In one issue of Justice League Quarterly the JLI went up against a new version of the Conglomerate that was populated entirely by Qwardian doppelgangers. The speedster doppelganger for Wally was called Slipstream.

It was a one-off appearance, but I figure worth a mention in the comments.

My thoughts:
of all the renegade Flashes, Savitar was perhaps my favorite. There was something about him. When I’m in conflict at work with this “workplace bully-ish” person I have to deal with daily…I honestly use the same advice Aunt Iris gave Wally to defeat Savitar. “Give Him What He Wants”. It works for us “heroes”. By doing this, my “rival” will trip himself up someday.
Also Zoom II Hunter Zolomon is a close second. Sure it was a legacy character nonetheless from the flipped chest logo down to the reversed treads on his running boots, Scott Kolins made Zoom II a fearsome looking individual. For me, most of that came down to the expressions on Zoom II’s face and the use of the voice balloons to give “time & sound effects” to his speech patterns.

of course, Professor Zoom will always be the coolest looking bad guy. This comes from reading FLASH when I was a kid in the 70s. For me, the term Bronze Age is something newer…come experts quote the death of Gwaen Stacy as the end of the Silver Age but I selfishly think it was the death of Professor Zoom at a hero’s hands and his subsequent trial. Seeing Wally in Kid Flash costume testifying against his mentor…I can still see the panel in my mind. Predates the Great Darkness Frank Miller Wrought, eh?

Speaking of Frank Miller and alternates costumes…can we get an Honorable Mention for Barry Allen’s “black costume” from DK2? How can you improve a classic? Here’s a good angle. I love the sneakers & shorts apart from a simple black color & also Barry’s own musings to Catgirl Carrie Kelly about its design.

crea shakti,
Rev Sully

Eric O’Sullivan
Boston, MA USA

I love the Professor Zoom, name, it makes Thawne sound like a super snake oil salesman. ‘Rival’ is just colourless, and ”Renegade’ would be equally so. What next, ‘Rebel’ for Zoom’ and ‘Rotter’ for Inertia? To my mind, an arch-villain with similar powers to the hero should reflect that in their name. ‘Prof Zoom’ could only be an enemy of The Flash whereas ‘Renegade’ and co could fight anyone.

I don’t get your points about separating the lightning bolts being a big improvement in terms of the Frank Quitely Johnny Quick design – the two bolts were separate on the original too. Do you mean at the bottom, where the second version’s doesn’t end in the point of a ‘V’? That seems a pretty negligible difference.

Bonus: I need to go watch the Flash DVDs again to see the blue Flash uniform. thanks!!!

With the Impulses and the Kid Flashes, there is the common thread that the young people involved are under the direct guidance of a speedster mentor, that they are doing their best to follow in the footsteps of previous Flashes, and they hope one day to become THE Flash. So they are an integral part of that legacy. XS had just a couple of adventures with any of the Flash family and in most of those her role was minimal. She was in multiple issues of DEAD HEAT but only gave Wally advice at one point, she wasn’t a major part of the story. Also, her costume is very much just a Legion uniform so she’d be more suited for an LSH column. In the same vein, only Wally has met the Tornado Twins and neither their costumes nor methods were Flash or lightning related, so they would be more suited to a different column that would focus on children of heroes who turned out quite different or future-born heroes in general.

Thanks for the correction on Dead Heat, don’t know where my brain was at that point. I’d even re-read the story to get the scans in.