There’s an extensive 4-page interview with Geoff Johns up at IGN in which he talks about everything from story structure and theme to specific character motivations.
One segment on the first page really bothered me, though, when he said of the retcon that inserts a serious tragedy into his childhood:
We’ve never really visited Barry Allen’s past before he got hit by the bolt of lightning. And so some of what Rebirth is going to do is delve back into the past and reveal some things about it that previously weren’t there.
Never visited it? Really?
Apparently he’s never read any of the Silver Age or Bronze Age stories that flashed back to Barry’s childhood, or in which he caught up with his childhood sweetheart Daphne Dean, or visited both still very much alive parents…or Mark Waid’s The Life Story of the Flash.
He goes on to explain:
IGN: Why did you think it was important to bring some tragedy into his back-story?
Johns: What we’ll find out is we’ll see what drove him to adopt such a strong sense of justice. I really want to explore what drove Barry Allen to adopt his uncanny sense of wrong and right. You’re not just born with that. Barry Allen strove for that and was somewhat obsessed with it. Also, it’s about why he got into forensics. What led him to that area of work? Why not become a cop or a prosecutor? Why forensics? That’s something I really wanted to explore – what drove Barry Allen to this life that he chose? What made him Barry Allen before he was hit by the bolt of lightning?
Funny… here I thought Hunter Zolomon was supposed to be a villain. Apparently he was actually an author avatar.
