Incoming Flash writers Robert Venditti and Van Jensen are featured today over at Newsarama in a thorough interview on their approach to and plans for their run, which begins in April with issue #30.
The two touch on their plans for the reintroduction of Wally West, as well as their focus on Barry Allen’s law-enforcement methods and the unique identity of Central City. Follow the jump for the latest!
On Wally West:
Venditti: Yes, Wally is Iris’ nephew. But the circumstances of what that family dynamic is, and how it ties into the story, is all an important piece of how Wally gets introduced. So we don’t want to get into any of that just yet.
The relationship that Barry has with Wally is hugely important to the first arc. And how that changes throughout the entire arc. Wally is going to be a permanent member of the cast. He’s not just going to come into the series and disappear. He’s going to be around for a very long time, with a very long-form, long-gain approach to developing his relationship with Barry…And it all ties into everything that’s been happening in the series up to now. It’s all developed completely organically. And I think people are going to be happy with the direction we take it.
Jensen: The relationship between them, I think it has a great echo of the previous iterations of the character, where you see how important they are to each other.
On the Future Flash seen in the solicitations for upcoming issues:
Newsarama: Are you guys able to talk about the Future Flash? Is he the villain in your first arc?
Jensen: We can say that Future Flash is from the future. [Laughs.]
Venditti: I’ll answer it this way. There are going to be a lot of villains in this initial arc, and one of the things that I think Van and I are having a great lot of fun with is not just playing with the classic Flash villains that everybody’s going to know and everybody enjoys, but also creating new ones.
On their view of the Flash character, his police job and Central City:
Venditti: For me, much like a lot of the characters that I’ve worked on in comics, I didn’t grow up reading comics…my knowledge of Flash would be what people would know through general, sort of pop culture immersion, whether it’s the Justice League cartoons or the TV show they had back when I was younger.
To me, the concept has always just been really cool, because there’s this distinct thing about him where he’s a guy with a lightning bolt on his chest and he runs fast. And there’s something about that — from the moment we’re born and we’re little kids, we always want to run fast, you know? And he’s a character who lives that out. So that’s always appealed to me. After I was asked to pitch for the series, I started reading up on the character and getting to know him more — Barry specifically. And there’s a lot that I find very appealing.
Jensen: Over the years, I’ve come to appreciate a couple of things about the character — especially, now that I’m writing Barry and inhabiting this world — one of which is Central City is kind of an outlier in the DC Universe. It’s a city, but it’s more middle America. I grew up on the Plains, in a pretty small town. So it’s different, but it’s closer to where I grew up than, say, Gotham City or Metropolis.
And then, like Rob was saying, everything with the crime lab, and working with the police department is something — especially in recent years — I’ve identified a lot with, from the work I did as a crime reporter.
Newsrama: I can tell we’re going to see some detective stories that utilize that crime lab.
Venditti: We’re definitely going to be using the procedural elements of Barry working the crime lab a lot. That’s one of the great strengths that Van brings to his writing, his background and experience working as a crime reporter. So we’re definitely going to lean into that.
And I would say there’s also going to be middle-America elements to what we’re writing, trying to focus on Central City, especially in the wake of Forever Evil. This was one of the cities that was hit hardest by that event.
There’s lots, lots more on Wally, Iris, the supporting cast and their impressions of artist Brett Booth’s work. Check out Newsarama for the full piece!
What do you guys think about this peek at the future Flash?
Does the blue streaks mean anything? I like the art of the last issue, and like the art shown above? Not sure there is a need for all the streaks but what the heck.
I remain wary. Same feelings as had with Booth’s interview. Nothing has changed or is likely to change until after the arc is done. However, if Wally is an adult (18+ would be fine), looks like Wally and acts like Wally (Messner-Loeb thru Waid) that will go a long way to reassure me even before the end of the arc.
Best news is that Barry and Wally will at least before very long be friends. That does give me some hope. Even if some fans are won’t to play the idiotic “Mine’s best!” game, I like my heroes to respect each other.
The waiting game continues.
I’m optimistic but a tad concerned. Both writers don’t seem to know way more about Barry than Wally. Have they read the entirety of Wally’ series? Are they going to ignore it since this is the “New 52” version of Wally and he may very little in common with the Wally we know aside from being Iris’ nephew? I should point out that in the original continuity, Iris’s real parents sent her back in time from the 30th century, so technically she and Wally aren’t even really related. Which makes me wonder if Daniel West and Wally’s mother (pre-New 52) are even related or if they are from completely different “West” families. And if there is a “Future Flash” will he be Wally from the future (say 5 years from now) or a John Fox type from a few centuries ahead?