HiC is to DC what Civil War was to Marvel-a plot driven story where characters are shoehorned in to make the story work, even though this isn’t how they would behave. Debating about dropping all my current DC books and just reading what’s on the app. There’s a lot of old Batman I’ve never read.
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HiC is to DC what Civil War was to Marvel-a plot driven story where characters are shoehorned in to make the story work, even though this isn’t how they would behave. Debating about dropping all my current DC books and just reading what’s on the app. There’s a lot of old Batman I’ve never read.
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HiC is to DC what Civil War was to Marvel-a plot driven story where characters are shoehorned in to make the story work, even though this isn’t how they would behave. Debating about dropping all my current DC books and just reading what’s on the app. There’s a lot of old Batman I’ve never read.
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There is one issue to go. Tom King could still redeem Wally (and himself).
But as it stands, this feels like an awful betrayal. As I’ve said many times, Wally West is my favorite comic book character of all time, and the character assassination he’s been forced to endure over the last eight years is terribly distasteful to me. It reminds me of how I felt after Hal snapped, killed the GL Corps, Sinestro and the Guardians. Thankfully, that was retconned. And, since this is comics, there’s a good chance Heroes in Crisis will be fixed as well.
I like the idea of heroes dealing with their trauma, and Sanctuary had the potential to be a cornerstone of the DCU moving forward. There have been some great character-driven scenes in this book that I really appreciate. But, much like Identity Crisis, the mystery reveal was forced and terribly out of character.
This storyline also reinforces the ongoing rumor that Dan Didio hates the Titans. Roy’s dead, Dick’s personality is unrecognizable and now Wally… it all makes me sad and a bit nauseated.
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I just hope that the next ‘Head of DC’ will remember that New Teen Titans was given a team-up with Marvel’s X-Men in 1982 for a reason.
It was the only DC title that was outselling most of Marvel at the time.
In the last 20 years, we’ve been led to believe that the only thing DC’s ever published that sold good was Batman.
Despite Wolfman/Perez’s Titans, the Levitz Legion and Giffen/DeMatteis JLI being major hits during their time.
It’s an injustice that those books are no longer recognized for the good they did for DC.
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This and Bendis’s Superman killed my interest in dc for the foreseeable future.
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Would withhold judgment on this issue, we only heard half of Wally’s explanation. As for the deaths, he did murder anyone, he lost control. Let’s see what Wally does next.
This whole thing was a giant mess from the beginning and as of today’s issue all I can say is that depending on how the last issue goes, I am highly considering saying goodbye to all things DC.
What message was this comic series supposed to convey? All I see is pointless death and the defamation of multiple characters, to the point where the one character who is supposed to represent hope has become a murderer. And, seriously, accidentally blasting everyone with a Speed Force explosion?! Wally has way more control of his powers than that and even if for some reason that was a plausible scenario, then Wally would try at nothing to find a way of going BACK in time to fix it rather than FORWARD in time to kill himself. I mean, if time travel was on the table anyway use it to actually fix things so that the travesty never happened.
They should’ve just made this mini series either an Elseworlds event or have just made it a self-contained thing so that it would be wrapped up by the end without bleeding into other comics.
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This wasn’t how I envisioned my first post, but for the first time since Rebirth started and Wally West returned to the DC Universe, I felt an overwhelming emotional reaction to a comic and felt that I needed to get it off my chest.
#tomking You don’t know me, but I have spent a lifetime living in the shadow of my older brother, who passed away unexpectedly at the age of 19 in 1985.
I idolized my brother. He was smart, he was strong, he was handsome. All things that I couldn’t see in myself. He introduced me to a lifelong love of comics when I was young and then he was gone. And my world would never be the same.
1985 - the year that saw the introduction of DC’s Crisis on Infinite Earths, the story that saw Barry Allen die and Wally West (eventually) take on the mantle of the Flash.
Wally was my avatar growing up, showing me that despite my loss, I can be a better me. Wally and I were both far from perfect, but we were both able to make a place in this world; we could be happy, but never content. Wally found happiness, had kids, had a life.
Wally’s return was never complete in my eyes, without Linda and his kids back. But it was comics, and I hoped his happy ending was still just waiting to be told. That was what Rebirth implied, after all, that Wally had a place in this new world.
Now instead of a happy ending, DC and Tom King rip it away. Wally West, for the sake of a story, appears to be made into a murderer who commits suicide. This was not the promise of Rebirth. This is Identity Crisis all over again. This is shock for shock’s sake. This is not and should NOT be Wally West.
I know…this story isn’t finished yet. I know this is fiction and another writer may very well retcon this story. I know, but right now, in this moment, you took my brother away from me.
#tomking I will not forgive you for assassinating the character of Wally West.
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What’s up with Dan Diddo’s agenda against the first generation sidekick characters? He keeps trying to push writers into getting rid of them.
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Tom Kings Batman run is one that will need to be read in trade form to get the whole picture. I recently reread the first 60+ issues and it flowed a lot better and made more sense the second time. Everything is building to the “City of Bane” storyline that starts with Batman #75.
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I’m crushed yet again. When this series started I was pissed. Having just read Mark Waid’s run on Flash and reading Rebirth and the care that was put into bringing Wally back. It felt like DC had returned to it’s roots.
Only to see him be used as cannon fodder - I held in figuring I shouldn’t judge. That the story wasn’t over - that Wally’s alive… Seeing #8 cover filled me with hope that this issue was going to be Wally’s redemption.
Now I can’t decided if I would rather him have stayed in the Speed Force… rather than see his Rebirth just to have his legacy tarnished.
DC can we move past these tropes. Stop killing characters for sales. Or making our heroes into villains…
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Seconded, @Doomsdave. That goes for just about everything King has written. He’s a long-form storyteller and does things in a manner that’s perhaps overly episodic, even for comics which run on a similar format.
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I’ve decided that everything we saw in this issue is false. Well, at least 50% of it. Wally didn’t kill everyone, Poison Ivy made the whole place hallucinate, and kill each other. She has some crazy plan that involves time travel and needed the Flash and Booster to do it. Booster is going to save the day. Somehow. I don’t care how. He’s going to go back in time and kicks Batman in the nuts right before he has the idea for Sanctuary.
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I can’t disagree more. First, in Tom king I trust. He hasn’t written a bad issue of a comic ever, in my opinion. Second, the book is about ptsd, and how stress really messes with people and makes them do bad things. I get he’s a beloved character, but that is being used to show even the best can have mental problems. It’s a really deep, realistic story. I can understand not wanting realism in your comics, but that’s my personal wheelhouse. Also, there is still another issue, so don’t fully judge until it’s done… maybe there is another twist to come.
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I can’t disagree more. First, in Tom king I trust. He hasn’t written a bad issue of a comic ever, in my opinion. Second, the book is about ptsd, and how stress really messes with people and makes them do bad things. I get he’s a beloved character, but that is being used to show even the best can have mental problems. It’s a really deep, realistic story. I can understand not wanting realism in your comics, but that’s my personal wheelhouse. Also, there is still another issue, so don’t fully judge until it’s done… maybe there is another twist to come.
OK… so seeing Wally piece everything together to determine if Sanctuary was real, then having a breakdown after speed witnessing everyone’s sessions/traumas I could (kinda) accept. But - and this is a big BUT - if Wally had the frame of mind to get Booster’s time travel tech. meticulously stage a crime scene to fool two of the greatest detectives and frame innocent people of mass murder (!!!), why wouldn’t he have just gone back in time to run himself to an empty space for his previous breakdown? This would have saved everyone (not just Ivy with the flower thing), maintained Wally as a hero and not a suicide/killer, exposed the flaws with Sanctuary, and opened the possibility of real healing for Wally - he faced the worst, but knew he wasn’t alone. There could have still been hope.
Well, perhaps Sanctuary was built to be way more capable than we’ve been shown. Wally isn’t known as a tech genius, so let’s say he can’t really reconstruct all the data that Batman purposefully had disassembled. This would mean that everything Wally saw, did, and thought happened in the ‘outside’ world was actually within Sanctuary. The events shown outside of HiC issues, like Roy’s funeral, could be explained by Wally thinking he was in the ‘outside’ world checking on people over the ‘five’ days he had before ‘killing’ himself. Upon ‘killing’ himself, he wakes up to the Sanctuary caregivers, Barry and Iris, or freaking Bart, who can renew Wally’s hope that others can make it out of the Speed Force, thus giving him new purpose.
(Also, Linda didn’t forget Wally - they hadn’t met yet in the new52/Rebirth condensed timeline. Wally should remember what Speed Force Linda said and not lose hope…)
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I’m squarely in the camp of those who think King is a great writer.
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When they inevitably reintroduce Wally:
“Haha Wally, Remember that time when we offered you therapy grin and you mass murdered our friends and… chuckle … a-a-and you went to extensive lengths to blame another fellow hero for it chortles, which led to more people getting hurt. Aaaah good times! But you know what they say - water under the bridge man, water under the bridge. You are a true hero, they should make a childrens cartoon about you: Teen Titans Go Postal. Kids with mental health issues need someone to connect with you know, and you did a great job showing what seeking help will do. And that’s a Flash fact.”
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Read few of the reviews.
I believe this sums it up -
“This issue is gripping and beautifully rendered. But still, the question remains - is telling this story worth the seemingly irreparable harm being done to a DC icon?”
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