I remember reading New Teen Titans in the 80's an being frustrated that Wally West was having issues with his Kid Flash powers, eventually getting sick and considering retirement. I was convinced DC was preparing to kill him off. Little did I know it was actually Barry Allen on the chopping block. His death was a gut punch, but at least Wally was safe, and indeed ready to level up. Years later, Barry was finally brought back, which is great - but now DC doesn't know what to do with Wally. They've gotten rid of his family, killed him, turned him into a murderer, and replaced him with an alternate (and of course non-ginger) version of Wally West. If all they are going to do is character assassinate him, I'd prefer if he was just left alone. Hopefully one day he can be successfully revived and rehabilitated just as Barry was.
I'm always happy to use an image by my favorite DC Cover Artist, Nick Cardy. Here's a sketch of his I picked up many years back:
16 comments:
Is that supposed to be tears or sweat (or both)? :/
Another standout cover!
There are any number of covers, both STF and its real world siblings, that are just good-yarn covers. Good fun.
Then there are those occasional ones that really grab hold of your attention - what the dickens is going on here? They have you reaching for the comic before you've even had time to process the thought. (They are the ones that often stand out vividly in memory years later. Flash of Two Worlds I'm thinking of you.)
You've pulled off the trick several times before. And I think with this you have gone and done it again!
Thank you Davejonz! I used to like those Silver Age covers that would directly address the reader.
Whoa!
New Teen Titans and Crisis were awesome... however it is a shame that any story starts with a "kill" list. That's pretty much the starting point for every "line-wide" crossover event - Who can we kill off now?
The other shame is that Garth, Dick, Donna, Roy and Wally all reached a conclusion to their story. Look at how many changes they've gone through! Donna became a Darkstar, and was nearly erased from memory!
The sad thing is they could not do what Jack Knight did - retire happily every after.
Ross !
i just love how you put the cover of the Crisis issue where Barry dies on the back cover of the book that Uatu gives him to read . an outstanding idea , Ross !!!
the main reason i'm texting , is your use of the late great Nick Cardy !! in the late 60's and early 70's , his covers on Teen Titans always drew me into buy the book . his depiction of Wonder Girl always made me feel weird , which , i didn't understand until i hit puberty , lol. Nick drew the most beautiful girls in the DC Universe .
just another great idea of yours shown to perfection !!!
So the Watcher interfered with Barry's Crisis death and pulled him into the Marvel Universe under the name 'Buried Alien'... it all makes sense now XD
If worse comes to worst, he can always be ret-conned as a super-powerless redheaded crime-fighter named Mal Duncan. Author of "The Other History of the DCU!"
@Anonymous848: I think you're more likely to see Donna Troy ret-conned as the long-lost daughter of Thomas and Kim Brand-Troy ("Fly Man and Fly Girl") from the Red Circle Crusaders.*
*But then again, Ross has masterfully revealed much stranger genealogical relationships, here. ;-)
Even though Barry Allen is the Flash that I grew up with, and my favorite hero to carry the name (other than Mary Maxwell, Stan Lee's brief take on the character), I'm of the opinion that he should have been left dead. True, that would've left us without Grant Gustin's wonderful portrayal of the character, but for the sake of the comics universe it would've saved us a lot of confusion, most of which you describe.
I understand that decision to have been Geoff Johns, who is a skilled craftsman but seems to have little to no regard for the fanbase, or at least less regard than his own personal vision. (At any rate, that would explain the fractured state of the DC movie franchise, as well as his refusal to even consider firing She Who Must Not Be Named from Aquaman: The Lost Kingdom.)
Re: Donna Troy (as discussed in the previous Comments): Donna does have the most convoluted backstory in comics, given that she's had multiple conflicting origin tales. My take on it would be that the pre-Crisis multiverse had different versions of her, each with a different origin tale and a different (albeit overlapping) set of powers; then, when the COIE merged the worlds, all of those different versions of her were likewise merged into one, but somehow, instead of streamlining her history like it did for everyone else, it left all of her histories intact, so that her story basically became "all of the above" (possibly even including Cary's idea above). I had other ideas for her, too, that would basically make her an ideal leader for DC's answer to the Exiles.
Chris Elliot: Agreed! Cardy drew the prettiest women in comics! Bob Oksner was a close second though!
BigMike: I like that theory!
Hawkman and Hawkwoman are about as bad. The other being The Legion of Superheroes. All three were better in pre-crisis, but The Legion's tie to Superman messed up the franchise when Superman was forced to be a loner. Donna Troy being tied to Wonder Woman who was reverted to clay and rebooted as well.Crisis can't fix everything and these are the three biggest examples.
"All three were better in pre-Crisis"
THIS.
I think what the Crisis should have done was to reveal a new universe, where the new versions of the characters could have been gradually revealed, with the old Earth-1 going into the honorable semi-retirement which had happened to Earth-2, so we could still look in on the Silver Age characters every so often.
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FLASH #227, from which Ross's cover was adapted, was one of the first superhero comic books I ever bought. ^_^
The wrecking of the Legion's continuity was the worst thing about Byrne's revamp of Superman.
The best thing about was Luthor the Evil Tycoon. It makes far more sense to me that a sociopath with Lex's intellect would feign law-abiding benevolence to loot the system from within, than to be an open criminal.
I agree. Making Luthor a corrupt plutocrat is probably what inspired the writers of the first FF movie to make Julian McMahon's version of Dr. Doom as being likewise.
Brilliant! I follow you regularly and am thoroughly entertained but this one is something special. Congrats!
They turned Wally West into the new Dr. Manhattan.
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