Didn’t think I’d have much to say about the Flash after the past few days, so I’m surprised at myself….
MAJOR SPOILERS for The Flash: The Fastest Man Alive #13 and Justice League of America #10 after the jump.
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Well, I honestly did not expect Bart to die. I just thought he’d stay de-powered. Inertia would absorb all the Speed Force, the Black Flash would pounce on him instead, and boom! Speed Force back where it belongs, Bart still alive, and Wally surprising everyone on the last page. “Continued in All-Flash #1, and be here in August for the new adventures of Wally West!”
Instead, Bart dies almost as an afterthought, killed by the Rogues’ Gallery. “Killed by Dan Didio is more like it,” I can hear you saying. “First the JLI, now Young Justice.”
Those patterns are certainly present … and if the Great DC War On Fun is behind these deaths, here’s my explanation: fun is a luxury. Fun is for people who don’t have to worry about the real world. Fun is for characters whose existences don’t have to be justified. Fun can also be pretty hard to pull off, especially when a character’s corporate owner gets concerned about “realism.”
Bart Allen was fun as the cartoonish Impulse, who thought in pictograms and had outsized feet. Impulse fit perfectly into the similarly irreverent Young Justice. However, those books played by a slightly different set of rules than the rest of DC’s main-line superhero titles, and it made Bart a little less portable. In a shared universe, you don’t advertise that kind of thing.
Therefore, Bart’s forced maturations sucked the wacky out of him, making him a singularly boring character by the time he got to FMA #1. What’s more, Bart’s Flash backstory saddled him with a reluctance to even use the speed, as if he didn’t like the idea of being the Flash any more than certain factions of the readership did. Not the best way to get fans excited about a new direction, I think we’d all agree. Maybe a different creative team could have presented Bart in a more appealing matter, but DC apparently thought it had chosen wisely to begin with.
In a very real sense, it all goes back to Infinite Crisis. The most traditional, basic superhero story is “let’s you and him fight,” and aside from the preliminaries and Alex Luthor’s multiversal fiddlings, Infinite Crisis was basically just one dogpile after another on Superboy-Prime. Wally and Bart were both casualties of their particular dogpile – Wally (apparently) getting stranded in the Speed Force and Bart blaming himself for … stranding Wally there, I suppose. Accordingly, I can’t help but wonder that with a little more strategy put into the takedown of Superboy-Prime, maybe everyone has a happier ending.
Of course, happy endings don’t produce lingering questions which can be teased out over thirteen issues of what ends up as a placeholder book. I stuck with FMA precisely because I thought something … well, life-altering would happen to Bart; but again, I didn’t think he’d actually be killed. By the time I finished #13 today, I felt pretty bad for him. I might not have thought he’d be ready for Flash-hood, but he didn’t deserve to be zapped with super-weapons and then beaten to death.
It all seems rather passive-aggressive of DC, and somewhat reminiscent of Jason Todd: “You don’t like him? Fine – you should love this!” It’s like the old cliche about the kid who tries one cigarette, so his parents make him smoke the whole pack. “You want him dead? He’s pretty dead now, I’d say!” I dunno – maybe it’s DC’s way of foreclosing any further Flash action by Bart, and solidifying Wally’s return to the role.
That naturally brings me to Justice League #10, an issue which made very little sense except as part of a larger shared-universe storyline. (At least it helps with the chronology of Karate Kid in Countdown.) In a bit of metatextual irony that must now please DC immeasurably, the “Lightning Saga” ends on a note of misdirection. Wally is back, but he’s only a sop thrown to the present-day superheroes to distract them from the Legion’s real goal. The face trapped in Brainiac 5′s lightning rod may belong to Barry Allen, but it might also belong to Bart, who under different circumstances might well have been a part of the Legion’s future. In fact, maybe it’s one of Bart’s “scouts” in the lightning rod. Heck, maybe the Rogues just murdered a scout, and Bart’s still out there somewhere.
(It’s probably Barry, though. Batman’s never wrong.)
As the conclusion to “The Lightning Saga,” JLA #10 was bewildering. As the reintroduction of Wally West, though, I found it surprisingly affecting. This must be the Joss Whedon/Astonishing X-Men effect I’d heard so much about: the use of nigh-subliminal cues in conjunction with a particular set of shared memories to produce a nostalgia which overpowers one’s other critical faculties. In other words, seeing Wally hug Roy Harper kind of got me back in the part of my brain which grew up on Teen Titans vol. 1. His first words after being rescued, part of a mantra that defined his career, had a similar effect. Yeah, I’m a sucker, and I kinda hope Roy sticks around for the Dwayne McDuffie issues, just to read how McDuffie handles him and “Flasher.”
More importantly, though, Wally knows how to have fun as the Flash. His long history with the role, including the years he spent growing into it, helped both him and readers work through his issues as Barry’s successor. That probably forced Bart into a no-win situation: he couldn’t grow into the role without being compared to Wally, and it couldn’t just be handed to him without fans crying foul. Again, I blame FMA’s event-stunt origins.
In hindsight, Joan Hilty’s comment about the story being “turn[ed] completely on its head,” and Didio’s infamous “don’t get too attached” line, both seem very much to indicate Bart’s fate being sealed even before his series began. If that reflects DC’s inability to think of anything new to do with Bart beyond giving him a victory lap as the Flash, that’s too bad. I’m glad Wally’s back, because his circumstances didn’t need fixing in the first place. However, I’m sorry Bart had to be wrecked in the process.
June 21st, 2007 at 12:21 pm
“Wally is back, but he’s only a sop thrown to the present-day superheroes to distract them from the Legion’s real goal.”
Heck, if you read into it a bit, B5 did not seem to expect Wally to appear at all; it was a surprise sop. Then-again, Timer Wolf seemed to know it was going to happen. I wonder what to read into B5′s comment of “West?”
June 21st, 2007 at 12:26 pm
Wow, Tom. You are a Grumpy Old Fan today.
Actually, my thoughts echo a lot of yours regarding this whole thing. And I think Mark Waid seems to share some of these feelings too – over at Wizard (devil sign, yes, yes, I know), he kind of hints that maybe we haven’t seen the last of Bart, but he also seems to be unimpressed with all the things the character’s been through lately as well. DC really just didn’t know what to do with the poor kid after the took his funny away.
June 21st, 2007 at 12:37 pm
For some reason I have the notion that Bart will not be gone for long. One way or another.
June 21st, 2007 at 12:53 pm
Squashua: over the weekend, I halfway thought John Fox might come into the mix somehow.
I had not been drinking.
Sean: it’s like they say — dying is easy, comedy is hard.
Matthew: DC still has some options; but I wonder if it has burned the Bart fans so badly they won’t come back.
June 21st, 2007 at 1:10 pm
I’m curious about the story potential of showing how Wally and Tim (Robin) Drake will also deal with the fallout of Bart’s death. Just when you think Tim can’t handle anymore loss and misery, he loses his second friend almost a year after Conner buys it. The art that closed out Flash 13 was very effective, where words wouldn’t do.
I had almost thought we’d get a Wally/Bart swap with Bart returning to the 31st century. Shame they whacked him, but I’m glad Wally is back rather than Barry.
June 21st, 2007 at 1:27 pm
I, for one am happy Wally West is back. There’s countless stories to do with him and his family. He’s my favorite Flash. I want Bart back as Kid Flash. He could struggle with Wally’s kids eyeing his mantle. Heck, I’m all for Bart joining the Legion. He didn’t have to die.
June 21st, 2007 at 1:43 pm
Ever hear the phrase “death’s too good for them?” Seems to me the way DC is thinking, the phrase is “death’s just about right for them.”
There’s no need to kill off a character who had his own popular book and still has a decent fan following. Send him into limbo, send him into the Speed Force, send him to the future, send him back to Manchester, Alabama…if you don’t need him on stage, you can write him away for as long as you need, or forever, without stomping on the character. Retire, don’t kill.
Seems to me the only character who go away scott free in recent years is Jack Knight. The way things are going, I wouldn’t be surprised if they brought him back to stab him through the heart with his own star rod.
June 21st, 2007 at 2:10 pm
When you put it that way, Bully, it makes me glad Jack wasn’t in 52 after all!
June 21st, 2007 at 3:06 pm
Bart’s dead because he’s unnecessary. Wally’s kids are undoubtedly speedsters (didja notice the Tornado Twins outfits they were wearing?) so we don’t need a third teen speedster. And if Wally’s back, we don’t need another Flash.
That said, it was also unnecessary to kill Bart. The way out for him was even written overtly into the story — kill Inertia and leave Bart unpowered. He returns to the future with Iris, his story told. What story beats are built by Bart’s death? None. Tim Drake loses another friend, sure, but that’s become cliche. Central/Keystone City gets another statue. Wally beats up the Rogues, leading to the Trickster/Piper chain-gang-escape plotline? Bart didn’t need to die for that.
I wasn’t a fan of the character, nor did I loathe him. I don’t care whether he’s alive or dead. But this was badly conceived and haphazardly written.
And, sorry, folks, but Bart’s not the one that was retrieved in the lightning rod, because Bart wasn’t connected to the Speed Force when he died. Whoever the Legion brought back with them, it could have been any speedster *except* for Bart.
And am I the only one who’s wondering which version of the Legion is New Earth’s and which version is Earth-2′s? We know that both Legions are now valid and “canonical” — both the pre-crisis 80s-styled Legion we saw in the Lightning Saga arc (of which Superman was a member) and the Waid/Kitson Legion of which one version of Supergirl is a member.
But Thom Kallor referred to Kal-L in JLA #10. And the recent time-travel/communication issue of Legion seems to indicate that Supergirl was pulled from a different dimension. I’m more confused now than I ever was pre-Crisis.
June 21st, 2007 at 4:00 pm
As much as I love the character of Jack Knight, I was worried he would show up in 52 or that opening JSA arc only to get killed.
Still, I think there is room out there for a one-shot JSA Classified story or something “Talking With Jack ’07″. I’m curious about the IC fallout in Opal City with most of their heroes (Elongated Man, Black Conder, Phantom Girl) killed. And just what has The Shade been up to? Maybe a team-up with Jack and The Dead Dibny Detectives?
Shame that the courtesy of allowing Jack a happy ending couldn’t be extended to Bart.
June 21st, 2007 at 4:51 pm
“I’m more confused now than I ever was pre-Crisis.”
Maybe that’s the grand, overarching game DC is playing here. By the time Countdown finishes up and the “Final Crisis” hits, DC’s hoping everyone’s so tied up in knots and sick to death of alternate realities, they’ll be able to trundle the whole mess off in one fell swoop, accompanied by the cheers of grateful fans.
I personally love the whole multiple earth thing, so it’ll take alot more than this to shake me, but still…I can see all the fans who were initially wary about the multiverse construct running for the hills at this point.
June 21st, 2007 at 5:58 pm
We have Batman in Brave & Bold meeting the Waid LSH. We have Batman in JLA meeting the Pre-Crisis LSH.
I’ll wager “JLA/Lightning Strikes” took place BEFORE “Brave & the Bold”.
Batman may have a few words with the LSH in B&B.
June 21st, 2007 at 9:34 pm
There are at least three odd continuity bits with the JLA/JSA Legion;
1) Starman refers to Kal-L.
2) Jeckie didn’t adopt the Sensor Girl id until after Karate Kid’s death (not to mention it was also post-Crisis).
3) Timber Wolf strongly implies that Light(ning) Lass (Ayla) is dead.
None of these mesh up with what we know of the continuity of LSH version 1.
June 22nd, 2007 at 9:35 am
To Tom Galloway:
1) Since everyone apparently remembers the original Crisis and multiple Earths, I see no problem with Thom mentioning Kal-L.
2) Somewhere in Lightning Strikes one of the Legionnaires mentions bringing Karate Kid “back,” which I assume happened after they “disappeared” after the first Crisis (to where I have no idea – but neither does Superman, so I don’t feel bad).
3) The same goes for Light Lass – she may have died since we last saw her.
I admit these are unanswered questions, but they don’t bother me – just Easter Eggs, as Meltzer and Johns call them, to be explored in later stories.
June 22nd, 2007 at 10:37 am
There are at least three odd continuity bits with the JLA/JSA Legion
There are more than that.
June 22nd, 2007 at 4:53 pm
I don’t think KK and Sensor Girl are glitches, but the whole team is from the same point of time in the future. I got the impression that this is a “new” old Legion we’re seeing. It’s like what would have happened to the Legion if Crisis cause the reboots and “no Superboy” workarounds. For this Legion, there was no pocket universe Superboy, no Magic Wars, no “5 Years Later”, no reboots.
The post-Crisis exploits of this version are unknown. So here we have several of the Legion in their 70s costumes, at some point KK has been resurrected and Jeckie is still in her Sensor Girl identity. And then we get weird but deliberate annomalies, like Timber Wolf in his retro costume, Wildfire being a descendant of Red Tornado, and Jeckie still being Sensor Girl. It’s the old stories, but some new elements are there.
At least they didn’t bring back Quislet.