Josh Williamson Talks The Flash: Rebirth #1 And What Makes Barry A Hero

In three weeks, The Flash will run headlong into a new challenge, a new creative team, and a new status quo.

As part of DC's wide-reaching Rebirth publishing initiative, Barry Allen will be facing down a wide array of new challenges in a series from writer Josh Williamson with artist Carmine Di Giandomenico.

Williamson joined ComicBook.com to talk about the series, which launches on June 8.

Obviously one of the things about The Flash is that you have the specter of this massively successful television hanging over the book. Do you watch The Flash? I know that when I spoke Ben Percy about Green Arrow he was told by the editors, "Don't watch that. Do your own thing." Do you watch the TV show? Obviously there are elements of the show that appear to be popping up from comic book fashion in the Rebirth stuff.

Yeah. I love the show, man. I love it. It's probably my favorite thing on TV right now. It's like my happy place, you know. My editors, I believe, told me that. I think early, early on, so way back in the early stages, I actually had a couple of things that I was adding that subconsciously were coming from the show that I was subconsciously being influenced by. The editors actually pointed it out to me and I had to reign back in. I didn't want to copy the show, you know.

There are some elements from the show thrown in there, but I wouldn't really say that it was influenced aside from the fact that I ... I don't know man, I love that show. I think that is kind of like ... I don't know man, they raised the bar I feel like for The Flash comic and for that to say that I'm competing with I'm trying to make sure the comic is as good as that show.

That's the biggest influence on it is just me looking at it and saying, "Wow this show is really, really good and I love it". I love The Flash. I love that show. I want to make sure that I'm doing something that I, as a Flash fan, would enjoy, as I much as I enjoy the show.

One of the things that jumps right out at me was Wally playing, what appears to be a bigger role. You're about my age. For me Wally was The Flash for most of my reading life. So how does it feel to be able to shepherd that character back in a little?

Barry for us, Barry was the character who died for a long time. He was the martyr. He was the savior. As I've gotten older, I've found myself relating more and more with Barry Allen.

The way it works with Wally, I'm really exciting to be able to tell the story with that character. To show him evolve into what we're going to do with him. We're making him into Kid Flash. I don't think it's a secret. There's promo stuff and there's posters and obviously it's one of the those things where I'm like, "It's not really a secret."

Also, I don't think that's fair to the reader. I think once he was introduced, the reader knew. I think it's obvious the direction that you would head. For me, I'm really excited about it. I like him as a character. I like writing him. I think it's interesting telling this different version of the story with him and coming at it from a different angle. There's definitely big shoes for him to fill. Along with myself. It's been a lot of fun working with him. Trying to ways of doing a different version of that story, considering we've seen it before.

Like I said, the reader knows. Like you, you know what's happening. You know what's going to happen, but trying to find ways of doing it naturally and organically, but also emotionally. Make sure there's actually some kind of emotional resonance. Even though you know it's coming, you're going to care. Those are the things that are important to me.

Do you think that that's something you could say across the board in super hero comics? We go in knowing the name of the story is "The Death Of Superman" and knowing that the good guys ultimately are going to win. Certain characters you know are going to die based on solicitation art. Do you think a big part of the challenge is, not so much surprising people with the plot, but coming up with cool details and character beats and stuff like that, that makes what people know is going to happen or think they know what's going to happen play out in a way that still entertains them?

Yeah. As for me, I guess I try and find ways of still surprising you, I think you need to lead the reader. The reader is going to know, they're going to know certain things, but I still think it's up to you to try to find ways to surprise them. Not just with shocks and pacing, but emotionally and really that's the thing, right? You want your reader to relate and to connect with those characters, not because they know what's coming or they're really excited about that character, but you have to find ways in making it so that the reader just cares. It's tough. It could be the hardest thing.

My wife actually, she made fun of me because I left my "Flash" notebook ... I have two "Flash" notebooks. One for lines of dialogue and the one for plots and I keep them separate. The plot one was open downstairs one morning. She came downstairs and she started just reading it, off out loud, which was embarrassing me, but she started reading it off out loud and there was one part where it was just a page and all it was like, "Emotion" with like huge, big, you know, handwritten font. The point was underlined twice.

That's the thing, right? You know what's coming, but I think there's a way of doing it to where you can still find yourself surprised even when you know what's coming and there's ways of making it entertaining. Just because the books called "Death of Superman", doesn't mean it's only going to be about that, you're not going to care, you have to find ways of making it so the person gets to the ending and then cares.

I think, it's definitely a job and obviously that's the hardest part, I think especially with mainstream comics...I'll give you an example. I'm a big fan of Bryan K. Vaughan and Y The Last Man and you knew going into "Y The Last Man" what that book was going to be about right? The pitch is the title. It's Y The Last Man. It solicits. You knew going into that book from the solicit that it's literally going to be about "Y, The Last Man". Right? Except it's not really about that right?

It's about him and Beth, when you get to the ending of the first issue, the twist wasn't that the men died, we knew that was coming, the emotional twist, the thing that really got you was what was Yorick was going to find Beth. That's the thing that as a reader he was nibbling at you, to make you care. I always believe that your hook and your twist have to be two different things. I keep that in mind whenever I'm working on stuff that when you go into reading The Flash, you know certain elements, but then it's up to me to try to find ways to twist that to surprise you and make you care.

Now for you, it's funny, this goes back to the thing that we were saying about Wally a little bit, I spoke with Kevin Smith yesterday about his episode of The Flash and we talked about how when we were growing up, Barry was, his entire character was he's the nice guy. He's a good guy, but you didn't really know a lot about him. So, what is at the core of your take on Barry?

You know, he's a guy who's always searching for justice. He's not obsessed with it in the same way that Batman is, but it's something that's definitely a part of who he is and he wants everyone to not have to go through what he went through.

It's this thing, this search for, not just justice, but truth. I feel like that's a lot of what is up to Barry and I think he's this guy, he tries to do everything he can and sometimes you try to do everything but you end up doing nothing. I feel a lot about that with Barry, but at the same time, I feel like Barry will never give up and will always race into danger, but always smile while he's doing it.

You talked a little bit in other interviews about how he is mentoring the next group of speedsters and obviously the conceit of your Rebirth one-shot and of the first couple issues is that there's more speedsters popping up...

The Rebirth issue doesn't deal with that as much. The Rebirth issue does other things ... definitely when we get to the main series.

Well, with a character like Barry, where the mythology of the Speed Force has given you this rich group of characters to surround him with, but they are all very similar to him, a it like the Green Lantern Corps. How do you differentiate your main guy, who has to be THE hero at the center of the story, from other speedsters who have essentially the same power set?

When I started working on that, that was the thing that was part of my pitch that not only would I have to think about that, but Barry has to think about that, you know?

If everyone has the same powers as him, why is he special? Why is he The Flash? Why is he the one that should be leading them? Why is he the expert on this? What if the other ones got better than him? What if they are better? There might be people in the group that just happen to do a better job than him. He has to think of that as well.

I had to basically put that question into the book. What makes Barry special? To me, powers don't make Barry a hero, Barry is a hero, with our without those powers he's going to do everything he can and I think that's what separates him from the rest.

One of the great things about Rebirth is that they are embracing everything so you get to have this soft reset button where you're starting over with your Rebirth special, but you don't lose the history of the last 5 years. Are there any things from the New 52 era that you're definitely excited to carry through into this?

I'm keeping some things obviously like the relationships with Wally and Iris. Even though at first I was nervous about some of it. I was nervous about using Henry, but when I started writing Henry I found that I loved him. I really enjoyed writing him and his relationship with Barry, which we get to see a snippet of in the Rebirth special. I think mostly some of the relationships that they established with Henry and Iris and Wally, I think those are the things I was most excited about carrying through.

After that, I just wanted to really set my own course and focus on telling this new story that I wanted to tell. I want to use everything. I said this before, I said it online, I'm a big Flash fan and I want to use every little bit of the mythology as I can. My wishlist, my to-do list is huge. so I'm hoping I get to do a lot of it and I think you will be surprised how much of the mythology I'll end up using.

When you read Rebirth, I think people will be surprised some of the stuff I'm pulling in but I think we'll really surprise people with some of the stuff we're pulling into the Rebirth issue, I think it's going ... I think some of it's going to really shock people. I think there are people who are fans of The Flash, who've been reading a long time, who are going to see some stuff and they're going to be, "Oh my God," but that's tied to this thing, you know? In some cases I'm digging deep and in some cases I'm just doing stuff for fun that I think would be nice Easter eggs for people who are long time readers, but also making sure it's really approachable for somebody's who brand new to the book.