Jay?
Barry?
Wally?
Bart?
As you can see by the results so far, Wally is in the lead, though Barry is catching up. Jay has his loyalists, however, and Bart...well, not enough love for Bart.
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Poll: Who Is The Best Flash???
The poll that you'll find at the right sidebar stemmed from a conversation I had w/my BF about if DC rebooted/ultimized the Flash, which Flash version would they use?
As you can see by the results so far, Wally is in the lead, though Barry is catching up. Jay has his loyalists, however, and Bart...well, not enough love for Bart.
As you can see by the results so far, Wally is in the lead, though Barry is catching up. Jay has his loyalists, however, and Bart...well, not enough love for Bart.
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I liked the Speed-Force-Mixed-Flash in Kingdom Come a lot...
ReplyDeleteHey, someone besides me uses the polls widget!!
ReplyDeleteMaybe it's like how a person's favorite Doctor from Doctor Who is usually their first. I came to the show pretty late, so "my" Doctor is the Seventh, even though he's completely hated by some segments of the fan population.
ReplyDeleteSimilarly, although Wally's stories were probably the best written and most popular, my "best Flash" will always be Barry. I shed a tear when he died in Crisis on Infinite Earths #8, whereas I wasn't as nearly devastated when Kara died the previous issue.
I just can't see "rebooting" the Flash to Wally. He's a great Flash, no question, but the whole purpose of a reboot is to start fresh -- and so much of Wally's character is tied up in Barry's legacy. Wally is wonderful, but starting out with him robs him of his main character arc and doesn't even make logistic sense. How on earth did he even *get* super speed without Barry? And if you graft on the interest in chemistry...why not make him Barry in the first place?
ReplyDeleteThere's something to what Terence said -- Barry's my first Flash, too. But I spent some time reading the entire Wally run (awaiting Bart's series, silly me), and came to the realization that, nostalgia aside, he's the Flash that I relate to best. But Barry's still #1 with me.
ReplyDelete(Christopher Eccleston is my favorite Doctor, despite digging Baker and Davidson.)
I've got to say - I almost felt like I was answering two different questions since I clicked on the poll after reading the blog entry. There was the 'which Flash would DC use for Ultimate Flash' question and then the 'which Flash is the best Flash' question. I'm pretty sure that any 'Ultimate' Flash would be Wally West, but I'm pretty torn between Wally and Barry for 'Best' Flash. In the end I chose Barry as the best for many of the same reasons that Rob S. gave for Barry as the reboot character of choice.
ReplyDeleteAnd I won't jump in on the 'favorite doctor' thread that seems to be going in the comment section as I have only seen the Christopher Eccleston/David Tennant seasons. I will say that 'Last of the Time Lords' is one of the best season finales I have ever seen, and I'll be watching as much of the old stuff as I can get my hands on between now and season 4.
Don't even want to think about how long I have to wait for new Doctor Who and Torchwood.......
I must be a weird exception, because for the longest time, my favorite Doctor was Peter Davison, despite the fact that my first Doctor was Tom Baker. I remember finding out that there was a "new" Doctor to be utterly fascinating, and Peter Davison was...well, he's Peter Davison. :)
ReplyDeleteNowadays, I find myself much less roused to pick a favorite, although Tennant is certainly going to be the favorite for a generation of kids. He's just doing spectacular work.
And, um, right, the Flash. I picked Jay as my favorite, but it seems pretty clear to me that an "Ultimate" rebooted Flash would be Barry, because in a very real sense, that's what he was. They didn't make a big fanfare about it, because the fan culture was very different back then, but basically, Barry Allen was 'Ultimate Flash', rebooted as a police scientist who got his powers from lightning and chemicals.
"I just can't see "rebooting" the Flash to Wally. He's a great Flash, no question, but the whole purpose of a reboot is to start fresh -- and so much of Wally's character is tied up in Barry's legacy. Wally is wonderful, but starting out with him robs him of his main character arc and doesn't even make logistic sense. How on earth did he even *get* super speed without Barry? And if you graft on the interest in chemistry...why not make him Barry in the first place?"
ReplyDeleteMy answer to this is to watch the animated Justice League and Justice League Unlimited. They stayed true to, and drew inspiration from the comics, but crafted a Wally West unique and worthy of being the one and only Flash. There's no reason why the way they handled the Flash couldn't be applied to other media or a comic reboot -- they showed that Wally as the Flash free of the Flash legacy can work. Not to say it isn't a nice part of the character and his personal arc, but it can be done.
Have a good day.
John Cage
As you can see by the results so far, Wally is in the lead, though Barry is catching up. Jay has his loyalists, however, and Bart...well, not enough love for Bart.
ReplyDeleteBart was a great character, but I didn't love him as the Flash. BTW, have you noticed that the proto-Flash on "Smallville" is Bart? So you can say that Hollywood agrees with you... ;-)
Where the hell is Flash Gordon?
ReplyDeleteWhere the hell is Flash Gordon?
ReplyDeleteIn Vancouver, apparently, in a television show that sucks so bad it swallows.
Just wanted to note, while agreeing that the Justice League animated series did Wally very well, that my current favorite portrayal of Barry has got to be Darwyn Cooke's version of him in DC: The New Frontier. Can't wait to hear Doogie Howser doing the voice.
Wally, easily. He was the first one I read, and was in Morrison's JLA, so Wally.
ReplyDeleteI tossed in a vote for Barry because he's an agreeable fellow without a pan on his head, but I've never in my life been able to get it up for any of the Flash family members.
ReplyDeleteHis name is Wally West. He's the fastest man alive.
ReplyDeleteMy guess would be Barry, because it would be the easiest way for DC to finish systematically erasing any trace that I ever had anything to do with the characters or was ever a writer there.
ReplyDelete--MW
John Cage wrote:
ReplyDeleteMy answer to this is to watch the animated Justice League and Justice League Unlimited. They stayed true to, and drew inspiration from the comics, but crafted a Wally West unique and worthy of being the one and only Flash. There's no reason why the way they handled the Flash couldn't be applied to other media or a comic reboot -- they showed that Wally as the Flash free of the Flash legacy can work. Not to say it isn't a nice part of the character and his personal arc, but it can be done.
I've seen some eps of JL & JLU, but not all of them by any means. I don't recall any which spent any significant time with Wally in his civilian ID -- heck, I'm not certain I ever heard anyone call him "Wally"! No question, though, that he was an engaging character without (I presume) the legacy aspect. I'm sure they touched on his origin for one show or another -- how'd it happen, sans Barry?
"My guess would be Barry, because it would be the easiest way for DC to finish systematically erasing any trace that I ever had anything to do with the characters or was ever a writer there."
ReplyDeleteThat's what you get for adding humour to the titles, be-yatch! It cheapens the drama, don't you know?
One need only to look at the "Return of Barry Allen" storyline to see how great a Flash Wally West was/is. In fact, if memory serves, wasn't he "The Flash" for a while?
ReplyDeleteWally West is the man. Barry Allen was a cop. Easy choice.
Ya'll should remember that Barry was THE Flash in the live-action TV series - and he kicked a whole lot of ass!
ReplyDeleteJay is my favorite, hands down. But I realize my own personal preferences are perhaps not the most commercially viable guidelines an editor might want to use when creating an Ultimate Flash.
ReplyDeleteEr, therefore I voted for Barry, I meant to add.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't vote for Wally or Bart, much as I like 'em, because I prefer my superheroes to behave like adults. (Although Wally hasn't been a stunted perpetual adolescent in years, I concede.)
What if your first exposure to Doctor Who was "The Five Doctors"? The Fourth became my favorite because of his recognizability.
ReplyDeleteJay is my favorite of the Flashes, but Barry is the best choice for a reboot--no WWII or legacy baggage.
BART BART BART
ReplyDeleteBarry close second.
Wally's a loozer.
"I'm sure they touched on his origin for one show or another -- how'd it happen, sans Barry?"
ReplyDeleteIt was shown briefly in a flashback, and was basically Barry's origin -- in the police lab, moving chemicals, struck by lightning. They mentioned in a featurette on one of the DVDs that in the early days of the show they knew the character was Wally, but they didn't want to focus on the character's back stories so the fact that Barry and Wally had the exact same origin more or less meant the audience could go either way with which Flash it was (not that the animated Flash's personality even remotely lined up with any version of Barry anyway).
They unmasked the Flash as Wally in the Justice League second season finale "Starcrossed". But the biggest story with the character was "Flash and Substance" in JLU's final season. It introduced the Rogues, the Flash museum, and showed that Wally works in a police lab (under a guy who looks a lot like Barry). Other key episodes with the character are the JL second season episodes "Eclipsed" and "A Better World", the JLU final season episode "Great Brain Robbery", and about half of the episodes from JLU's second season.
They really showed how well a Wally West can work unencumbered by the Flash legacy. Granted they didn't spend a lot of time on the 'Wally West' side of the character compared to the guy in the suit, but their take on the Flash was drawn from Wally's character from the comics so it didn't seem like that big an issue. There's no reason why they can't take this approach to a rebooted or other media version of the character.
Have a good day.
John Cage
Wally.
ReplyDelete