Remember the Last Time?

   So, Flash: Rebirth #3 is out today (or tomorrow in Canada) and that got me wanting to re-read Mark Waid's run. Waid's Flash was one of my gateway drugs into comics (partly because a good friend of mine traded me almost the entire run up to that point, around from #62 - 100, for the #13s of the Heroes Reborn stuff. I don't know if I've ever been so close to theft in my entire life.)

   By the time it's finished, Geoff Johns's miniseries will be the same length as Waid's story (discounting the cliffhanger at the end of #73, "The Return of Barry Allen" ran from #74 - 79). By the end of #75, a reader is pretty sure that this isn't Barry Allen after all. The thematic purpose of the story was to establish Wally as a worthy successor for Barry precisely because he is a different character. Zoom, the crazed Flash fan and a clear precursor to Johns's Ur-Fanboy Superboy Prime, idolizes Barry and wants to be exactly like him. His attempts are futile, and in a bit of time-travelly confusion, they actually create the psychotic Zoom that would/had menace(d) Barry in stories already told. To stop Zoom, Wally has to move on from his own idolization of Barry and accept his role as the Flash. It's all very pop-psychology, with just enough Freud to make things the tidy motivations a little messier. Far from being a love-letter to the Silver Age, Waid's story is a pretty stirring embrace of a new character.

   What Johns's seems to be doing is a little different. For one thing, he's actually bringing Barry Allen back. If he follows his road-map from Green Lantern: Rebirth, as he has admitted in interviews, then he's planning to keep all the Flashes around but put the Silver Age version back in the title role. Johns has made the doubts about bringing Barry back into the plot of the series, as characters express a variety of opinions about what his return means. It's all very meta. He wants to, like Waid did with his story, focus on why the man in the red tights should be wearing them ... he's just arguing the opposite point that Waid did. At the same time, he's trying to preserve Wally as someone special. He wants to re-establish Barry Allen as the Flash, but keep Wally West around as something other than a junior side-kick. What Waid did was prove that the new guy deserved the job. What Johns's is doing is trying to show that the new guy didn't do anything wrong, but that he's going to be replaced anyway. It's not him ... it's us.

   It's not that I anticipate Johns is going to do a narrative disservice to Wally West. Far from it, I would guess. But, unlike the Green Lanterns, there doesn't seem to be any real publishing desire, or mythological infrastructure, to support so many Flashes. Jay gets a pass because he mostly keeps to himself over in the Justice Society. But look at Roy Harper and his Red Arrow persona. Granted, the JLA book has been a supreme mess lately, but having what amounts to two versions of the same character (in slightly different costumes) doesn't work. Sure, Wally can hang out with the Titans, but that book has too many insurmountable problems, and will just get canceled again. He'll pop up here and there in the main Flash comic, and might even be a regular supporting character, but he'll be pushed to the background.

   This stuff happens in publishing. Eventually, if a character is published for long enough, something has to be done to keep him or her fresh. It's OK to put Wally on the shelf for a while, and give Barry some air again. But I'm still convinced Ted Kord's coming back, so maybe I'm just a silly optimist.

   

In Defense of Dan DiDio Part 3 of 2

   OK. So, Dan DiDio, executive editor of DC Comics, recently said the following over at Newsarama: 

But as we say, we’re not reverting to anything – we’re continuing a story. There are no reboots taking place. This is building on the existing stories and continuity of the DC Universe and giving us the chance to examine our characters in a new light by using characters that are familiar to everyone. There’s a reason that Hal Jordan is Green Lantern, which we’ve explained time and time again in his own series, and there will be a clear understanding of why Barry Allen is the Flash as we move on through Rebirth. 

   I think that this exemplifies one of DiDio's main problems in his interactions with DC fans: he tries to justify business decisions by explaining them as storytelling decisions. I'm sorry, Mr. DiDio, but we all know that these characters aren't real. Well, most of us know. And since they are not real, when you say that "there's a reason that Hal Jordan is Green Lantern" you aren't saying what you think you are. My inference is that you are suggesting that there is an intrinsic truth being developed by Green Lantern comics that justifies the publishing decision to bring Hal Jordan back to life/a regular series (something about a special destiny...I really can't understand that mythology no matter how hard I try). 

 

   Now, it only makes sense to have a STORYTELLING reason to explain Hal's return. But it doesn't mean that there isn't the possibility of writing stories where John Stewart has the special destiny and the regular series. I get the sense that Mr. DiDio is implying that there are reasons that have nothing to do with publishing that explain why John Stewart is not the star of Green Lantern every month. Now, I get that there is a balance between art and commerce, but Mr. DiDio seems to try to make us blind to the commerce part.

   DC has given the book to someone other than Hal Jordan before. They even made up an entirely new character back in 1994 with Kyle Rayner. That, like the choice to put Hal Jordan back in the starring role, was in large part a business decision: in both cases, Green Lantern wasn't doing very well, and they wanted to shake things up dramatically. What I think Mr. DiDio should be saying is that, within the comics themselves, story logic will support a publishing decision. There will a "clear understanding of why Barry Allen is the Flash" in the comic - in other words, Barry's return will be given an explanation within the bounds of the pages of Flash: Rebirth. But reason will be different than the EDITORIAL reason to bring Barry back from the dead. Which is, let's be honest, to sell more comics.

   

   DiDio's other problem is in the inaccuracy of his language. It's fine that he's reverting the DCU back to an older status-quo. It's his call. He's the executive editor. But he is reverting. When you go back to the way things were, that is pretty much the definition of reverting. He's trying to have his cake and eat it, too. Revert back to the "iconic" DC heroes while continuing to hold on the to continuity that DC has been trying so adorably to make sense of since the 80s. 

   It's not that the ideas are bad ones. It's that the man seems to have trouble explaining them. Or maybe he just doesn't think we'll notice.

PS - Is anyone else a little annoyed by how much lighting Barry Allen seems to be generating? Why does he shoot off sparks when he's crouching?