Manic Monday Bonus--A Reminder Of What We Have Lost

This is just a reminder that, prior to Flushpoint, we had a vibrant, millennia-spanning family of Flashes:

Then, because someone out there thought that not only was Barry Allen the best Flash, but that the existence of any other Flash somehow detracted from his glory. Barry Allen is a jealous god, and we must worship no Flash beside him, apparently.

Oh, that family tree? It's from the Flash Museum in the 30th century, when we were allowed to have nice things like that:

From The Flash: Secret Files #1 (1997)

Manic Flash Day #3--Poor Wally West

Man, it's rough to be Wally West.

First, he's all broody about his impending high school graduation:

And his girlfriend is touchy feely in the wrong way...

Oops!

And then things go to the dogs...

Look at the bright side, Wally...at least you exist in this universe!

From Flash Spectacular (a.k.a. DC Special Series #11) (1978)

Manic Monday--Perhaps They Didn't Get The Memo

So, correct me if the company line has changed yet again, but DC Comics is renaming Captain Marvel as Shazam because "everyone already thinks that's his name," and they don't want to confuse new readers.

And yet...

And we've been told that Wally West had to go because Barry was more "iconic," and that having multiple Flashes around might be bewildering to the alleged new readers DC would be drawing in.

And yet...

And Donna Troy? Well, now, don't get us started. Too young for our new continuity, we can't seem to pay our writers enough to come up with an actual origin that sticks, and, once again, gotta make things clean and simple for those who might be checking into DC for the first time.

And yet...

And yet...

Two weeks ago, the Young Justice cartoon prominently featured Billy Batson, as Captain Marvel. No, not as SHAZAM (although he said SHAZAM an awful lot), He, and everybody else, referred to him as Captain Marvel.

DC Animated, it seems, is blithely unconcerned that their (presumably younger) audience will find the name confusing, or that they think he's called Shazam. Odd...

One week ago, Young Justice featured a Kid Flash solo story, starring Wally West. Yep, Wally.

DC Animated, it seems, doesn't think that the presence of Wally West takes anything away from the "main" Flash. Or that you need to completely wipe one out of the continuity in order to make the other work. Hmmm...

This weekend, the DC Nation shorts starred Donna Troy and, once again, Captain Marvel (and, once again, he was referred to as Captain Marvel).

DC Animated, it seems, is on a different page than DC Comics when it comes to how to deal with these characters.

DC Comics seems to believe that potential new readers (and remember, their coveted new demo is males 18-35) are dullards who can't comprehend the same comics stories we (and they) read whilst growing up. DC Animated, catering to a younger demo, trusts their viewers to be able to follow along, and indeed expects them to be interested enough to want more.

DC Comics wants to run away screaming from their back catalog. DC Animated respects DC's rich and glorious history, and even wallows in it.

DC Comics dodges questions, or gives coy non-answers, or insults the questioner, when asked about beloved character X. DC Animated respects the long-time fan, and seemingly isn't satisfied unless they're putting 5.3 references to fan favorites per episode (Rita Farr!!!)

It's as if DC's left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing, as if they're two completely different companies.

Then again, given the long lag time in cartoon production, maybe DC Animated just hadn't received the memo yet...

Ask The Answer Manic Monday #6--Sad Prophecies Come True

From the Answer Man column in Action Comics #503 (1980):

Sigh...you've won, Eugene Tan. Damn you and your 32 year-old wishes!!

(Of course, if he wanted to get rid of the hero Kid Flash, and not just Wally West, well, you lose, Mr. Tan!!)

Meanwhile, from that same month's House Of Mystery #276:

Yes, better we should ask, "What's happened to Wonder Girl?" Or, more specifically, "what's happened to Donna Troy?"

Sigh...

Barry Allen--Scientist!!

Remember--Barry Allen is a scientist!!

Wait...what?

Wait--what??

Wait...what???




Wait--what?!?!?!?

Wait....WHAT??!?!?!?!

And most importantly--NEVER send an atomic clock through the time barrier:

WAIT--WHAT?!?!?!?!

The Flash--making $%^& up for 55 years!!

Panels from Showcase #4 (1956), Showcase #14 (1958), Flash #125 (1961) and Flash #139 (1963), as reprints in DC Comics Presents: The Flash #1. Just in case you were wondering how the Russians beat us with Sputnik and all...

Reminder: Awaiting The Mega-Rogue

"One thousand years in the future," while restoring the Flash Museum, they will uncover the evidence of Wally West's final fate:

By 2054, constant exposure to the Speed Force will have "evolved" Wally to look like this.

And he will meet his final fate at the hands of:

The Mega-Rogue!! Embittered scientist from Gorilla City who uses all the weapons of the long dead Rogues to hunt down and destroy The Flash! (Note, the story doesn't come out and say it's Grodd...but I'll wager it is...)

Two important lessons to be learned here. #1:

Thanks to those damn sliding time frames, a Wally West "in his seventies" by 2054 must have been born 1975-1984, give or take...which means that when he got his own title as Flash, in 1987, he was a kid, no more than 12 years old.

Which also means that, as groovy as the Bob Haney Teen Titans were, they never fought crime in the 60s or 70s.

I hate sliding time scales.

The second lesson?

Don't bury dead villains with their greatest weapons. Duh!!

(I will concede that Tom Peyer and Steve Lightle might have meant "looted the graves" metaphorically. In which case the lesson is "Don't keep dead villains' greatest weapons just laying around where a crazed super-gorilla can get his damn dirty ape paws on them.")

Anyway, Wally ends up "lashed to a boomerang of mirrors," and "launched to a place outside of time and space, never to return."

Hmm, maybe that would explain his complete absence from any DC comics the past couple of years...

From Flash 80-Page Giant #2 (1999).

Great Moments In Incorrect Predictions

It's 1998, and DC writer Mark Millar is sitting down with the Flash to discuss story ideas for an upcoming issue...

Wait, I guess we'd better remind the readers: in the DC Universe, the comic books about DC super-heroes are non-fiction; they recount actual adventures, not "made up" stories, as Millar reminds us...


So, as Millar tries to debrief Wally West (remember him?) about his recent adventures, the subject of how non-fiction comic books dealt with the private lives and secret identities of the heroes comes up:



Oh, if only that's what the Identity Crisis maxiseries had turned out to be about...

Mark Millar (and Ariel Olivetti) toss off a far better plot idea for Identity Crisis than Brad Meltzer could ever come up with in a hundred years Flash 80 Page Giant #1 (1998).

Missing In Action

After the buttload of DC announcements over the past couple of weeks, and the DC October solicitations, there's one name noticeable by its glaring omission:

Wally West.

Remember about this time last year, when at the various conventions we were promised that Wally wouldn't be disappearing after the rebirth of Barry Allen? He would be in the Titans, he would have a back-up series, he would be playing an important role in the Flash series??

Not so much. I hate it when I'm right.

Unless I've missed something (which is certainly possible), Wally West hasn't been so much as mentioned in a DC mag the end of Flash:Rebirth. Nothing. Maybe he's invisible...

We miss you, Wally...hope you're not in limbo too long. At least they haven't killed you yet, like the inconvenient Ryan Choi...

Prophecy Fulfilled, Sadly

Well, I've been predicting this for a year and a half now, haven't I? I predicted that the return of Barry Allen would lead to Wally West being shuffled to the sidelines, losing his title, his JLA spot.

No, no, we were told. All is good. Wally will be active in the Titans, said Dan DiDio. Wally will have a back-up series in the new Barry Allen Flash mag!! Bart will have his own Kid Flash mag!! It's a golden age for all things Flash!!

Hey, some people actually believed him.

Surprise, suckers. In a video interview, released during Christmas week so many would be sure not to see it, guess what DiDio revealed? That Wally back-up series? Now on the back burner. That Kid Flash series? Not gonna happen. And after promising (several times) that Wally wouldn't be ignored or put on the bench? "Your Flash fix will be Barry Allen, pure and simple, for 2010."

So, checking off: "Part of the Titans team for the foreseeable future" (quote from DiDio)? Nah, they're being replaced by an all-new Titans team led by Deathstroke. Lost his JLA spot? Yup, which is pretty ironic, since most of other the Titans are now gonna be in the JLA. Lost his book? Yeah, not even deemed worthy of back-up stories. New costume? Yeah, they just did that in Flash Returns, and I wouldn't bet against another.

I'm sure we can look forward to seeing cameo appearances by Wally in the next DC Halloween and Christmas specials...or maybe he can join The Forgotten Heroes...

Oh, and Kendra Saunders, Michael Holt, Rick Tyler, Jakeem Thunder, et al.? Now that Blackest Night is leaving open the status of your predecessors, you might want to start packing. Because while DC claims to love their "generational heroes," they'd don't love actually having them around, do they? You guys are all on the clock...

Manic Monday--Flash Rebirth Preview From 22 Years Ago

Oh, wait a moment...that's the other time the Flash had the "touch of death."

So sorry for the confusion again...

Ad appeared in Question #7 (1987)

F-less January

The January solicits are out for both Marvel and DC. And there's something missing.

First up, we note that on the Marvel side, for the second month in a row the Fantastic Four is absent from the solicitations. Nothing for December, nothing for January. So much for Millar & Hitch's promise to never miss a month. Guess since you can't sell that idea off for yet another "SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE," it doesn't get your full attention, eh Mark? (For the record, there was something for December called the Fantastic Four Cosmic Special, with no creators or plot listed, so there was some thought that there was going to be some tie-in to Skrullapalooza that Marvel wouldn't reveal yet. Nope, they just announced, it's a one-off special by Carey Bates and Bing Cansino).

The Fantastic Four. The World's Greatest Comics Magazine. No issues in December or January. My soul hurts.

Meanwhile, on the DC side, January features no issue of the Flash. Apparently, December's "conclusion" to the "This Was Your Life, Wally West" story is also the conclusion to this run of the Flash...if Final Crisis ever finishes, then Geoff Johns will start his Flash: Rebirth series (and since Final Crisis #7 is solicited for January 28th, one million quatloos says it's gonna slip at least until February...remember when these summer crossover events happened, well, during the summer?!?).

So, no Flash in January. No Fantastic Four. I'm not sure when (if ever) was the last time both those mags were missing in the same month...January's gonna be a long, cold month...

Little Known Facts About the DC Universe

#1 (as presented in Final Crisis #3):


#2 So, I guess instead of sitting around using his heat vision "to keep her heart beating," or going of with the Monitor Lady for a tour of the multiverse, Superman just could have had Wally run faster than the speed of light with Lois, and voila, she's saved?

#3 In the future, when mankind has faster-than-light travel, no more death!! Hyper-drive=immortality!!

#4 Of course, Wally can travel faster than the speed of light, but he couldn't travel faster than the mysterious time bullet...so he can outrun death, but not the thing that causes death??

The moral? Just have Zatanna says some magic spell and bring him back next time...it's a lot easier and doesn't reduce everything in the universe to the anti-sense equation.

Greater Love Hath No Man...

...than to seem to give his life for his fellow man, but he knows that he's going to be resurrected later, so really, how much love is that, anyway?

Woo hoo, I'm back.

Well, as everyone is all in a furor over the impending (?) return (?) of Barry Allen, I've a couple of thoughts on the matter, as well as DC Universe #0 (aka let's pretend Countdown never happened).

First things first: Despite press releases and much online angst, we actually don't have any real clue or info about how, when, or in what form Barry is returning in. So far, all that we've actually seen is a lightning bolt over a strip club--and what the hell was up with that, anyhow? (editor's note--If you'd been dead 22 years, isn't that the first place you'd head?) (snell's note--good point) Maybe he's going to be some kind of elder, like they did with Billy Batson, maybe he's just going to turn around and sacrifice himself again, maybe it's all one big tease.

So let's chill, and see what actually plays out, shall we?

Which advice I'm now going to completely ignore. Surprise.

Let me echo and amplify things a couple of others out there have said. Kevin said: "...I have to say I'm not crazy about characters like Wally West and Kyle Rayner getting sidelined because somebody wanted more stories with the original guys."

That is so true, because as much as DC wants to play up "legacy characters," current DC policy seems to outlaw more than one version being active at a time. We want Bart Allen to be the Flash? Wally has to be shuffled off to Limbo. We want Wally back? Bart has to die.

And look what's happened to poor Kyle Rayner ever since Hal Jordan was resurrected: lost his book, now he's Ion, now he's not, now he's Parallax, now he's not, now he's a minor supporting character in the Green Lantern Corps, now he's a "Challenger of the Unknown..."

If Barry Allen returns in full human form as the Flash, does anybody seriously believe that Wally West will receive better treatment? They'll slap some stupid costume and name on him (official prediction: Speedforce!) and be relegated to appearing in the Titans book. If he's lucky.

You see, that's the problem with some of these nostalgia-driven moves lately in the DC Universe: these writers want us to respect the glories of the Silver Age, which is fine, but then they turn around and show NO respect for the comics other people grew up with. It's a zero-sum game for them. Geoff Johns wants to bring back Hal Jordan? Fine. But because he and DC editorial didn't give a rat's ass about Kyle Rayner, a character a lot of people loved, has been reduced to the equivalent of a bench-warming utility infielder.

And if they want to bring back Barry Allen? I don't agree with that (more below), but I can be one board for that without too much crying. But I fear that said resurrection, under the current regime, just means they're just going to flush away 20 years of character growth and supporting cast of Wally. Wally will lose his mag, lose his JLA position, lose his supporting cast, and be relegated to appearing in the Titans and an occasional Mark Waid written Brave and the Bold.

Check back in a year and tell me I was wrong.

Meanwhile, there's the whole issue of resurrection itself. Val, as usual, puts it better than I could when she says "It's just that every time you bring these characters back, you undermine the emotional resonance of those original stories surrounding the hero's tragic demise."

Let me add to that, in response to some things others have said (including Morrison himself).

Yes, it is "only" a comic book. Yes, characters in that medium come back from the dead "all the time."

But if EVERY character comes back, EVERY time? If no death is permanent? If the apparent death a characters is used again and again and again as a plot device(hello, Judd Winick), doesn't that drain ANY tension, any suspense, out of a story? Why care if the hero or sidekick is in a jam, if we know any death is just temporary? Doesn't that say there are no consequences to any actions? That therefore, no sacrifice is truly heroic, since there's no real sacrifice?

And doesn't it say something about the unwavering stupidity of comic characters if they don't notice and react to this phenomenon of their universe? "Gee, Lois, every person I've ever known who has died has come back, including me! So I'm not going to bother to rescue you. You'll be back." Go ahead, Grant Morrison, put that line into All-Star Superman, if you really believe that death is too "cruel" too inflict on comic readers.

And as to the idea that "they don't have to die, because they're fictional creations," well, sure. No literature ever has fictional creations die. The Comedian and Rorshach, after all, came back to life in Watchmen. Shakespeare immediately gave us the follow up Hamlet 2.

Oops, bad examples. I had always thought Morrison aspired to make comics, at least in part, a more mature medium. Instead, he aspires to have us wake up to find Bobby Ewing in the shower.

So welcome back, Barry. We've missed you. Too bad your return is going devalue your sacrifice, screw up Wally's career, and render an entire universe to the level of a child's wish to "make it not have happened." But, we're comic readers of the last 20 years, Barry--we'll sacrifice, so you don't have to. Now that's heroism in the 21st century.

Now paging Uncle Ben....

Mystery of the Week

Why is it that Flash and family, as scripted by Mark Waid and appearing in The Brave and the Bold #8...

is soooo much better than Flash and family, as scripted by Mark Waid, in ANY issue of his latest run on Flash??

Just askin'...