Friday, June 09, 2006

Flash Theory

(Potentially Spoilerish Interview Quoted, and Theorizing)

Well, Wonder Woman #1 is safely on my pile now, and that is one of just two titles I have consistantly picked up since I started buying my own books. The other is due out on the Twenty-First of June. The Flash.

I hadn't thought much about this one (well, I had a theory but it wasn't really in-depth) until Chris of Two Guys Buying Comics contacted me. He wanted to talk to me for the same reason Chris of the Local Comic Book store (the clerk featured in this anecdote) wanted to see me. Wonder Woman advice.

I assured him it was worth buying. He then expressed his doubts about the Flash. It was being written by the two guys who did the TV show, Dan Didio had warned us not to get attached to the first guy we saw, and then he linked me to a message board, a post that quoted this article as evidence to support those worries.

And reading Joan Hilty's words, everything came together.

NRAMA: Dan also said something to the effect of "Don't become too attached to the first Flash you see"... any idea what he meant and thoughts you can share with us?
JH: You’re going to see a hero giving 150% to carry the Flash mantle against pretty bad odds. After that, Danny Bilson and Paul deMeo are going to turn the story completely on its head.


There is only one way this should go, and I am calling it now.

Wally and Linda had twins. A boy and a girl. They will show up, aged to young adulthood.

The son will take on his father's mantle...

And die.

And the daughter will be the new Flash.

18 comments:

  1. Just like Starman. That could be cool.

    But I still hope it will be Bart. I like the whole legacy hero thing DC has. Plus it follows from the original Crisis of a Flash passing the name to the next generation.

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  2. They already showed some preview pages for FLASH #1 and the first FLASH we see is Jay Garrick.

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  3. Well, I'm all for a CaucAsian lady Flash. Hopefully though, she'll be a nerd girl. Add back in that whole mad scientist aspect that Barry started.

    And while standard plots tend to do so, I hope nobody dies.

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  4. It was clear that there would be a switch in Flash sometime early in the run, but your theory as to who would be first and who would take over is intriguing.

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  5. That would be OK with me.

    Just for laughs, I'd really like it if both kids came back with super-speed and called themselves "Mas" and "Menos", just because I think my friend Jack's head would explode.

    Sure it wouldn't make much sense (if any), but this is comic books, since when did making sense matter?

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  6. Well according to Geoff Johns at the DCNation Panel at Wizard World Philadelphia (link: http://www.comicscontinuum.com/stories/0606/02/dcnationpanel.htm), Mas and Menos will be in Teen Titans.

    It would be a way for Geoff to continue writing about Wally and Linda, by writing about their twins. Not sure why they'd go with Spanish names...maybe the native language of that planet the Flashes have been holed is Spanish... ;)

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  7. So Luke dies and Leia has to step up? That has possibilities.

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  8. Wasn't that the setup for Wally's kids in Kingdom Come, except that the son was a slacker?

    I'd love to see a female Flash too, but I didn't think there was much wrong with Wally. Of course, I didn't think Nightwing was hopeless either, and DiDio wanted to kill him....

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  9. I personally want it to be Bart, too. Only because Geoff Johns made him boring, and then he turned him into an adult and a copy of Wally. I would hate to think all that happened to Bart just as a red herring.

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  10. As much as I'd love that, there's a little problem with the theory:

    The comic is officially subtitled "The Fastest MAN Alive."

    Which would seem to preclude a female from the costume. Which sucks, because I love it when women take over the costumes of normally male heroes (I *still* think the the new Blue Beetle should've been a girl).

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  11. The subtitle would actually make a pretty good red herring for the first issue or two and the solicitations, come to think of it. :)

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  12. That would be cool on DC's part, throwing a bit of misdirection in and switching the subtitle to "The Fastest Woman Alive," but somehow I don't see that happening.

    And Diamondrock, as much as I'm liking Jason Rusch, it would have been interesting if Firestorm was Veronica ("Ronnie" to her friends) Raymond, Ronald ("Ronnie to his friends)'s long lost sister.

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  13. I don't think that Mas y Menos will be Wally's kids.

    I'm actually more hoping for it to be one of Wally's kids than Bart. As has been said, Bart's been slowly turned to Wally. He'll be a Wally clone. If we're going to have a new Flash, I want a Brand New Flash. All of the others have been distinctive. Jay was a bumpkin, Barry an absent-minded scientist, Wally a professional hero. There wasn't anything wrong with Wally, it's just one of those things. The Flash mantle gets changed from time to time. And as long as it's change, it really should be a dramatic change, a difference in personality. At this point, Bart is too much like Wally.

    And if it's going to be one of the kids, especially as Steve points out that they are making a point of titling it "The Fastest MAN Alive" (Funny how they solicit it like that, when with Ion we never saw the subtitle until it hit stands), it would be a neat twist to have it be the daughter. Their first female Flash.

    And here's where I start getting called names, but I'm sorry, from a marketing viewpoint this is something DC would want to do. They'd have an Asian character who is not a martial artist or scientist, doesn't have cultural powers, in a major legacy. If it's the daughter, not only a minority race, but a female. Another guaranteed female slot on the JLA. Here's that diversity they wanted, and the storyline is NATURALLY set up for it. Wally was paired with a Korean-American girlfriend fifteen years ago. They got married seven or eight years ago. They had kids two years ago. They are in a position to superage them!

    There's a logical reason for the legacy.

    It's too good an opportunity to pass up. Even if Mark Waid wants the chance to play with Wally's kids, again, this is too choice an opportunity. They'd be stupid not to do it.

    Or, they could scrap it, and make it Bart, another white male. Not only that, another white male who has the same personality as Wally. It'd be a waste of a golden opportunity.

    Sure, they could try and salvage it by making him gay...

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  14. Oh, and about Jay.

    He's nto the one they're killing off.

    It's Jay.

    It's just Not Done.

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  15. Why not? Jay's an extremely boring character. I have the feeling they won't do him in, but I don't see any value to keeping him around other than for sentimental reasons.
    As far as I can tell the only time Jay has ever been interesting was in the Return of Barry Allen when he went out recruiting allies to take down his successor. His calling of Max Mercury's bluff was crafty and amusing, but even that characterization fizzled out as his master plan for bringing down Barry was "Punch 'im! Then lecture 'im!" And since then he's just the guy who can run sorta fast and mumble a few trite phrases to the kids in JSA every once in a while. I'd rather see Jay become interesting, but he's hardly indisposable.

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  16. Sorry Kalinara. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

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