They Wasted The Flash’s Best Story and I’m Still Mad About It

The Flash is one of the most popular and important superheroes ever created. Whenever something massive shakes up the DC Universe, it seems like the Fastest Man Alive is always at the center of it. It was the reinvention of the Flash as Barry Allen that signaled the start of the Silver Age, the Flash stopped the Anti-Monitor’s wave that would have wiped out the entire multiverse, and the Flashpoint story that heralded the New 52 reboot. Wally West is one of the most beloved comic characters ever, having led some of the Scarlet Speedster’s best stories, and Jay Garrick who inspired the legacy with his phenomenal beginning. However, while all three of these characters are seen as vital and beloved, not a lot of people give the fourth Flash, Bart Allen, the credit he deserves.

Bart became the Flash in a world where the Speedforce seemingly disappeared, with both Wally West and Barry Allen being believed gone forever. He had all of the setup to be the greatest Flash of all time, and the story of him accepting the legacy is genuinely awesome, but before it could become the classic that it should be, it was all thrown away. Bart could have had the greatest Flash comic of all time, but DC wasted it to bring back Wally.

Ready, Set, Off to the Races

Bart’s career as the Flash had so much potential because it had a build up that could have only happened at that point in time. With Wally as the Flash, the Flash Family expanded to include plenty of other heroic speedsters, but all of them had to hang up their cowls after the Speedforce disappeared at the conclusion of Infinite Crisis. Wally seemingly gave his life to trap Superboy-Prime in the Speedforce, and Bart returned four years older, having spent years in a world beyond the Speedforce and being the only one capable of getting back. Jay Garrick was still fast as a result of his experiments, but much slower without the Speedforce connection, and everyone thought it was gone forever. A year later, it was revealed that Bart still had a connection to the Speedforce, but as the only conduit left, he accessed all of it whenever he ran, and risked ripping his body apart every time.

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Instead of the massive family the Flash was known for, Bart was alone in his connection to the Speedforce, but he had the wisdom of all the heroes who came before him to guide him. Bart could run faster than anyone before, and this set the stage to explore the nature of the Speedforce in a way that could only be done because of how Bart inherited all of it. It was set up to be a story about legacy, learning to overcome fear of failure and guilt, and accepting the responsibility to be a hero. It had all the classic makings of what makes the Flash such a great hero, added onto it the inherent angst of Bart’s fears and the mysteries of the new ways the Speedforce operated. It could have been great, but Bart’s tenure only lasted thirteen issues.

Gone in a Flash

Bart was never given a real chance to establish himself as the Flash, being killed in a battle with the Rogues and his evil clone Inertia so they could bring Wally back as the Flash after fan outcry. Not only was killing him off unceremoniously majorly disrespectful to Bart and the idea of the Flash as a legacy, the fallout was even worse. They inadvertently made Wally partly responsible for Bart’s death, as the Speedforce was temporarily disabled when he crossed back over, which was when Bart was lying on the ground dying from injuries he should have been able to heal from. And then they revived him a year later, only de-aged and once again thrown back to the Kid Flash mantle. And a year after that Barry came back and was Flash alongside Wally, which makes the idea of killing Bart null and void anyways as they proved they could have two Flashes at the same time.

Bart could have become a Flash unlike any other, inspired by all that came before to be greater than ever. The Flash has always been one of the heroes most deeply rooted in legacy, and no one would have embodied that more than Bart, who fans watched grow from an impulsive kid to a hero as great as all of his mentors. But instead, he was thrown under the bus, then completely forgotten about, and was regressed even further back to his original Impulse identity. Bart Allen was the Flash, and he deserved better. Let us know what you would do with Bart in the comments below!