Is DC still treating Wally West badly?

[Nite-Wing]

Wally will likely never be the main flash again and that's going to be the only thing that will appease his fans
When you look at the grand scheme of things Wally is being treated a lot better than John Stewart or Kyle rayner or even Donna Troy.
Props to DC for bringing him back but it will be only a matter of time before they run into the same "we need to make Barry the priority" problem and the fans will complain again

Frankly its looking like nuWally will be the standard for the flash mythos in all other mediums which again causes angst for people since it marginalizes the comics

[Atlanta96]

I strongly disagree with this view. Barry and Wally aren't threats to each other's popularity, and should not be treated as such. I feel featuring them together more often enhances them both, and I would like to see much more of it.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

The way DC is right now, they kind of are. When's the last time both those characters were doing well at once? The 70s? Maybe the early 90s when Barry was on TV but that didn't last. Sorry but those guys couldn't be worse for each other.

[BohemiaDrinker]

I strongly disagree with this view. Barry and Wally aren't threats to each other's popularity, and should not be treated as such. I feel featuring them together more often enhances them both, and I would like to see much more of it.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

I do, too, but I believe most fans aren't you or me, and I'm absolutely certain DC editorial doesn't see things like either of us.

At the end of the day, they have to have both Barry and NuWally firmly established before letting OG Wally into the mix. Barry had one good run (Manapul/Booch) since his return by the time Wally came back. And the Wally thing got so deep (you know, you were there for it) that he could easily engulf everything like Johns Hal Jordan did by the time he returned in a faux "return to Glory".

Wally was (and still is) romanticized by his years of absence while Barry was just out of arguably his worst run, not to mention NuWally which had never seen anything but (mostly justified) hate.

I want the Flash family kicking butt too, but as vocal a Wally fan as I am, I completely understand they being careful to not break the franchise again.

[Atlanta96]

Wally will likely never be the main flash again and that's going to be the only thing that will appease his fans
When you look at the grand scheme of things Wally is being treated a lot better than John Stewart or Kyle rayner or even Donna Troy.
Props to DC for bringing him back but it will be only a matter of time before they run into the same "we need to make Barry the priority" problem and the fans will complain again

Frankly its looking like nuWally will be the standard for the flash mythos in all other mediums which again causes angst for people since it marginalizes the comics

Wally will be the main Flash again if there's a financial motivation for it. At the moment Barry is doing fine as the main but if that changes years from now, Wally could easily take his place. Outside media plays a role as well. If Wally shows up in the films and makes a good impression that could lead to more attention in the comics and eventually the main Flash role again.

[Atlanta96]

I do, too, but I believe most fans aren't you or me, and I'm absolutely certain DC editorial doesn't see things like either of us.

At the end of the day, they have to have both Barry and NuWally firmly established before letting OG Wally into the mix. Barry had one good run (Manapul/Booch) since his return by the time Wally came back. And the Wally thing got so deep (you know, you were there for it) that he could easily engulf everything like Johns Hal Jordan did by the time he returned in a faux "return to Glory".

Wally was (and still is) romanticized by his years of absence while Barry was just out of arguably his worst run, not to mention NuWally which had never seen anything but (mostly justified) hate.

I want the Flash family kicking butt too, but as vocal a Wally fan as I am, I completely understand they being careful to not break the franchise again.

Doesn't the fact that Wally needs to be kept away from Barry and Nu Wally, to not overshadow them with his awesomeness, highlight how much better a character Wally was in the first place? If they need to keep him in a bubble to make those other guys look good maybe those other guys don't deserve their roles.

[BohemiaDrinker]

I guess I agree with this. DC didn't bring back Ginger Wally West because they felt like the DC storytelling universe needed him - they did it as part of giving the appearance of caring about the whole legacy thing that they really don't care about, but by appealing to fans of it it gave them something to pin the next big event around. But now that he's here, they still don't have much for him to do. They really don't need that many Flashes.

You need to define "they" better here. They "the editors and above", basically the ones that call the shots, or "they" the creative personnel?

If it's the former, sure. But then again, their view was mostly alienating to consumers short to mid-term; something that was said by consumers, ad nauseaum, since pretty much day one. Now, if it's the latter, that's just not accurate; Booth has been fighting to bring Wally back since forever, Manapul tried to sneak him in and pitched a direction for him, Morrison made everything possible to keep most of DC's lore concerning the bat-family intact (and left because of it, it seems), Snyder brought back Cass and Steph as soon as they could, etc, etc, etc. There's a reason Rebirth was more of a writers led initiative than anything DC had done in more than a decade: writers get it. And any writer worth keeping will mostly know what should be kept and what should be thrown away, but they mostly have toi fight for these things, while the "that's the madate? SURE!" guys just don't bother. That's why DC lost the Ruckas and the Waids but kept the Lobdells trough most of the last ten years.

So, if your point is something like "Dan Didio believes in non redundancy and I agree with him", ok. However, this plan didn't really work out.

[Green Goblin of Sector 2814]

Yes, he's going to be in TJC for about 10 minutes and an unknown amount of time in YJ season 3. Compare that to Barry who has a million leading roles and there's still a big problem. Are you happy with his exposure right now?

Well, Wally also already played a very important role in the first two seasons of Young Justice. Again, he was a founding member of the team and even when he wasn't even on the team, he still was part of the whole "Artemis and Aqualad are secret double agents for the good guys" conspiracy and we got to see things from his viewpoint multiple times throughout the second season.

Barry never had much of a role on the show, save for maybe the Bloodlines episode, which featured the introduction of Bart, his grandson.

Also, Barry's only really had an important role in two DCAU movies: Justice League: Doom and the Flashpoint Paradox. The current Flash TV show is about Barry, but then again, so was the last one from the 90s when Barry wasn't even alive in the comics. That's not so much because nobody at DC cares about Wally but more so because Barry is just the first of the modern Flashes. Wally started out as Barry's sidekick, so you kind of have to go through Barry before you get to Wally.

[Green Goblin of Sector 2814]

You need to define "they" better here. They "the editors and above", basically the ones that call the shots, or "they" the creative personnel?

If it's the former, sure. But then again, their view was mostly alienating to consumers short to mid-term; something that was said by consumers, ad nauseaum, since pretty much day one. Now, if it's the latter, that's just not accurate; Booth has been fighting to bring Wally back since forever, Manapul tried to sneak him in and pitched a direction for him, Morrison made everything possible to keep most of DC's lore concerning the bat-family intact (and left because of it, it seems), Snyder brought back Cass and Steph as soon as they could, etc, etc, etc. There's a reason Rebirth was more of a writers led initiative than anything DC had done in more than a decade: writers get it. And any writer worth keeping will mostly know what should be kept and what should be thrown away, but they mostly have toi fight for these things, while the "that's the madate? SURE!" guys just don't bother. That's why DC lost the Ruckas and the Waids but kept the Lobdells trough most of the last ten years.

So, if your point is something like "Dan Didio believes in non redundancy and I agree with him", ok. However, this plan didn't really work out.

Yup. And we all saw how that worked out for DC. Hopefully, Didio's time ruining the DCU is almost over.

[BohemiaDrinker]

Doesn't the fact that Wally needs to be kept away from Barry and Nu Wally, to not overshadow them with his awesomeness, highlight how much better a character Wally was in the first place? If they need to keep him in a bubble to make those other guys look good maybe those other guys don't deserve their roles.

The problem is not inherent to the characters, though. The thing about Barry is that they really, really screwed up his return, and then alienated all the Wally fans (which, by that time, was the vast majority because Wally had been the Flash for over 20 years), so the franchise's was fractured, probably more than any other than Green Lantern. There's no reason Barry and Wally can't be together and play it of each other strengths, but Barry's been settled with a lot of rejection and a crappy status quo, created because of his return (mostly) by editorial mandate.

It's not that "Barry is lame", he is not. It's that DC made a huge mess and now has to fix it, that's all.

And then there's NuWally, and that's another can of worms: they really screwed up with his introduction - meant to shut up Wally fans and please POC readers, but only managing to anger both groups - but disposing of him would look even worse than his introduction. So they have to fix him too.

[Atlanta96]

The problem is not inherent to the characters, though. The thing about Barry is that they really, really screwed up his return, and then alienated all the Wally fans (which, by that time, was the vast majority because Wally had been the Flash for over 20 years), so the franchise's was fractured, probably more than any other than Green Lantern. There's no reason Barry and Wally can't be together and play it of each other strengths, but Barry's been settled with a lot of rejection and a crappy status quo, created because of his return (mostly) by editorial mandate.

It's not that "Barry is lame", he is not. It's that DC made a huge mess and now has to fix it, that's all.

And then there's NuWally, and that's another can of worms: they really screwed up with his introduction - meant to shut up Wally fans and please POC readers, but only managing to anger both groups - but disposing of him would look even worse than his introduction. So they have to fix him too.

Good points, but I still find it hard to believe that Wally's 1 supporting role in Titans is all they can do with him at the moment. I'm still not convinced DC cares about him beyond just keeping him around to shut up his fans, like Glenn said. Maybe I'm just cynical but I'm still distrusting of the company, and their promises.

[BohemiaDrinker]

Yup. And we all saw how that worked out for DC. Hopefully, Didio's time ruining the DCU is almost over.

Didio doesn't really have to "run" the DCU since he's been promoted to publisher, the guy has other attributions. Also, he's really, really good at his job, mostly, His vision for the content of the books is what sucks; he's been out of touch for years and is finally starting to realize it, I believe. But he's not going anywhere, he probably just stopped to do his job and the two jobs he had before it at once.

[FishyZombie]

Funny thing is Barry was gone for decades, if he stayed gone for another handful of years, we might live in a world where we have a Wally West tv show on the air and a movies on the way. Y'know because synergy. But Barry came back at just the right time for him to explode into other media and get solidified as the main Flash in pop culture despite being superdead for decades. It's a pretty impressive comeback story, if nothing else. It's just a shame Wally drew the short end after carrying the book through some of it's best years. Though if Barry could make it big after all those years, who say's Wally can't someday? Won't happen anytime soon, since Barrymania is still going strong and theres not much incentive for them to change course.

[Green Goblin of Sector 2814]

Doesn't the fact that Wally needs to be kept away from Barry and Nu Wally, to not overshadow them with his awesomeness, highlight how much better a character Wally was in the first place? If they need to keep him in a bubble to make those other guys look good maybe those other guys don't deserve their roles.

That's...one way to look at it. But, also, that's not necessarily what they're doing. They could just want to have Wally established back with the Titans. He did outgrow the sidekick role a long time ago to be honest, so there's not much reason for him to be following Barry around. Plus, I mean, if you didn't notice, his role has been central to the Titans book.

I highly anticipate that he is going to be showing up during the whole Button arc in Flash and Batman and will have a hand in anything else to do with the larger Rebirth mystery. DC has sort of positioned him to be the mascot for that event essentially.

[BohemiaDrinker]

Good points, but I still find it hard to believe that Wally's 1 supporting role in Titans is all they can do with him at the moment. I'm still not convinced DC cares about him beyond just keeping him around to shut up his fans, like Glenn said. Maybe I'm just cynical but I'm still distrusting of the company, and their promises.

You should. And you're right, the company as a whole doesn't care about the characters. They care about the consumers money, and learned the hard way that ignoring and alienating them is not a wise move.

As of Wally himself, no, it's not all they can do, but they are playing it safe and letting things flow a little, which is just fine. A year in comic books time is almost nothing.

[Green Goblin of Sector 2814]

Didio doesn't really have to "run" the DCU since he's been promoted to publisher, the guy has other attributions. Also, he's really, really good at his job, mostly, His vision for the content of the books is what sucks; he's been out of touch for years and is finally starting to realize it, I believe. But he's not going anywhere, he probably just stopped to do his job and the two jobs he had before it at once.

Yeah, I know. That's what I mean. His whole mantra that you have to "shake things up" that Julie Schwartz once told him is something he's taken way too literally. Yes, you do have to shake things up, but that can be done without burning to the ground the things you do have. I'm probably preaching to the choir, but Didio (in his constant hungering to reboot the DCU because it was so "cluttered") pretty much threw the baby out with the bathwater. There's a reason Levitz kept shooting him down on it when he was President of the company. Who knows? Maybe if Levitz had stuck around in his role, we never would have had to go through any of this.