Has Bringing Back Wally West As Flash Worked?

The Flash is one of the most important characters in the history of DC. The Flash has been around in some form or another since 1940, when Jay Garrick first premiered as the Scarlet Speedster. Barry Allen was the next Flash, and his premiere kicked off the Silver Age of Comics. Allen’s death was one of the first major deaths in comic history and led to the graduation of Allen’s sidekick Wally West to the role of the Flash. West’s time as the Flash saved the mantle, making the Flash more popular than ever. West became one of the most important characters in the pantheon of DC, with runs by writers Mark Waid and Geoff Johns creating fantastic stories with the character. However, in the ’00s, DC started to bring back aspects of the Silver and Bronze Age DC Multiverse, and that meant bringing back Barry Allen as the Flash. Wally West fans didn’t cotton to Allen, and fans complained about the lack of Wally West for years, especially during the New 52, when Wally was taken out of continuity.

Wally returned in 2016, but was still treated as a lesser character compared to Barry Allen, and it wouldn’t be until 2020 that DC made Wally into the Flash again. Wally West is considered the best Flash, and his return to the mantle gave fans exactly what they wanted. The Flash became one of DC’s most popular books — it was one of the few non-Batman and non-Superman solo superhero books during the DC publishing initiative “Infinite Frontier” — and fans were very happy for a while. However, the newest volume of The Flash is nowhere near as popular as the prior one and it’s made even the most diehard Wally West fans question the wisdom of bringing him back as the Flash.

DC Doesn’t Seem to Have a Plan with Wally West Anymore

The Flash under writer Jeremy Adams was easily one of the best superhero books of the ’20s, bar none. Adams picked up Wally and took the best parts of the character — his heroism, his sense of humor, and his family — and showed readers how great a Flash book can be. DC Comics has a lot of speedsters, but there’s something about Wally West. Adams seemed to have a plan for Wally and his family; he built up Wally’s kids Irey and Jai, better defining their powers and personalities (and teasing a relationship between Jai and Animal Man’s daughter Maxine). He reminded people why Wally and Linda are one of the greatest couples in superhero comics. He brought Wally and Wallace West, the New 52 version of the character, together, mirroring the way that Barry and Wally had worked together years before. Adams seemed to have charted a path for Wally to get back to the top of the superhero community, and it was working. However, DC dropped Adams after the excellent “One-Minute War” and since then, things haven’t been nearly as bright for Wally and his family.

Now, I’m a fan of Si Spurrier’s The Flash — I like the the way he expanded on the Speed Force, the way he changed the West family dynamic, and the sci-fi ideas of things like the Arc Angles and the Linear Bureau. I like the way the book has developed since “DC All-In” started. However, Spurrier’s run has completely derailed what Adams was building and taken Wally in directions that not everyone has been enjoying and it begs the question of whether bringing Wally back was correct. Wally is a great character, and was once extremely important to the DC superhero community. However, it doesn’t really feel like his return has bought him back to where he should be. I think one of the problems with Wally’s return is that he hasn’t been given his prestige back. Wally was an important member of the Justice League and was the de facto leader of the Flash family. Since he’s returned, that hasn’t been the case. I think the biggest problem is that DC has fundamentally changed since Wally’s height in the ’90s and early ’00s. DC’s focus contracted down to Batman for years, and it’s only been recently that the publisher has started to expand that focus again. The Justice League, a big part of why Wally got popular, is no longer important. Wally used to be a major part of everything, but so did so many aspects of DC that aren’t anymore. DC is rebuilding right now, but so far, Wally’s prestige hasn’t been a focus.

Wally West Hasn’t Been Rebuilt Yet, but His Return Has Been a Net Positive

Mistakes have definitely been made with Wally West since his return. The Adams run definitely put Wally on the path back to where he was, but there was always a problem with that — this is a very different DC than what the company was. The Justice League wasn’t important anymore, and superhero comics in general had become fiefdoms — the Batman books have their own events, the Superman books theirs, et cetera. This made it hard to bring Wally back to where he was. There was no place to showcase Wally to the greater DC fandom, and this has stopped him from becoming the Wally West he was before he was taken out. On top of that, Spurrier’s run, especially at the beginning, made fans very mad because of the effect it had on the West family, and a lot of its sci-fi ideas didn’t land. This has seen the book fall down the sales charts.

However, Wally West is still the best Flash, and there’s really no arguing that. DC disrespected the character and his fans by dropping him from existence, and getting him back was great because it gave creators and readers a new toy to play with. Characters get fumbled all the time, and not everyone loves every run on a character. Wally is being fumbled right now, but that doesn’t mean that it’s time to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

What do you think of Wally West and how DC is handling him? Sound off in the comments below.

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