Is DC still treating Wally West badly?

[Blackest Knight]

Fans of Terror of Trigon.

Yes, you're right. That's been done.

Let's see something new. Something fresh. Something interesting.

All of this is rehashing the past and frankly, rehashing the darkest elements, the lowest points of the Titans' lives.

Why drop Linda Park and go absolutely nowhere with her and Wally? What is Wally doing when he is *not* in costume?

And Donna. Okay, so they want to stick with the Meredith Finch origin? Fine. What is Donna doing outside of playing superhero? Does she want to have a career? Does she want to go back to Themyscira and confront Hippolyta and the Amazons about her false memories?

There are so many different things you could do with these beloved characters that does not involve killing them, betraying them, turning them evil or having them beaten to a pulp. A smart writer would be able to come up with those. Abnett is merely copying the past and creating nothing new or interesting. It's all dark and depressing and completely stale and unoriginal.

[Assam]

I loved that first arc.

Right? I had problems from the start (Garth's character being wonky and Wally not bringing up his kids being the major ones) but for the first few months, it was one of my favorite Rebirth books. The Superman issue was good (even if I didn't agree with its message) and Karen's arc was pretty decent. It's only since Lazarus Contract that this book has gone down the toilet.

[Buried Alien]

Oh, I do not disagree. That would be my complaint as well. I think the hyperbole about how these characters are ruined being thrown around is...well...hyperbole.

Well, yeah. Superheroes facing extreme adversity has been around for a long, long time. Characters (including Wally himself) have been "deader" than he presently is, and have come back from it just fine. I doubt he'll be "dead" six months from now.

Fans are treating hangnails as if they were severed limbs. I thought most of us have been reading these funnybooks long enough to know how their tropes operate.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[sakuyamons]

Well, yeah. Superheroes facing extreme adversity has been around for a long, long time. Characters (including Wally himself) have been "deader" than he presently is, and have come back from it just fine. I doubt he'll be "dead" six months from now.

Fans are treating hangnails as if they were severed limbs. I thought most of us have been reading these funnybooks long enough to know how their tropes operate.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

He'll be back in the next arc most likely, my problems with Titans goes beyond Wally dying, because once he comes back he'll most likely be Pacemaker free.

[Doctor Bifrost]

That summary has been out for days. Most people are still not convinced it will stick, because it probably won't. And frankly, as for Donna, having an evil doppleganger from the future or an alternate reality is fairly standard superhero fair. Can't really see how that ruins Donna.

Opportunity Cost.

We know very little about the Rebirth Donna Troy. They have a chance to clear up her origin and and really give us the best backstory and character for her.

But if stories focused on Donna (and, remember, there won't be many of those; she doesn't have her own series) are just going to repeat the most arbitrary and angsty tropes that she's been stuck with before - fake memories! Fear that she's not really human! Going dark in the future! Plus, "fairly standard superhero [fare]"! - then I don't think we're going to get anything very interesting out of it.

It's Donna Troy, a beloved - or, potentially beloved - character who has been saddled with some awful baggage over the decades. Don't just repeat the baggage or give in to fanwonky nostalgia. Do something special with her. She deserves it.

But that's just me - a big-time Donna Troy fan who finds himself perpetually disappointed and/or bored with her treatment, in much the way that many Ginger Wally West fans seem to be. (And don't get me started on that clustermess...!)

[Assam]

Fans are treating hangnails as if they were severed limbs. I thought most of us have been reading these funnybooks long enough to know how their tropes operate.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

If over the last several years, we'd been getting new stories of both the fun and dark variety, showcasing both superhero and civilian lives for the Fab5, and then we got a story where Wally "dies", NO ONE would have a problem. Much like we know it's not gonna stick now, it wouldn't have stuck then. The difference is that The Titans only got back together a little over a year ago, 3 out of 5 having been erased from existence, two of whom came back VERY different, and one of the two who survived the reboot was altered beyond recognition from the start. And while we were on the right track at first (A Wally focus arc made sense, and we still got some nice moments from Roy, Donna and Lilith in there), since Lazarus contract, the primary focus has remained on Wally and kicking him through the dirt before he even had a chance to really get happy, with just about every other character not looking good in these past few issues as well.

Superheroes facing extreme adversity is nothing new, no. But these character haven't even had time to do anything. You need to HAVE a status quo for a time before you start shaking it up, otherwise it just becomes tiring, and, in the case of characters/a team that haven't been seen in years, with TONS of story potential, really annoying. A thing to highlight here is that, while several other books have this problem, it's much more glaring for a book like Titans, where the best runs have put emphasis on civilian lives and the team being a family, we haven't seen them out of costume ONCE.

[Blackest Knight]

Opportunity Cost.

We know very little about the Rebirth Donna Troy. They have a chance to clear up her origin and and really give us the best backstory and character for her.

But if stories focused on Donna (and, remember, there won't be many of those; she doesn't have her own series) are just going to repeat the most arbitrary and angsty tropes that she's been stuck with before - fake memories! Fear that she's not really human! Going dark in the future! Plus, "fairly standard superhero [fare]"! - then I don't think we're going to get anything very interesting out of it.

It's Donna Troy, a beloved - or, potentially beloved - character who has been saddled with some awful baggage over the decades. Don't just repeat the baggage or give in to fanwonky nostalgia. Do something special with her. She deserves it.

But that's just me - a big-time Donna Troy fan who finds himself perpetually disappointed and/or bored with her treatment, in much the way that many Ginger Wally West fans seem to be. (And don't get me started on that clustermess...!)

^THIS^ times ten.

Thank you. I agree with everything you said.

Donna used to have a career as a photographer. She used to be a wife and a mother, too.

Same thing with Wally. He had a life outside of being a Flash and a Titan. Linda, their kids, his own career.

All of these things are being completely ignored--and would be a refreshing, interesting and welcome change from all the betrayal and death Abnett is endlessly recycling without any fresh takes or new twists. The worst crime of Abnett's writing on Titans is that it's boring and completely predictable.

Mix it up. Include some good with the bad. Cyborg had Sarah Simms and the children's school where they all had prosthetics. Gar had the Doom Patrol and Steve Dayton and his TV career and the Brotherhood of Evil and Jillian. Raven had college. Wally had Frances Kane and his parents and college, too.

Abnett completely ignores all those classic Titans elements and only recycles the bad stuff, the ugly moments, the darkness and the death.

As a loyal fan, I hold him to a higher standard for writing this book. And I don't think it's an unreasonable one.

[Blackest Knight]

If over the last several years, we'd been getting new stories of both the fun and dark variety, showcasing both superhero and civilian lives for the Fab5, and then we got a story where Wally "dies", NO ONE would have a problem. Much like we know it's not gonna stick now, it wouldn't have stuck then. The difference is that The Titans only got back together a little over a year ago, 3 out of 5 having been erased from existence, two of whom came back VERY different, and one of the two who survived the reboot was altered beyond recognition from the start. And while we were on the right track at first (A Wally focus arc made sense, and we still got some nice moments from Roy, Donna and Lilith in there), since Lazarus contract, the primary focus has remained on Wally and kicking him through the dirt before he even had a chance to really get happy, with just about every other character not looking good in these past few issues as well.

Superheroes facing extreme adversity is nothing new, no. But these character haven't even had time to do anything. You need to HAVE a status quo for a time before you start shaking it up, otherwise it just becomes tiring, and, in the case of characters/a team that haven't been seen in years, with TONS of story potential, really annoying. A thing to highlight here is that, while several other books have this problem, it's much more glaring for a book like Titans, which has always put emphasis on civilian lives and the team being a family, we haven't seen them out of costume ONCE.

AMEN!

You took the words right out of my mouth. That is exactly what the problem is with Abnett's run and why it fails so miserably.

No book in DC's line-up needs a new writer more than this one for all the reasons you mentioned.

[Buried Alien]

What bugs me is that Nightwing aside, the rest of the OG Titans are being sidelined from the BIG events so far. No Wally, Donna, etc. in METAL, and it remains to be seen what role they will play in DOOMSDAY CLOCK.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[Blackest Knight]

What bugs me is that Nightwing aside, the rest of the OG Titans are being sidelined from the BIG events so far. No Wally, Donna, etc. in METAL, and it remains to seen what role they will play in DOOMSDAY CLOCK.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

I'm not surprised.

DC's editors treat the Titans like they are meaningless. Who cares what anyone does with the Titans? Certainly not any of the editors at DC Comics based on little thought or regard is given to these beloved characters--who are soon to star in their own TV show, for God sakes.

[Sam]

Right? I had problems from the start (Garth's character being wonky and Wally not bringing up his kids being the major ones) but for the first few months, it was one of my favorite Rebirth books. The Superman issue was good (even if I didn't agree with its message) and Karen's arc was pretty decent. It's only since Lazarus Contract that this book has gone down the toilet.

It's funny. You and I see eye to eye shockingly often for two people who seem to have such large disagreements about various eras of Teen Titans.

[Rend20]

Donna used to have a career as a photographer. She used to be a wife and a mother, too.

Same thing with Wally. He had a life outside of being a Flash and a Titan. Linda, their kids, his own career.

All of these things are being completely ignored.

Well, not completely ignored. Donna's interest in photography has been established as being intact. Plus, the Linda situation has been a big part of Wally's character up to this point and his frustration of not having a life outside of the team has been touched upon to a degree.

[Assam]

It's funny. You and I see eye to eye shockingly often for two people who seem to have such large disagreements about various eras of Teen Titans.

I apologize if we've discussed this before, but besides me being indifferent to the NTT, while you love it, where do our opinions on just general quality differ. For me, 1996-2002 is the franchise's high point, and while I know you don't agree there, I haven't heard you say anything negative about that period. I also have a very soft spot for the Silver Age Teen Titans and the Pre-Wolfman Bronze age Teen Titans. And the Titans I hate are pretty much everything 2003 onward.

[Sam]

I apologize if we've discussed this before, but besides me being indifferent to the NTT, while you love it, where do our opinions on just general quality differ. For me, 1996-2002 is the franchise's high point, and while I know you don't agree there, I haven't heard you say anything negative about that period. I also have a very soft spot for the Silver Age Teen Titans and the Pre-Wolfman Bronze age Teen Titans. And the Titans I hate are pretty much everything 2003 onward.

No apologies necessary. I am a major fan of Geoff Johns's Teen Titans (at least until Infinite Crisis). A Kid's Game, in my mind, is one of the best Teen Titans story arcs ever made. So yeah, fairly major point of disagreement. I also enjoyed J.T. Krul's run, though if I remember correctly, you've called that probably the best of that era you hate. Maybe it is just a disagreement on Johns, who I generally really like, and, again, if I recall correctly, only really liked his Aquaman.

Also, besides Technis Imperative, which I think we both agreed about the positives and negatives of that arc, I haven't really read much of Devin Grayson's run. I mean to, but I just haven't gotten to it yet.

[Blackest Knight]

Well, not completely ignored. Donna's interest in photography has been established as being intact. Plus, the Linda situation has been a big part of Wally's character up to this point and his frustration of not having a life outside of the team has been touched upon to a degree.

RE: Donna's memory of being a photographer.
Oh, I read and own that issue so I know that panel well. I was very happy when I read it. But then in the Annual, it's revealed all her memories are fake. If so, then where did all those years' worth of photographs come from? And then of course, they promptly dropped it right after that issue and never mentioned it again. I found that ridiculous in execution (show photos from her work as a photographer, then a few months later say it was all a lie) and a pointless tease that added nothing to the story.

I dropped the book last month and every issue since the opening Wally West arc, Linda has been absent.

All scenes of Wally's frustrations with his lack of his past life have ultimately been leading up to an arc where he's dead. That seems like a total waste of time and a real loss to me.