

I was surprised to learn people disliked YJ Wally .

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

[Drako]

I always liked DCAU and YJ Wally.
I haven't watched the JL cartoon in a long time, but i have no problem with him in YJ, but have with how he was handled in that show.

One of the reasons why to me that YJ cartoon peaked at season 1.

[Rend20]

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 there were some issues in season one as well.

The two biggest being how the show went overboard with the thing with M'Gann to the point people found it uncomfortable, and how the narrative, especially with Artemis, was almost always slanted against him even when it shouldn't have been. So I could see how he could be a divisive character even in the first season.

[Frontier]

Yeah, I've come around to the idea that YJ definitely didn't use him as well as they could have.

[Digifiend]

Yeah, they had Wally get killed instead of Barry. Given YJ's constant timeskips that was definitely a missed opportunity. Barry should've been the one to die, and Wally becomes The Flash as a result. Bart would still end up switching from Impulse to Kid Flash, as the latter mantle would've still been vacated.

[Dred]

Arrowverse's Wally is his own thing, he is not really based on Ace. Wallace was barely a character when Wally was introduced in the arrowverse.

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

I suppose not. I would agree that it was probably worse in the Baron era, but Messner-Loebs and even the cartoon made it seem fairly benign. He was kind of a d-bag, but a well-meaning one. I guess I personally don't see it as a big deal that a character that was written to be flawed and immature was shown to be a bit of a horndog. He was like a lot of us were at that age, and he wasn't doing anything that Hal Jordan, Ollie Queen, Tony Stark, or even Dick Grayson haven't done a million times over. He was just a college-aged guy that was a little too interested in the opposite sex. I don't feel like he ever came across as creepy or aggressive or anything other than just a normal person of 19-22.

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.

[Frontier]

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

I don't think he was a fantastic adaption of Wally and was definitely underdeveloped...though I think there was some stuff there.