The Sun Sets On The West
This week, The Flash (vol. 2) #230 marked the end of 19 years chronicling the solo adventures of Wally West. It may well be DC's biggest success among the various post-Crisis revamps. Now Wally is a star, with a unique place in DC history and appearances on both of DC's animated teams, "Justice League Unlimited" and (arguably) "Teen Titans" -- and originally, he might not even have gotten the job.
Wally's future as the Flash began, naturally, with the evolution of Crisis on Infinite Earths. In May 1984* executive editor Dick Giordano told editor Julius Schwartz and Flash writer/editor Cary Bates that Barry Allen's book would be cancelled. By July 1984, a memo from Bob Greenberger mentioned Bates' plans for Barry's physiology to change so that if he used his super-speed one more time, it would kill him. There were discussions about whether Barry should die or just remain powerless, but the decision was made not to give a "lazy writer" an opportunity to restore Barry's speed. In that July memo, Greenberger also observed that Wally could "possibly" become the new Flash.
Ironically, by the summer of 1984, Wally was already in a predicament similar to the one Bates planned for Barry. He had quit the Teen Titans because not only was he gradually losing his speed, using it was causing him tremendous pain and could even kill him. This effectively retired him at the tender age of 19, and apparently only the combination of a universe-shattering event and the disappearance of his uncle could bring him back. Still, although a blast from the Anti-Monitor in Crisis #12 magically cured Wally, it reduced his speed dramatically. Top speed was Mach 1, and he had to "fuel up" with mountains of food.
After Crisis, Wally returned to the Titans for several months, until the events of Legends allowed him to spin off into his own series in the spring of 1987. Writer Mike Baron aimed to make Wally a typical 20-year-old, albeit one with super-speed, an heroic legacy to uphold, and a bank account bursting with lottery winnings. Never mind Vandal Savage -- before too long, Wally's high-school sweetheart had left him, and after sleeping with a married woman, the new Flash found himself chased by a vengeful husband who had given himself super-speed.
However, it wasn't all bed-hopping and high life. Baron brought a number of new characters into the Flash fold, including the cybernetically-based Kilg%re, Soviet speedsters Red Trinity and Blue Trinity, and villains-at-first Speed Demon (the cuckolded hubby) and Chunk. Vandal Savage was in Baron's first and last arcs; and by the end of Baron's 14-issue tenure, Savage had taken everything from Wally, including his super-speed.
It was therefore up to writer William Messner-Loebs to restore Wally's fortunes. However, even after stopping Savage, Wally's speed kept failing him. Between the Vandal Savage arc, the power-robbing effects of DC's Invasion! crossover, and Wally's subsequent attempts to recreate that lightning-and-chemical cocktail, Messner-Loebs spent most of his first 14 issues with a Flash in name only.
Thankfully, Messner-Loebs was also building up Wally's supporting cast. Taking many of Mike Baron's characters, including a few of the "villains," Messner-Loebs made everyone sympathetic to Wally. This included a fair amount of Barry's Rogues' Gallery, who treated Wally like their own knucklehead nephew. Messner-Loebs also brought back Wally's parents, who were so unexamined they didn't even have names in Who's Who. Wally's mom became a slightly younger version of Aunt May, and his dad was revealed as an evil sleeper agent. (They subsequently split up.) Under Messner-Loebs, Wally moved to Keystone City, where he met TV reporter Linda Park; and under Messner-Loebs, Wally's psychologist suggested that the problems with his speed might be psychosomatically related to his feelings about Barry Allen. Messner-Loebs' tenure ended after almost four years, with issue #61 (April 1992) featuring the wedding of Wally's mother.
His successor, Mark Waid, would take Wally to new heights. Beginning with a four-part biweekly look back at Wally's first summer with super-speed, Waid focused on the legacy of the Flash. His seminal "Return of Barry Allen" storyline (issue #s 73-79) resolved any lingering issues about Wally's late uncle, and established Wally as the standardbearer for generations of speedsters past and future. With the Justice Society recently returned from limbo, Waid could use original Flash Jay Garrick and his colleague Johnny Quick; and remade the obscure Max Mercury into a "Zen Master of speed." When Johnny's daughter Jesse Quick was introduced in the short-lived Justice Society title, Waid brought her in as well; and created Barry's grandson Bart "Impulse" Allen. Waid didn't use many of the old supporting cast except steady girlfriend Linda Park, but with all these speedsters around he didn't need to.
Waid unified these characters with the concept of the "Speed Force," a magical energy which apparently solved all kinds of physics issues and provided an afterlife for those who had gone before. It was into this netherworld that Wally sacrificed himself at the end of Flash #99 (March 1995), only to emerge in the next issue faster than ever.
To me, this is Waid's ultimate gift to the character. Marv Wolfman and George Perez had been frustrated with Wally as a Teen Titan because he was just as powerful as Barry Allen, and therefore very hard to write convincingly. Thus, they de-powered him, had him leave the group, and restored only a fraction of his speed. Within those parameters, Mike Baron then gave Wally a taste of the typical twenty-year-old's fantasy life. It was up to Bill Messner-Loebs to make Wally not only likeable, but believable as a young man struggling with his own issues while still in his late uncle's shadow. Messner-Loebs had a successful run, but Wally still wasn't back to his peak, and Waid aimed to get him there. With Flash #100, that was accomplished. Now Wally, unlike his predecessors, could channel the Speed Force himself, thereby making him one of the most powerful of DC's heroes.
On another level, though, this could be seen as Waid's way of honoring the Silver Age, of which the Barry Allen Flash had been the vanguard, and even the personification. Mike Baron used very few Silver Age elements and William Messner-Loebs tended to use them ironically, but Waid embraced them. It has been said that Waid's Flash inspired Grant Morrison to take over JLA, and in fact Morrison and Mark Millar pinch-hit for a year on Flash while Waid and his co-writer Brian Augustyn planned their farewell to Wally West.
If Messner-Loebs kept mucking with Wally's speed, Waid and Augustyn frequently toyed with Wally's very existence. Wally was lost in the Speed Force both at the end of #99, and in a later time-hopping storyline (#s 113-17). Likewise, the "Chain Lightning" arc which led up to #150 had Wally once again sacrifice himself, this time to preserve the heroes' victory at the end of Crisis on Infinite Earths. The "Dark Flash" which returned from that trip to the Speed Force was a product of Hypertime (the parallel-universe plot mechanism Waid and Morrison devised); and when the real Wally said goodbye to his "brother" Walter in #159 (April 2000), Waid also left, after eight years' worth of issues on the title.
With so much focus on Wally and his associates, and apparently no new heights to scale in terms of his powers, it's only natural to look back on Geoff Johns' five years and see mainly the Rogues' Gallery. Johns reawakened the villainous tendencies of old Rogues and created new bad guys to fill others' shoes. Some issues were devoted entirely to a single villain, and the Iron Heights special spotlighted Keystone's maximum-security prison. Most notably, Johns created a new (Professor) Zoom, who thought that Wally could only reach his ultimate heroic potential after being tested by adversity. Indeed, having Wally defined by his adversaries is probably a good shorthand for Johns' tenure. Not surprisingly, Johns finished up with "Rogue War," a battle across Keystone between the reformed Rogues and a group of new and old villains.
Johns also restored Wally's secret identity, gone even since before issue #1, and gave Wally the blue-collar (if seldom seen) job of police auto mechanic. Wally and Linda married towards the end of Waid's tenure, and Johns gave the couple twins. It was all in the service of defining Wally as a working-class hero, which recalled his Midwestern-conservative roots in New Teen Titans.
After "Rogue War," DC editor Joey Cavalieri penned a three-issue storyline featuring Vandal Savage, which if nothing else was a nod to Mike Baron's and William Messner-Loebs' use of the character. The story was a hash of present-day action and alternate-future nightmare sequences involving Savage's attempts to destroy civilization with a meteor. Its epilogue had Wally pondering a sabbatical, if not outright retirement, so he could spend more time with his family -- and then he, Bart, and Jay Garrick sped off into the Speed Force in Infinite Crisis #4.
It’s a mystery to me why DC would want to cancel this book, presumably only to relaunch it as part of "One Year Later." DC doesn’t need to get rid of Wally, and in fact he may now be so familiar to fans of the "Justice League" cartoon as to be untouchable. Furthermore, it may only be a coincidence, but DC has just released the DVDs of the 1990-91 "Flash" TV show, which featured Barry Allen but used aspects of Wally's character. Finally, the Kid Flash who just appeared on "Teen Titans" sure sounded a lot like "Justice League"'s speedster.
Perhaps most importantly, there is little (if any) public clamor for either the return of Barry Allen or the replacement of Wally by a third party. I have to think this is due to the steady, gradual increase in Wally's power level and the constant self-evaluation of his worthiness to be the Flash. Similarly, the four major Flash writers each had to balance fidelity to the Flash legacy with the need to advance the character. Since Geoff Johns never dwelled on Wally's issues with Barry, that may be the most significant indication of Wally's ascendancy to the "adult table." Although that subplot ran through Wally's first fourteen years as the Flash, DC shouldn't take its apparent resolution as a sign that Wally is no longer useful. If anything, Wally and Linda's twins clearly symbolize the perpetuation of the Flash legacy, and might therefore inspire the next Flash writer.
Therefore, my hope is that Wally will emerge from the Speed Force this summer reinvigorated, and that his new handlers will also be eager to add to that legacy. I had heard a rumor about Darwyn Cooke...?
* References in this paragraph are to memos reproduced in Crisis On Infinite Earths: The Compendium, included in Crisis' Absolute edition.
Wally's future as the Flash began, naturally, with the evolution of Crisis on Infinite Earths. In May 1984* executive editor Dick Giordano told editor Julius Schwartz and Flash writer/editor Cary Bates that Barry Allen's book would be cancelled. By July 1984, a memo from Bob Greenberger mentioned Bates' plans for Barry's physiology to change so that if he used his super-speed one more time, it would kill him. There were discussions about whether Barry should die or just remain powerless, but the decision was made not to give a "lazy writer" an opportunity to restore Barry's speed. In that July memo, Greenberger also observed that Wally could "possibly" become the new Flash.
Ironically, by the summer of 1984, Wally was already in a predicament similar to the one Bates planned for Barry. He had quit the Teen Titans because not only was he gradually losing his speed, using it was causing him tremendous pain and could even kill him. This effectively retired him at the tender age of 19, and apparently only the combination of a universe-shattering event and the disappearance of his uncle could bring him back. Still, although a blast from the Anti-Monitor in Crisis #12 magically cured Wally, it reduced his speed dramatically. Top speed was Mach 1, and he had to "fuel up" with mountains of food.
After Crisis, Wally returned to the Titans for several months, until the events of Legends allowed him to spin off into his own series in the spring of 1987. Writer Mike Baron aimed to make Wally a typical 20-year-old, albeit one with super-speed, an heroic legacy to uphold, and a bank account bursting with lottery winnings. Never mind Vandal Savage -- before too long, Wally's high-school sweetheart had left him, and after sleeping with a married woman, the new Flash found himself chased by a vengeful husband who had given himself super-speed.
However, it wasn't all bed-hopping and high life. Baron brought a number of new characters into the Flash fold, including the cybernetically-based Kilg%re, Soviet speedsters Red Trinity and Blue Trinity, and villains-at-first Speed Demon (the cuckolded hubby) and Chunk. Vandal Savage was in Baron's first and last arcs; and by the end of Baron's 14-issue tenure, Savage had taken everything from Wally, including his super-speed.
It was therefore up to writer William Messner-Loebs to restore Wally's fortunes. However, even after stopping Savage, Wally's speed kept failing him. Between the Vandal Savage arc, the power-robbing effects of DC's Invasion! crossover, and Wally's subsequent attempts to recreate that lightning-and-chemical cocktail, Messner-Loebs spent most of his first 14 issues with a Flash in name only.
Thankfully, Messner-Loebs was also building up Wally's supporting cast. Taking many of Mike Baron's characters, including a few of the "villains," Messner-Loebs made everyone sympathetic to Wally. This included a fair amount of Barry's Rogues' Gallery, who treated Wally like their own knucklehead nephew. Messner-Loebs also brought back Wally's parents, who were so unexamined they didn't even have names in Who's Who. Wally's mom became a slightly younger version of Aunt May, and his dad was revealed as an evil sleeper agent. (They subsequently split up.) Under Messner-Loebs, Wally moved to Keystone City, where he met TV reporter Linda Park; and under Messner-Loebs, Wally's psychologist suggested that the problems with his speed might be psychosomatically related to his feelings about Barry Allen. Messner-Loebs' tenure ended after almost four years, with issue #61 (April 1992) featuring the wedding of Wally's mother.
His successor, Mark Waid, would take Wally to new heights. Beginning with a four-part biweekly look back at Wally's first summer with super-speed, Waid focused on the legacy of the Flash. His seminal "Return of Barry Allen" storyline (issue #s 73-79) resolved any lingering issues about Wally's late uncle, and established Wally as the standardbearer for generations of speedsters past and future. With the Justice Society recently returned from limbo, Waid could use original Flash Jay Garrick and his colleague Johnny Quick; and remade the obscure Max Mercury into a "Zen Master of speed." When Johnny's daughter Jesse Quick was introduced in the short-lived Justice Society title, Waid brought her in as well; and created Barry's grandson Bart "Impulse" Allen. Waid didn't use many of the old supporting cast except steady girlfriend Linda Park, but with all these speedsters around he didn't need to.
Waid unified these characters with the concept of the "Speed Force," a magical energy which apparently solved all kinds of physics issues and provided an afterlife for those who had gone before. It was into this netherworld that Wally sacrificed himself at the end of Flash #99 (March 1995), only to emerge in the next issue faster than ever.
To me, this is Waid's ultimate gift to the character. Marv Wolfman and George Perez had been frustrated with Wally as a Teen Titan because he was just as powerful as Barry Allen, and therefore very hard to write convincingly. Thus, they de-powered him, had him leave the group, and restored only a fraction of his speed. Within those parameters, Mike Baron then gave Wally a taste of the typical twenty-year-old's fantasy life. It was up to Bill Messner-Loebs to make Wally not only likeable, but believable as a young man struggling with his own issues while still in his late uncle's shadow. Messner-Loebs had a successful run, but Wally still wasn't back to his peak, and Waid aimed to get him there. With Flash #100, that was accomplished. Now Wally, unlike his predecessors, could channel the Speed Force himself, thereby making him one of the most powerful of DC's heroes.
On another level, though, this could be seen as Waid's way of honoring the Silver Age, of which the Barry Allen Flash had been the vanguard, and even the personification. Mike Baron used very few Silver Age elements and William Messner-Loebs tended to use them ironically, but Waid embraced them. It has been said that Waid's Flash inspired Grant Morrison to take over JLA, and in fact Morrison and Mark Millar pinch-hit for a year on Flash while Waid and his co-writer Brian Augustyn planned their farewell to Wally West.
If Messner-Loebs kept mucking with Wally's speed, Waid and Augustyn frequently toyed with Wally's very existence. Wally was lost in the Speed Force both at the end of #99, and in a later time-hopping storyline (#s 113-17). Likewise, the "Chain Lightning" arc which led up to #150 had Wally once again sacrifice himself, this time to preserve the heroes' victory at the end of Crisis on Infinite Earths. The "Dark Flash" which returned from that trip to the Speed Force was a product of Hypertime (the parallel-universe plot mechanism Waid and Morrison devised); and when the real Wally said goodbye to his "brother" Walter in #159 (April 2000), Waid also left, after eight years' worth of issues on the title.
With so much focus on Wally and his associates, and apparently no new heights to scale in terms of his powers, it's only natural to look back on Geoff Johns' five years and see mainly the Rogues' Gallery. Johns reawakened the villainous tendencies of old Rogues and created new bad guys to fill others' shoes. Some issues were devoted entirely to a single villain, and the Iron Heights special spotlighted Keystone's maximum-security prison. Most notably, Johns created a new (Professor) Zoom, who thought that Wally could only reach his ultimate heroic potential after being tested by adversity. Indeed, having Wally defined by his adversaries is probably a good shorthand for Johns' tenure. Not surprisingly, Johns finished up with "Rogue War," a battle across Keystone between the reformed Rogues and a group of new and old villains.
Johns also restored Wally's secret identity, gone even since before issue #1, and gave Wally the blue-collar (if seldom seen) job of police auto mechanic. Wally and Linda married towards the end of Waid's tenure, and Johns gave the couple twins. It was all in the service of defining Wally as a working-class hero, which recalled his Midwestern-conservative roots in New Teen Titans.
After "Rogue War," DC editor Joey Cavalieri penned a three-issue storyline featuring Vandal Savage, which if nothing else was a nod to Mike Baron's and William Messner-Loebs' use of the character. The story was a hash of present-day action and alternate-future nightmare sequences involving Savage's attempts to destroy civilization with a meteor. Its epilogue had Wally pondering a sabbatical, if not outright retirement, so he could spend more time with his family -- and then he, Bart, and Jay Garrick sped off into the Speed Force in Infinite Crisis #4.
It’s a mystery to me why DC would want to cancel this book, presumably only to relaunch it as part of "One Year Later." DC doesn’t need to get rid of Wally, and in fact he may now be so familiar to fans of the "Justice League" cartoon as to be untouchable. Furthermore, it may only be a coincidence, but DC has just released the DVDs of the 1990-91 "Flash" TV show, which featured Barry Allen but used aspects of Wally's character. Finally, the Kid Flash who just appeared on "Teen Titans" sure sounded a lot like "Justice League"'s speedster.
Perhaps most importantly, there is little (if any) public clamor for either the return of Barry Allen or the replacement of Wally by a third party. I have to think this is due to the steady, gradual increase in Wally's power level and the constant self-evaluation of his worthiness to be the Flash. Similarly, the four major Flash writers each had to balance fidelity to the Flash legacy with the need to advance the character. Since Geoff Johns never dwelled on Wally's issues with Barry, that may be the most significant indication of Wally's ascendancy to the "adult table." Although that subplot ran through Wally's first fourteen years as the Flash, DC shouldn't take its apparent resolution as a sign that Wally is no longer useful. If anything, Wally and Linda's twins clearly symbolize the perpetuation of the Flash legacy, and might therefore inspire the next Flash writer.
Therefore, my hope is that Wally will emerge from the Speed Force this summer reinvigorated, and that his new handlers will also be eager to add to that legacy. I had heard a rumor about Darwyn Cooke...?
* References in this paragraph are to memos reproduced in Crisis On Infinite Earths: The Compendium, included in Crisis' Absolute edition.
posted by Tom Bondurant @ 7:30 PM
3 Comments:
CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! CLAP!
That was a great Flash retrospective there.
Wonderful. Loved reading that.
Thanks.
Darwyn Cooke, huh? That could be good. Yes, indeed.
Mark "Puff" Anderson
good job, Tom. I was a big Wally fan during Waid's run. I hope he sticks around, but I don't think he will.
Thanks, guys -- but I am ashamed to point out that I mistakenly said Jay Garrick went into the Speed Force in IC #4. All those memories from the '80s and '90s, and I can't get a comic from last week right....
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