Today DC unveiled many of the details about their upcoming relaunch, DC Rebirth. This includes a new creative team on The Flash book, as well as a few hints about what we’ll be seeing in it. The new title will be written by Joshua Williamson with art by Carmine Di Giandomencio and Neil Googe, and will ship twice monthly starting in June.
More news and details behind the jump.
Williamson said a Speed Force storm shows up over Central City, and there are dozens of new speedsters. Barry Allen has to train them. One in particular becomes a killer called Godspeed. The Flash cover featured the New 52 version of Wally West in some type of Kid Flash costume.
Godspeed has a neat design which is mildly reminiscent of the CWverse Zoom and The Suit, but there don’t seem to be any other details available about him or her. And Wally West appears on the promotional cover as Kid Flash, as noted above, along with Iris West and Captain Cold. Cold is still using the cold gun but also seems to have ice effects on his arms, so it’ll be interesting to see what his status is in the relaunch. Wally’s also clearly an established hero in the promotional images, and it’s not clear if we’ll be seeing him become Kid Flash before Williamson’s run begins in June, or if the new book will set it up or just jump ahead.
The Flash will also appear in the new Justice League title, which will be written by Bryan Hitch and drawn by Tony Daniel and Fernando Pasarin. It too will be twice-monthly, and will launch in July. There’s also going to be a Teen Titans book by Ben Percy and Jonboy Meyers, but it isn’t clear if Kid Flash will be part of its lineup. Wally does appear in some of the general Rebirth promotional art next to Robin and Superboy, which suggests he might appear outside The Flash book as well.
So all in all, it seems like there’ll be some significant changes coming to the Flashverse and DCU as a whole. What do you think of the new creative teams and new direction of these books? Does it spark your interest, or would you rather wait and see? Feel free to share your thoughts!
Hi, thought the launch was cool, nice to be able to watch it live from Australia :). Wally is looking back at us from one of Damian’s shuriken (?) blade reflections, so it’s looking promising for his inclusion in Teen Titans.
I’ve been looking at this site daily for years, great work, nice to finally contribute.
Cheers from MobyOne
Yeah, I’ve seen more art which strongly implies Wally will be in the Teen Titans since posting this yesterday, so it does seem a sure thing. The image with Damian is here, for those who haven’t yet seen it.
Thanks for your comment, and glad to have you on board! 🙂
I wasn’t thrilled about the idea of lots of new speedsters, but I’m glad Wally is actually becoming Kid Flash. And I am SO happy there is a new creative team. I love Birthright, so Joshua Williamson has me intrigued. I will give him the benefit of the doubt and check out his run. I’ve dropped off Flash ever since Venditti took over – it’s good to be (cautiously) looking forward to reading Flash again!
Everyone was hoping for an OG Wally announcement and disappointment ensued. I could care less if they’re spreading out a version of the character I have no interest in across multiple titles. The problem with NuWally wasn’t that he didn’t get enough screen time — it’s more that he got any at all.
That aside, I’ve never read anything by Williamson so I can’t really comment on that change. The art looks fine, if not particularly great. NuWally’s costume does not fit his ethnicity and short hair — I hope they fix that up. One of the first things Booth did after his initial design was close up the open cowl because it does not work with short hair at all.
The artists/whoever pitched this design should go check out Danica Williams’ Flash design to show how you may want to do a black person in a speedster outfit with an open cowl. Instead of Wally’s oldschool wavy hair give him longer, curlier hair.
The only problem with NuWally was that his characterization was a lazy attempt at a painfully (often offensively) cliche sidekick.
I have no problem with Wally being black, provided the writers care enough to incorporate the thing that made Wally popular to begin with: He is a classic Joseph Campbell hero. Not a sidekick. Whether or not he wears the Kid Flash costume, he has to be written like he is the hero of his own story at all times. His last words cannot be “I never would have been a hero without you, Barry.” Because Wally West is a kid who wants to be a hero, and who worked hard to make himself a hero.
However, I haven’t given up hope on Classic Wally returning (at least for the special). Johns hushed the panel twice to warn them about spoiling a major element of the Rebirth storyline. The first was during the talk about Flash. The second was during a talk about Titans. They said that there is an element in Titans Hunt that ties into Rebirth. The mystery character who is at the focal point in the Rebirth cover art is bathed in lightning.
So I am pretty sure Classic Wally will be returning. Will he return only to die in short order? Knowing Johns and Didio, it’s entirely possible.
Bringing Wally back and then killing him would be pretty brutal and a huge middle finger to his fans, so I hope they wouldn’t do that. There was a time when I thought they’d never do anything like that, but the early days of the New 52 and the higher-ups’ trolling kind of destroyed my faith. Still, I’d like to think they’ve learned since then and wouldn’t do it.
In all honesty though, I’m not sure if bringing in classic Wally is something they’d do because of the can of worms it’d open. You’ve got all these newer readers who don’t know who he is and would wonder why there are two versions of him running around. I’d think they’d only do it if they were trying to cater to old-school readers, and at this point I don’t know if they want to do that. Certainly it’d be a huge slap in the face if they were aiming this at longer-reading fans and then simply killed him off. I don’t know what they’d gain from it.
I’d prefer some incarnation of OG Wally elsewhere in the Multiverse Earth with other OG legacies like Kyle and Donna, while on this Earth (Earth 0.5?), Wally is an African-American Kid Flash.
I like Convergence: Speedforce and thought it really did justice to Wally, Irey, and Jai. I was terrified about what they’d do. I’m glad the pre-Flashpoint crew got to live happily ever after and like to imagine them in the Multiverse somewhere.
I have no problem with a race change for Wally. I do have a problem with bad characterization. They did not have to make Wally a troubled tween. They could’ve simply made him a good kid whose mom went missing, who felt lonely, and who wondered whether Flash was really such a good guy. A black Wally with his pre-Flashpoint/JLU personality would be a Wally I would definitely support. I would prefer him aged up to fight alongside the OG Titans, though (Donna, Dick, Garth, and Roy). Right now, Wally has returned to Teen Titans with Kory and Raven. So…let’s wait and see.
Still wish they’d do more with the Rogues and Piper/Singh. I love those characters.
You can’t really give a 12 year old kid the personality of a 20 something year old father. Wally’s personality was what it was pre-flashpoint because of all the stuff he did and went through.
If you want him to be like Wally was when he was Kid Flash then you probably wouldn’t like him. Wally was a jerk when he was younger. It’s part of what made his growing up and mellowing out so endearing.
I think having classic and new Wally together would work, provided they keep new Wally on the books that need to be new-reader friendly such as Flash and Teen Titans.
Classic Wally West will work just as easily as other legacy heroes, provided they keep him in a book dedicated to old fans and continuity, such as Titans. If the name confuses people, he can easily adopt an alias, like Ben Riley and Max Mercury did.
The links are broken when you click on the thumbnail images.
They all work on my end; maybe try them again? Anyone else having this issue?
They were broken earlier, but I fixed them. There’s some sort of weird bug with the server config and attachment pages.
The best Kid Flash costume was the one Bart Allen wore from Flash Rebirth right through to Flashpoint: Kid Flash Lost. The new one is 98% the same, so that’s good enough for me! I’d really missed that design.
The open top mask doesn’t work so well with a short haired character though – Impulse had the same issue when he shaved his head. I hope they grow out Wally’s hair eventually.
Curiously, this design doesn’t match the silhouette from the previous teaser – the seemingly adult height Flash with the “Batman eyes”, longer hair and the two-pronged lightning bolt.
Last minute design change, or something else to come?
The same teaser had a Jay Garrick looking silhouette, but apparently the JSA/Earth 2 announcement has been postponed.
The storyline with dozens of new speedsters concerns me a bit.
We’ve already had several speedster villains over the past 3 years – Reverse-Flash, Johnny Quick, Future Flash and Professor Zoom (as well as Grodd and Selkirk, briefly). So Godspeed doesn’t seem so exciting.
Barry training the new speedsters is the more interesting idea, but I’m worried it’ll detract from his mentorship of Wally West, which should be front and centre.
That aside, I’m optimistic. The series has been going through a rough a patch, so the new creative team is welcome.
I’m still in wait-and-see mode.
That’s how I feel too, Kelson. I am glad to see Wally in costume again, and I so hope that the Flash book gets better. It really has, IMO, floundered for years.
I think the new Wally in teen titans is a big step forward. He needs space to grow into his own, and ironically i think it is his relationship to the new Barry Allen that is dragging him down the most. He needs a life outside of the man Iris dubbed his “positive male role model.”
Solicitation text from Newsarama:
FLASH REBIRTH #1
Spinning directly out of the epic events of DC UNIVERSE: REBIRTH #1, the fastest man alive finds himself at the center of a DC Universe at a crossroads.
WARNING: Do NOT read this issue until after you read DC UNIVERSE: REBIRTH #1!
FLASH #1
“LIGHTNING STRIKES TWICE” chapter one
A new storm brews over Central City and disproves the old adage about lightning never, well…you know. Just as Barry begins to feel overwhelmed fighting crime, a new speedster debuts-but just where did this amazing new friend come from?
FLASH FACT: “2016 is the 60th anniversary of Barry Allen becoming The Flash and it’s a privilege to be a part of it,” says writer Joshua Williamson. “‘The Return of Barry Allen’ in FLASH #79 [1993] is one of my favorite comics of all time. It’s where I became a Flash fan for life.”
(For what it’s worth, the only other solicitation with the WARNING to read DCU Rebirth first is Titans Rebirth.)
Good to know Joshua is a Flash fan. Vendetti and his partner were really held back because they didn’t have any prior exposure to these characters when they started their run.
Especially good to know that he’s a fan of Mark Waid’s Flash!