Comics Should Be Good has posted the results of their reader poll for the Greatest Wally West stories ever told. It’s technically a top ten list, but they included eleven stories because the #10 winner was essentially a prologue for one of the other winners.
It’s interesting to break down the results by writer:
- 7 by Mark Waid (including the top three)
- 2 by Geoff Johns
- 2 by William Messner-Loebs
In a way it’s surprising that Geoff Johns, DC’s current superstar writer, isn’t more heavily represented, but it also makes sense. Mark Waid’s run on The Flash was very much about Wally West and his journey through young adulthood (Messner-Loebs’ run even more so!), while Geoff Johns’ run tilted a bit more toward the Rogues.
Head over to Comics Should Be Good for the full list!
That’s not really that surprising to me, Waid is usually praised to the max by Wally fans which makes it even funnier to me that those same fans turned in him so quickly when he returned their favorite hero.
In other words, Wally’s fans judged Waid’s work based on the actual work, not on the writer’s name.
Wow, what a shocker.
Not really, if anything Wally fans showed that they aren’t really about progression like they claim but instead cling to the way Wally used to be when he was first writting the book. You’d think they would have been greatfull because their hero was back but no, the moment Waid started to change things up they acted just like the people they love to bash.
There’s progression, and then there’s changing the concept. A lot of the fans who didn’t like Waid’s return to the book (and no, they weren’t all of Wally’s fans, nor were all of them fans of Wally) didn’t like it because it changed from a book about a guy who runs fast to a book about a super-hero family. That changes the dynamic considerably more than changing from a book about one guy who runs fast to another guy who runs fast, or a guy who runs fast and is a jerk to a guy who runs fast and has learned to be less of a jerk.
Personally, I think the direction could have worked given more time and a better first arc. I thought the middle of Tom Peyer’s story was really good, though it fizzled out toward the end. But then I still think that Lightning In a Bottle would have made a great 3-part story (instead of the 6-part slog it was), and if paced better might have actually caught on with fans to the extent that we’d either still be reading about Bart as Flash, or he would have stuck around until Barry’s return. (I’m still not convinced by Dan Didio’s “Oh, I meant to do that!” claims.)
I don’t know why you would expect people to judge a book solely on the name of the lead character, though. If we all did that, there would be no reason to review comics, and certainly no reason to discuss which of a character’s stories are better or worse than others.
I don’t expect anything, you’re the one who said that Wally fans judged Waid’s return to Flash on the quality of the story which is false.
Simply put Wally fans didn’t give a guy they put no a pedestal time to even flesh out things before abandoning his run.
That kind of hypocrisy is amazing to me, all this time they were the one’s claiming that they liked progression and didn’t want to move backwards. But in the end when they didn’t get Wally the way he used to be the pouted and left and complained about all the changes a couple of issues into Waid’s run.
Okay, EJ/E-MAC, we get it. You have a ridiculously low opinion of Wally’s fans, to the extent that you aren’t willing to credit them with, well, anything.
You’ve made that perfectly clear over the years…here, at Newsarama, at Comic Bloc, and no doubt in other forums as well.
And really, taking shots at Wally’s fans three times on a post intended to celebrate the character’s best stories?
That’s not discussion. That’s trolling.
I don’t think there’s anything more you can add to this discussion.
I agree with most of the stories listed, if not the numbering. The Return of Barry Allen should of course be #1 (and it is) but I was pleasantly surprised to see Flash #54 and #48-50 on there as well. Surprised that Rogue War ranked as high as it did (I enjoyed it, but it wasn’t one of my favorites) and that Wonderland (Geoff’s first story arc on Flash, and his strongest work with Wally as a character aside from “Ignition” I thought) wasn’t listed at all.
I personally loved Chained Lightning and Hell to Pay (particularly the ending issues of each.
*sigh*
Too many danged good stories to choose from!
Johns’ tales focused more on the Rogues than the main character? I don’t think I ever thought of it that way, but that might help explain why I was less pleased with his run on the title.
I am no fan of the Rogues. I don’t dislike them. They just aren’t the reason that I read Flash stories. Wally is – or was.
.-= West3man’s latest blog post: Octopussy =-.