Asides

DC only seems to have room for three main Flashes at a time: Past, present and future. Sometimes that shakes out as Jay, Barry and Wally, sometimes as Jay, Wally and Bart, and most recently as Jay, Barry and Bart. They’ve got four major Flash characters to work from, and they want Barry in the “present” role…and now that they have a chance to rewrite history, they can get rid of the “extra” character.

That suggests two likely possibilities:
1. They erase Barry Allen’s grandson and reset his nephew to being Kid Flash.
2. They erase Barry Allen’s nephew and keep his grandson as Kid Flash.

I’m tired of reading stories *about* continuity, instead of stories that, over time, *become* continuity.

I feel like I’m Charlie Brown, DC is Lucy, and the promise of a Flash series that actually gets off the ground and *goes* somewhere is the football.

We’ve basically gotten ONE Flash story that’s *just a Flash story* out of each run since 2005. Everything else has either been setup, wrap-up, or a side story for an outside event.

That two-parter with Bart vs. Mota. Tom Peyer’s “Fast Money.” Maybe Geoff Johns’ “The Dastardly Death of the Rogues.”

Long-form writing only works if you follow through on it. I love reading novels, but I’d much rather read 20 short stories than 10 first chapters and 10 last chapters.

My dream Flash writing team is Grant Morrison writing Barry, Mark Waid writing Wally, and Geoff Johns writing the Rogues.

Easier, yes…but not necessary. Anyone remember a Zorro film from about 10 years back with Anthony Hopkins as retired Zorro and Antonio Banderas as new Zorro? It did well enough they made a sequel.

Other characters have legacy built into the concept, like the Phantom (maybe not the best example, because the movie tanked).

Maybe a better example: a big part of the first Pirates of the Caribbean film hinged on Will Turner following through on his father’s legacy, but Bootstrap Bill didn’t appear at all until they did the sequels.

Or, heck, Harry Potter – it’s all about this boy growing up and living up to the legacy of his parents and their generation who fought in a war. Harry’s parents are absolutely critical to his story, but they’ve been dead for 10 years when the first movie gets going.

So yes, a legacy character *can* be done in a movie. It may be *easier* to tell a story about the first guy, but it’s not *necessary.*

Barry’s been back for THREE YEARS. He’s been the focus of a Rebirth miniseries, had a major part in last year’s Big Event(tm), and had his own ongoing book, plus guest spots all over the DCU.

And here we have a gigantic, sprawling Flash-centric event (the first ever, I might add) with 5 oversized issues telling the main story, plus 16 miniseries and at least 4 one-shots telling side stories.

And DC is saying that nowhere in all of that could they find room for the guy who was The Flash for more than two decades? And you’re saying this is perfectly okay?

I don’t like to use the phrase “slap in the face” — it’s really overused IMO — but I think it applies here.