Explain the appeal of Barry Allen as a character to me

[andersonh1]

This is not an attack thread, just to get that out of the way. I ask the question about the character's appeal because I've only read a handful of stories with him, but based on those I still don't quite "get" him. I know why I like Wally, and I know why I like Jay, but I haven't quite figured Barry Allen out yet. I do enjoy the current Flash tv series, but I'm not sure that Barry Allen is much like the comic version!

I'm looking to read the recently published Flash omnibus from that era at some point, though I haven't picked it up yet. What I've actually read is Barry's origin from Showcase (via those old Silver Age classics reprints), Flash Archives vol. 4, Flash Chronicles vol. 4, Flash Rebirth, the final pre-52 Flash series with Barry, and the first five issues of the New 52 Flash. So not much at all so far.

So if you're a fan of him, Silver Age, Bronze Age or modern, please share what makes you a fan.

[colonyofcells]

Silver age Barry is pretty much a blank like most of the dc superheroes in the silver age. I enjoyed bronze age comics for the stories and not the characterizations. Geoff Johns brought back Barry Allen but Barry still seems as boring as ever.

[Jim Kelly]

I haven't read the new 52 book, but as far as all the other stuff goes, I've read a lot of the old FLASH.

It seems to me this is a trick question. The appeal of comic super-heroes is not first and foremost the personality of the character. We only get dragged into conversations about character when someone doesn't like a super-hero and wants to support their argument by saying something about the personality. It's really the powers, the costume and the villains that attract us to a comic in the first place--the character is only something we consider after we've started to follow the comic.

In 1956, most super-heroes were gone. Only a few (mainly at DC) were still around. Yet Julie Schwartz thought if he could try out the concept again, it just might catch on. So he picked one of the most popular characters that he had edited--the Flash--and he had Bob Kanigher, Carmine Infantino, John Broome and Joe Kubert craft new stories featuring an updated version of the Flash.

This was a Flash for a new era. He was a police scientist. This showed that the character was in the forefront, as the combination of police work with science was a relatively new thing. Also, Schwartz had a strong background in science fiction. The character was created to fit in a world of new science concepts. A lot of the plots and ideas for the Flash feature borrowed from the short stories that had appeared in the two science fiction anthologies that Schwartz edited--MYSTERY IN SPACE and STRANGE ADVENTURES.

Carmine Infantino designed a costume that showed the new forward thinking approach. The costume was slick and perfectly suited the fastest man alive--plus the red made it really stand out. Infantino gave Barry a runner's body. In his secret identity, the Flash had a crew cut--showing that he probably had a military background and he fit in with the other cops on the force.

Barry and Iris looked like they had stepped out of a fashion spread. They were both well-dressed, but not over dressed. They were part of a new generation of young people who were sporty, educated, but not upper class--they were part of the working middle class. The fact that Barry reads comic books shows he's not too pretentious and he's a bit of an oddball. What speaks best for Barry is that Iris loves him. She's not totally in love with him, at first, but she clearly could do better yet chooses Barry over all other men.

As we get to know Barry in the comics, we see that he has a lot of friends. He's the kind of guy that everybody likes. He's someone you would want to hang out with. As the Flash, he's pretty simple to understand. He believes in doing the right thing. Simple as that. Barry isn't overburdened with neuroses and internal conflicts. He gets super-speed, his brilliant mind understands all the ways that super-speed can be used to do good and stop crime, and he never questions that this is the proper used of his abilities.

I never had a hard time with this concept. Maybe it's old fashioned to think that good people should do good with the abilities they have. But those are the kind of heroes that I like. Barry Allen is clearly a good guy, he's obviously intelligent, he loves Iris, he always thinks of new ways to use his powers and he has the best villains.

What is there to get? Barry/Flash seems pretty basic to me.

***

Aside to the moderator: I hope to god this isn't another one of those threads that gets amalgamated with an Appreciatin thread. I'm just saying--there's a line and it shouldn't be crossed.

[K. Jones]

I'll try to do it in ten:

1. Carmine Infantino, Red Singlet, No Cape, Lightning Bolts, Cowl
2. The harmless nerd buffoon with a big heart/helpless nice guy trope is strong in this one
3. Later launch date than Jay Garrick
4. Earlier launch date than Wally West
5. Space Age Debut and kind of "goes with" Hal Jordan
6. Blond hair
7. Blue eyes
8. American Midwest
9. Corn fields, probably
10. The Classic Rogues sort of belong to him in a proprietary sort of way


I think Barry Allen is the straightest, whitest dude on the Justice League, a team that also features an Old Money Billionaire CEO and a Mainer who lives in a fishing village who also has blond hair and blue eyes (and both of whom have been intimated to have possible hereditary links to Arthurian knights). At least Wally was a ginger. (I mean, he's still half-ginger.)

See that's the dilemma - Wally West is COOLER than Superman and Hal Jordan, and Kyle Rayner, and arguably Aquaman. Apparently The Flash can't make Superman and Green Lantern look like dated old fuddy-duddies and lame-asses, as the skinny little speedster nerd, he's got to be the, happy-go-lucky, charmingly innocent, totally lame guy.

It's a classic five-man band scenario (we've got to Cyborg or Martian Manhunter in the "token extra" periphery for a second here, unfortunately, or maybe a better way to think about it - by cranking a five-man dynamic up to a magnificent seven, they're respectively "the young guy" or "the old guy"). Superman is the all-star hero, Batman is inevitably the lancer, Green Lantern is the funny dumb guy, Wonder Woman is "the chick" (such a pleasant role) ... that means Flash has to be the geek. (Aquaman, by the way, is the lone wolf).

So basically, Barry Allen is popular because he's a comfortable old cliche.



(As a caveat I shall say that I quite like Barry Allen.)

[Buried Alien]

To me, it's because Barry is so much one of *us.* He's the fanboy who got to live the fanboy dream, and has a blast living it. To me, Barry is much more relatable than characters that, supposedly, I *should* relate to.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[The Darknight Detective]

To me, it's because Barry is so much one of *us.* He's the fanboy who got to live the fanboy dream, and has a blast living it. To me, Barry is much more relatable than characters that, supposedly, I *should* relate to.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

There is a lot of truth in what you say, BA. Not that I buy the whole "relatable" theory as it relates to enjoying a character anyway, but I probably know more guys similar to Barry Allen than any other character.

[bat39]

A lot of it has to do with his historical significance. Barry Allen's creation kick-started the Silver Age (at least for DC, and probably for the industry as a whole). Without Barry, there would be no Hal Jordan, no Justice League, no Silver Age...and by extension, no DCU as we know it today. Also, while not technically the first Flash, Barry was the starting point of the Flash mythos as we know it today - from the suit, the Cosmic Treadmill, the Rogue's Gallery, Wally and Bart, and other common elements and tropes related to the franchise.

As a character though, Barry wasn't particularly significant during the Silver Age and Bronze Age beyond being a DC icon and Justice League member. I mean, there's a reason WHY he was killed off! After his death in COIE, Barry posthumously attained a significance and iconic status he lacked in life - he became the martyr, the noble hero of a bygone era, a relic of the good old 'Silver Age', an inspiration for Wally West, who arguably became a much more evolved character than Barry ever was.

So much was Barry's legend built over the next twenty years that, come 2010 and a resurrection, Barry now actually had an iconic status to return to, which he never had before his death. He also had a new tragic backstory (which despite what naysayers say, has grown on me, and is of course the major inspiration for the new TV show), and elements of his history and status quo which were previously seldom explored now have been given an added depth (his work as a forensics expert, his motivation to join law enforcement and to work on 'cold cases' etc.)

And of course in the New 52, Barry is THE Flash...he is now once again the sole vessel that encompasses the entire Flash mythology built up over the decades. And the TV show will just reinforce this.

[Jim Kelly]

I would have expected a much stronger case for Barry Allen. I seem to be the only one who finds him a strong, positive, successful hero and character.

Not only was Barry the first of the revival characters in the so-called "Silver Age" (although a case could be made for Martian Manhuter), but that version of the Flash was the most consistently popular in sales during the period between 1959 and 1985.

Flash and Wonder Woman were the two biggest stars in JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA when it started out--as Batman and Superman were not allowed to take a starring role in the book. When the Justice League had their try-outs in THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD, of the five featured heroes, only Flash and WW had their own titles. Green Lantern would win his own title later that year, but he was still an unproven commodity. The two other members (MM and Aquaman) had never carried their own title up to that point.

Martian Manhunter, in fact, never did get his own title during the pre-Crisis era and was almost in limbo at times. Aquaman won his own title, but it was never the most successful and was cancelled (twice). New members Atom and Hawkman got their own titles but then fell on hard times--survived by sharing a title--then mostly remained in back-up features. Green Lantern did okay in sales, but not as well as Flash, until the early '70s.

In the early '70s, GREEN LANTERN tried out experimental stories which were critical successes but couldn't save the title and it was cancelled. That left only THE FLASH as the one title from the "Silver Age" revival--other than JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA, itself--which continued to be successful through the '70s. While Schwartz had tried relevance in his titles--and some fans may have liked it--that didn't sell comics and it was THE FLASH, with its straight ahead approach to super-hero action and adventure that won the day over those experiments. When GREEN LANTERN finally returned as a title, it went back to the super-hero basics. In the second half of the '70s, the DC books tried to emulate Flash's success, with the same kind of fun, not too serious, action-oriented super-hero comics. Yet DC never had a success equal to THE FLASH, in terms of new or revived single super-hero titles prior to CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS.

GREEN LANTERN, THE ATOM, AQUAMAN, HAWKMAN, METAMORPHO, HAWK AND DOVE, THE CREEPER, NEW GODS, MISTER MIRACLE, SHAZAM!, BLACK LIGHTNING, FIRESTORM--all of these super-hero titles could not sustain their success. In terms of super-hero team titles, only one survived for all that time--JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA with the Flash as a featured member for most of its existience before its ignominious end with the CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS.

Other heroes, when they lost their titles or features in other books, survived by sometimes having a back-up feature in THE FLASH or teaming up with him on occasion. The Flash even gained a second feature in ADVENTURE COMICS during its Dollar Comics phase. There were also Annuals, Giants, Super-Spectaculars, specials, tabloid editions, digest editions. THE FLASH introduced Earth-Two and helped to return the Justice Society of America to new adventures. Characters like Elongated Man and Kid Flash were spun off from the series. Other than Superman and Batman, the Flash was far and away the most consistently successful character that DC had in that period between 1959 and 1985.

[Mia]

I haven't read the new 52 book, but as far as all the other stuff goes, I've read a lot of the old FLASH.

It seems to me this is a trick question. The appeal of comic super-heroes is not first and foremost the personality of the character. We only get dragged into conversations about character when someone doesn't like a super-hero and wants to support their argument by saying something about the personality. It's really the powers, the costume and the villains that attract us to a comic in the first place--the character is only something we consider after we've started to follow the comic.

In 1956, most super-heroes were gone. Only a few (mainly at DC) were still around. Yet Julie Schwartz thought if he could try out the concept again, it just might catch on. So he picked one of the most popular characters that he had edited--the Flash--and he had Bob Kanigher, Carmine Infantino, John Broome and Joe Kubert craft new stories featuring an updated version of the Flash.

This was a Flash for a new era. He was a police scientist. This showed that the character was in the forefront, as the combination of police work with science was a relatively new thing. Also, Schwartz had a strong background in science fiction. The character was created to fit in a world of new science concepts. A lot of the plots and ideas for the Flash feature borrowed from the short stories that had appeared in the two science fiction anthologies that Schwartz edited--MYSTERY IN SPACE and STRANGE ADVENTURES.

Carmine Infantino designed a costume that showed the new forward thinking approach. The costume was slick and perfectly suited the fastest man alive--plus the red made it really stand out. Infantino gave Barry a runner's body. In his secret identity, the Flash had a crew cut--showing that he probably had a military background and he fit in with the other cops on the force.

Barry and Iris looked like they had stepped out of a fashion spread. They were both well-dressed, but not over dressed. They were part of a new generation of young people who were sporty, educated, but not upper class--they were part of the working middle class. The fact that Barry reads comic books shows he's not too pretentious and he's a bit of an oddball. What speaks best for Barry is that Iris loves him. She's not totally in love with him, at first, but she clearly could do better yet chooses Barry over all other men.

As we get to know Barry in the comics, we see that he has a lot of friends. He's the kind of guy that everybody likes. He's someone you would want to hang out with. As the Flash, he's pretty simple to understand. He believes in doing the right thing. Simple as that. Barry isn't overburdened with neuroses and internal conflicts. He gets super-speed, his brilliant mind understands all the ways that super-speed can be used to do good and stop crime, and he never questions that this is the proper used of his abilities.

I never had a hard time with this concept. Maybe it's old fashioned to think that good people should do good with the abilities they have. But those are the kind of heroes that I like. Barry Allen is clearly a good guy, he's obviously intelligent, he loves Iris, he always thinks of new ways to use his powers and he has the best villains.

What is there to get? Barry/Flash seems pretty basic to me.

***

Well who the heck can top what Jim said? . Very good analysis and summation.

I became a fan of Barry Allen/The Flash last fall after watching his portrayal of him in the Flashpoint Paradox film. I just loved his 'old school' masculinity. I tend to gravitate towards more sophisticated alpha male characters; like Batman, Black Panther, Blackbolt. Powerful and sophisticated men. And yes Barry is like that to an extant. But he is still down to earth and approachable. He's a smart, educated guy and masculine guy. Yet he's down to earth and doesn't reek of the master of the universe complex. Which is for me is a nice change. I admire him for the fact he has depth and he's basically (when written in character) a good solid man without veering into a sap or a push over. He's the perfect balance of strong and good.

[bat39]

I would have expected a much stronger case for Barry Allen. I seem to be the only one who finds him a strong, positive, successful hero and character.

Not only was Barry the first of the revival characters in the so-called "Silver Age" (although a case could be made for Martian Manhuter), but that version of the Flash was the most consistently popular in sales during the period between 1959 and 1985.

Flash and Wonder Woman were the two biggest stars in JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA when it started out--as Batman and Superman were not allowed to take a starring role in the book. When the Justice League had their try-outs in THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD, of the five featured heroes, only Flash and WW had their own titles. Green Lantern would win his own title later that year, but he was still an unproven commodity. The two other members (MM and Aquaman) had never carried their own title up to that point.

Martian Manhunter, in fact, never did get his own title during the pre-Crisis era and was almost in limbo at times. Aquaman won his own title, but it was never the most successful and was cancelled (twice). New members Atom and Hawkman got their own titles but then fell on hard times--survived by sharing a title--then mostly remained in back-up features. Green Lantern did okay in sales, but not as well as Flash, until the early '70s.

In the early '70s, GREEN LANTERN tried out experimental stories which were critical successes but couldn't save the title and it was cancelled. That left only THE FLASH as the one title from the "Silver Age" revival--other than JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA, itself--which continued to be successful through the '70s. While Schwartz had tried relevance in his titles--and some fans may have liked it--that didn't sell comics and it was THE FLASH, with its straight ahead approach to super-hero action and adventure that won the day over those experiments. When GREEN LANTERN finally returned as a title, it went back to the super-hero basics. In the second half of the '70s, the DC books tried to emulate Flash's success, with the same kind of fun, not too serious, action-oriented super-hero comics. Yet DC never had a success equal to THE FLASH, in terms of new or revived single super-hero titles prior to CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS.

GREEN LANTERN, THE ATOM, AQUAMAN, HAWKMAN, METAMORPHO, HAWK AND DOVE, THE CREEPER, NEW GODS, MISTER MIRACLE, SHAZAM!, BLACK LIGHTNING, FIRESTORM--all of these super-hero titles could not sustain their success. In terms of super-hero team titles, only one survived for all that time--JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA with the Flash as a featured member for most of its existience before its ignominious end with the CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS.

Other heroes, when they lost their titles or features in other books, survived by sometimes having a back-up feature in THE FLASH or teaming up with him on occasion. The Flash even gained a second feature in ADVENTURE COMICS during its Dollar Comics phase. There were also Annuals, Giants, Super-Spectaculars, specials, tabloid editions, digest editions. THE FLASH introduced Earth-Two and helped to return the Justice Society of America to new adventures. Characters like Elongated Man and Kid Flash were spun off from the series. Other than Superman and Batman, the Flash was far and away the most consistently successful character that DC had in that period between 1959 and 1985.

I agree with you completely! There's no doubt that the Flash was one of DC's most successful and influential franchises at the time. But I think the discussion at hand has more to do with Barry Allen as a character, especially in comparison to, say, Wally West.

[Jim Kelly]

I agree with you completely! There's no doubt that the Flash was one of DC's most successful and influential franchises at the time. But I think the discussion at hand has more to do with Barry Allen as a character, especially in comparison to, say, Wally West.

Yeah, but my premise is that we only look for flaws in characters when we think they are failures as super-heroes. There's this idea that has gained acceptance that Barry Allen as the Flash was a failure and therefore he had to be replaced by Wally West. So working back from this conclusion, people then look at Barry for why he failed. Whereas, when a super-hero is popular, we don't pick them apart like that--we assume there's something in their character that others must admire.

Not that I was totally against Wally West taking over the place of Barry Allen as the Flash. There was a nice poetry to Barry being the Flash for his era and passing the torch to his nephew and partner, to be the Flash for the next era. I don't see it as a case of failure but success. The folks running DC in 1986 saw the great run that Barry had and how he was the bulwark of the DCU for all that time and they wanted Wally to play that role in the next phase of the company.

[Pharozonk]

I refer you to what Buried Alien and Jim Kelly said.

[The Darknight Detective]

I agree with you completely! There's no doubt that the Flash was one of DC's most successful and influential franchises at the time. But I think the discussion at hand has more to do with Barry Allen as a character, especially in comparison to, say, Wally West.

Well, prior to COIE, there really wasn't that much difference between the two. Wally, for the most part, was a younger Barry back then.

[andersonh1]

I never had a hard time with this concept. Maybe it's old fashioned to think that good people should do good with the abilities they have. But those are the kind of heroes that I like. Barry Allen is clearly a good guy, he's obviously intelligent, he loves Iris, he always thinks of new ways to use his powers and he has the best villains.

What is there to get? Barry/Flash seems pretty basic to me.

That bolded part is what really jumped out at me. That's the kind of character that appeals to me as well.

Aside to the moderator: I hope to god this isn't another one of those threads that gets amalgamated with an Appreciatin thread. I'm just saying--there's a line and it shouldn't be crossed.

Agreed, I hope this doesn't get folded into the appreciation thread. I had in mind more of a "what makes Barry tick" thread. I browsed the appreciation thread and didn't really get the answers I was wondering about.

Thanks for the replies, everyone.

[AlexanderLuthor]

If you watch The Flash TV show I think it will become apparent. For whatever reason, they have just absolutely nailed the character on TV in a way they never have in the current comics. He's a nerdy, good-hearted, do right individual in awe of his own powers. He's one of the most "believable" heroes in that he is constantly looking at what he just did and saying "WOW, that's crazy!". He's also a CSI guy (which I think is totally underutilized in comics), and a bit awkward when it comes to the opposite sex. Maybe it's Grant Gustin, maybe it's the writers or maybe someone finally just got it - but the Flash on TV is about as likeable of a character as you can find