I don't think Wally was nearly that popular when he initially replaced Barry. The original plan was to kill Barry off and replace him with a whole new type of Flash, an Asian woman with light based powers. This eventually became Kimiyo Hoshi Dr. Light. Wally was in NTT at the time but was kind of the weak link of the cast, but I think his long standing of being a Silver Age character with a close connection to the character he was replacing (who got to go out in a heroic manner in a big event) provided a stable foundation. The Flash mythos expanding along with Wally's character development made him the best of the legacy replacements in a way that Kyle and Connor Hawke at a glance weren't, IMO.
He thought they made the main generation (Superman, Batman, etc). too old and he didn't like them. That's the long and short of it.
Despite the fact that the age gap between the generations was never that big, at least if we look at the main two, Bruce and Dick. Dick being in his vague early-mid 20s would still result in Bruce being somewhere in his 30s. If anything, it was the the likes of Jason, the YJ generation and the new generation being built up around Damian and Jon all being around that logically dictates the main generation should be older than they seem, yet he didn't target them as hard as Dick's generation and kept approving the creation of more young heroes.
I was around when they replaced Barry with Wally, and there was a lot of excitement that he was taking over amongst younger readers, because we grew up loving Kid Flash and Speedy, much like younger fans today like Damian ect, so I remember a lot of support for the new Flash run at the time.
That's interesting about Dr. Light, I hadn't heard that before, but being a speedster based on harnessing light is a neat concept.
I'm noticing a lot of Dr. Fate fans on here who are p'd off, and have dropped their DC comics...or at least they're quite upset.
I must confess I've never been a huge fan of the character, but as someone who has had to endure the pain of having my favourite heroes being replaced....I feel for you guys.
Indeed, I always felt each Robin after Dick puts age on Bruce.
I don't understand why DC kept introducing multigenerational heroes, instead of new characters who were peers of the of JSA, JLA, and the NTT. Three generations is enough with the Legion in the far future, imo.
Let me correct you here, because Kimyo Hoshi was never supposed to be the new Flash, though I've seen this mix up.
What actually happened back then, AFAIK, is that DC wanted to retire not only Barry but the Flash concept as it was. To that end, they asked several creative teams for new pitches for the franchise: the one who got the farthest was one by Len Wein (and I think Marv Wolfman as well) which made the new Flash a new character named Mackenzie Ryan, a Starlab technician with powers over energy fields. At the elenth hour DC chickened out and decided to go with Wally.
Some of the concepts for the powers were indeed used for Dr. Light II (Kimyo), and some say that that is also the inspiration for Lia Nelson, the Tangent Flash.
Mackenzie Ryan was later seen in a cameo in Teen Titans.
ConnEr Kent flies. ConnOr Hawke has a bow. Batman's kid is named DamiAn.
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