Tag Archives: Wally West

Speed Reading: Spotlight, Uni-Formz, Gratuitous Storytelling and More

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More weekend linkblogging!

Crimson Lightning has finished the month-long Rogue Spotlight on Abra Kadabra.

That F—ing Monkey reviews the Flash Uni-Formz action figures in great detail.

At Newsarama, Jill Pantozzi considers possible super-hero dads. Her favorite pick? A certain redheaded speedster who might be familiar to readers of this blog.

Other Comics

Collected Editions looks into the question: will the Young Justice cartoon series bring us any new YJ collections? They’ve also updated the DC Trade Paperback Timeline.

Multiversity Comics discusses gratuitous storytelling in recent comics, particularly DC and Marvel. *cough*Rise of Arsenal*cough*

Comics Should Be Good compares various artists’ approach to super-heroic posture.

Comics Nexus notes a trend in current DC Comics and concludes that Geoff Johns must be stopped. Is the tendency to tie everything together good for comics…or is it hurting them in favor of media adaptations? There’s a follow-up post, too, which amounts to, we really don’t think he’s the problem, honest!

Speaking of Geoff Johns, IGN interviews DC’s Chief Creative Officer about Brightest Day and the Rebirth of the DC Universe.

Speed Reading: Recommendations

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The linkblogging catchup continues!

Comics Should Be Good features Flash #54: “Nobody Dies” (William Messner-Loebs and Greg LaRocque) in their Year of Cool Comics. It’s one of my favorite one-issue stories from Wally West’s run, and not surprisingly it made the reader-selected list of top 10 Wally West stories a few weeks later.

A bit off topic, CSBG also reviews Mysterius the Unfathomable. It was a fun fantasy/horror/comedy miniseries last year, and is now available as a trade paperback.

Multiversity Comics recommends the new Flash series. Among other reasons: “he has a secret identity which actually gets used, instead of being forgotten for more exciting superhero stories.” And of course, “Flash has some of the best and most fleshed out rogues in the business.”

Update: One more! Several Flash storylines appear in CSBG’s Greatest Mark Waid Stories Ever Told list: Dead Heat, Terminal Velocity and The Return of Barry Allen.

Speed Reading: To the Art

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Some art-related linkblogging…

Yildiray Cinar draws an impressive Reverse Flash (via @SpeedsterSite)

There’s a new Rogue in town…a new Rogues blog, that is: The Rogues Kick Ass (via @liabrown1). So far, it’s mostly comedic scans from published comics. (Context? What context?)

This is Knutz presents: The Rogues as kittens. (via @SpeedsterSite) Hilarious!

The Best Comic Covers looks back on the 9 Best Superman vs Flash Covers.

Various people at DC Comics weigh in on their favorite DC covers. Dan Didio’s is Michael Turner’s Flash #207 (via @SpeedsterSite).

Last week, Once Upon a Geek posted a series of poster galleries, including the JSA, Flash, Green Lantern, Sandman, Crisis on Infinite Earths, and more.

Behind the Scenes

Francis Manapul has been posting a lot of Flash art on Twitter lately: the uncolored art for the Flash #5 cover and five pages from Flash #2.

Val Victory’s review of the Flash: Rebirth hardcover includes scans of Ethan Van Sciver’s discarded designs for Wally West’s new costume.

Lots of places have been posting about Wednesday Comics with the release of the hardcover this week. The Source has some of the extras, including art from Karl Kerschl’s Flash strip.

Comic Strips

OK, none of these strips are Flash-related… but I had to share them anyway.

Comic Critics points out that Gotham City is a bad place to open themed businesses.

Creebobby presents Batman after a bad night on patrol: Bat-Fail.

These Are The Greatest Wally West Stories Ever Told

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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 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!

Surprising Flash Fact: Wally West has More Experience than Barry Allen

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I had an odd thought while reading The Flash * last week. Francis Manapul draws Barry and Iris in a way that makes them look fairly young, and I remembered someone’s remark that the cowl on Wally West’s new costume makes him look older than Barry, even though Wally used to be Barry’s younger sidekick.

Then it hit me: No, Wally isn’t older than Barry Allen (even with time travel) but when you factor in his earlier Kid Flash career, he actually has more experience than Barry at this point!

No, Really!

Wally West became Kid Flash very early in Barry Allen’s Flash career — only six issues into his solo series! Flash vol.1 started with #105, picking up from where the Golden Age Flash Comics left off, and Wally was struck by lightning in Flash #110, back in 1959. He didn’t retire as Kid Flash until very late in Barry’s career, in New Teen Titans #39 — just one year before Barry vanished in 1985.**

So Wally West has been running around for most of Barry’s career plus his own!

Team Player

During his JLA run, Grant Morrison is one of the few writers I can remember really building on the fact that the original Titans grew up as super-heroes. I don’t recall it being a plot point, but Morrison mentioned it in an interview, or possibly one of the Secret Files books, and it clearly factored into his characterization of Wally West. He might not have been as old as Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, but he’d been working with a team longer than they had, and he was a consummate professional.

Wally wasn’t the rookie on the team by any stretch. That honor went to Green Lantern Kyle Rayner.

Of course, neither Wally nor Barry can hold a candle to Jay Garrick, who has been speeding since 1940!

*Yes, I do still plan on reviewing it. It was just a busy week, and for some reason, it’s been hard to sit down and write it.

**These are of course the real-world publishing dates. The fictional DC Universe would use a vague “X years ago” timeline that always seems to change, but usually compresses everything from the dawn of the Silver Age onward into a 10-15–year period.