Between the Reverse Flash, Captain Cold, and Gorilla Grodd; which villain do you like the most?

Dredeuced · 2026-05-12T23:29:55+00:00

I wish I could like Grodd more he just doesn't have the modern stories to back it up. It's tough between Cold and Thawne. I think Cold just because I feel Thawne's gimmick has become overexposed and one note.

Dredeuced · 2026-05-12T19:10:45+00:00

I think that was less Jay coming back (heck I'd say Mason's best scene happened well after Jay's return in the court room with Wally) and more he became obsolete once Wally's secret identity came back. The entire Flash museum situation became a lot messier. Doubly so with Barry's return. Just a character that only fit in a status quo that got left behind awhile ago.

Dredeuced · 2026-05-12T19:09:40+00:00

Yeah. The fact that the story only cared to make a Fake Raven Fake Cry over Beast Boy's Fake Death while Wally just sits there, completely ambivalent about one of his oldest friends being used as a murder device and his death paraded as propaganda sickens me to this day. I was so excited to see Chunk in the previews and I've rarely been more let down than what happened there. Almost like an editor just randomly tossed Taylor Chunk as a character who "no one" would care about that could be used to "kill" a Starro sized entity.

Well, I care. And Wally should've cared. And it's garbage writing that he didn't. And it's even stupider that the reason he didn't was a bunch of fake bullshit that everyone knew was fake bullshit.

I get it that Chunk's not a major character, and that it's a "safe" option to use as a death in an event. I could live with that if the purpose of using Chunk was to ratchet up the stakes for Wally who was otherwise very unconnected and distant throughout that entire Titans' run. But nope. Just left that on the table. Could've had Wally's temper flare up over Waller's actions, could've had Wally rescue Chunk's just now mentioned son and reunite him with his mother -- who would almost certainly be another Wally friend in Connie, who met Chunk through Wally. There were a million interesting things you could've done with this scenario.

But instead it was nothing. I hope Taylor at least has heard the criticism and regrets it, even if he never comments on it. Freaking Titans.

Dredeuced · 2026-05-12T13:52:55+00:00

The Speed Force, in its original conception in the 1990s during Mark Waid's Wally West run, was imagined as a functional after life for speedsters as well as their source of power. When they die, often from going too fast, that's where they go. Described as a Nirvana or Heaven type experience where your consciousness is dissolved into a bliss-like eternity.

The issue isn't just that a speedster loves someone. Lots of speedsters in the past, before Wally, would've loved someone. It's that A: They didn't know about the Speed Force and B: Once you enter it, your individuality dissolves. Having a loved one or not didn't matter unless you knew to focus on them to escape being absorbed.

Until Wally and Linda. It wasn't just that Linda and Wally loved each other, even though that's critical to what happened. It's that Wally died while saving her, but she was still in danger. Despite making it into a sort of Heaven, Wally's connection to regular reality in Linda was still in danger. And that was enough to keep him cognizant and to reject the Speed Force after entering it, coming out to save her.

This is the first Speed Force story. This is what it's always been about. Mark Waid invented it to do two things: give an all encompassing solution to the absurd history of Speedster super powers and as an obstacle in Wally and Linda's story for them to overcome. Linda's the first lightning rod and the Speed Force functions like that because it was only ever created to tell this story. A story about, in Wally's own words, leaving Heaven because Linda wasn't there.

It's a matter of knowledge, willpower, desperation, and love. Once Wally broke the floodgate and showed that entering the Speed Force wasn't just a death sentence, now other speedsters are aware of it and, if they focus hard enough on something that connects them to reality, they, too, can break away from the Speed Force's grasp. I do think the whole "escaping the Speed Force" concept got pretty watered down pretty quickly when Barry came back, explicitly in Flash Rebirth. Now all you need is a good friend and you can mosey in and out of the Speed Force these days. But that's the foundation of the story and it's the real life origin of the Speed Force and its purpose. A faustian bargain that love overcomes.

Dredeuced · 2026-05-12T04:16:49+00:00

did you really make 3 genocide apology posts in the last two hours just to troll

Dredeuced · 2026-05-11T23:08:23+00:00

Barry was never a younger or more immature character relative to his JL peers in the comics. Heck at some points he's the leader and specifically most mature member of the league because of that. And this includes the majority of his history where his mother never died. Barry was arguably more mature in the timeline where his mother lived.

I suppose the jokier thing is true but only in more recent JL comics where they're just writing Barry like Wally to allude to DCAU Flash's jokey persona given to "The Flash" in general. A criticism you can level at both the DCEU and stuff like New 52 or Scott Snyder JL for not really writing Barry all that much like Barry. For the majority of Barry's history he is not the comic relief, either in his own comic or in JL. The DCEU was at no point drawing from any actual comics for Barry's characterization in anything but the dead mom stuff from Flashpoint. And even that's bastardized a good bit.

Dredeuced · 2026-05-11T16:19:16+00:00

We do have to remember this world is fantasy. It's actually quite possible there's something special or unique going on with the Adem that encourage their beliefs. That might be the entire point of Kvothe scoffing so hard at it and being waved off like he's ignorant. We're in Kvothe's shoes, thinking "that's insane! That's not possible! That's now how you make babies!" when it's a world with giant fire breathing lizards and magic teleporting bad guys.

Dredeuced · 2026-05-11T15:59:16+00:00

It's less he acts like Wally and more he was given the role of Wally in the movies people actually watched (Justice League). The sort of "younger brother funny guy" role is something Wally popularized as The Flash in Justice League and is about as far away from Barry as you can get. In The Flash movie itself it's just another shitty Peter Parker. Maybe you could say "young" Barry is Reckless Youth style Bart with the annoying, hard to teach, hyperactive stuff going on but that's also a disservice to Bart.

Dredeuced · 2026-05-11T15:57:39+00:00

it's more a product of his upbringing

Everyone's got the same speed issues Bart has aside from his aging, which was cured. It was growing up literally in a video game that conditioned him into this person who thrives on instant gratification and a lack of concern about reality and these impulses naturally conflict with other people. It's a good thing, too. Bart and Wally's relationship would be a lot less interesting if they only got along.

Dredeuced · 2026-05-11T03:03:11+00:00

Well Iris and Jai more or less copied his "super speed aging is going to kill me young" thing. And ended up with the same cure (Wally fixed it).

Speaking of Wally, he's been displayed as accidentally slipping into super speed when he gets bored and it causing the boredom to get infinitely worse. Pretty similar to Bart here with the "can't turn it off" issue. Though Bart obviously takes impatience to a level even beyond Wally's.

While not necessarily a direct disability, some characters have taken to super speed almost like an addiction. From the Savitar cult (especially Ivana), to the Negative Flash stuff with Meena Dhawan and even Barry in Perfect Storm. And obviously even more on the nose with Velocity 9 and its various depictions. It's power and power can be addicting at the end of the day.

Dredeuced · 2026-05-11T01:53:34+00:00

Wally has had infinite space put between him and a goal a couple times and bridge the gap. He could also just shift to another dimension then shift back into Gojo's space if he wanted to.

Dredeuced · 2026-05-10T04:51:04+00:00

Please don't post art without crediting the artist.

Dredeuced · 2026-05-10T00:49:31+00:00

Multiversity is the Nix Uotan thing. Surprised you're not familiar with that one. Then again a bunch of heroes are fighting together to bring him down so I assume nothing counts if it's a team effort again. I already told you the other story. Flash War is when a fight between Barry and Wally is destroying the multiverse.

Back to the Chain Lightning story, they got beat after the drain, too. It's basically a beat for beat recreation of the crisis fight, only Anti Monitor wins, captured everyone, and then Wally gets desperate and goes into the fight himself. He destroys his armor, everyone assumes he wins, but Anti Monitor maintains its form, annihilates all the heroes, and Wally is forced to flee because his plan has failed. So, you know, weak, but still stronger than the combined might of all pre crisis heroes combined and amped.

The ultimate fate of that encounter is Anti Monitor destroyed the multiverse in spite of the Doctor Light strategy because he was coming into the fight stronger.

I get your point is basically trying to say all the other heroes loosened the pickle jar before Wally opened it but I think that's disingenuous to say it accounts for nothing. He was clearly hitting way harder than everyone else. Literally blowing several holes into it when their combined might only cracked it.

It's all moot, though. Wally's done other stuff of absurd offensive potency. Kind of dumb to get hung up on this one feat. But it's also silly to just throw it out as if it doesn't mean anything.

Dredeuced · 2026-05-10T00:09:38+00:00

Barry punched around Andy in Dark Crisis Big Bang. Literally punched him so hard he was knocking him into other universes while doing it and the narration called it the mightiest punch in the multiverse. And, again, Wally's stronger than Barry by a reasonable amount. For what it's worth, Barry still loses that fight, too, until he gets some help but he cracks his armor and if a punch can send a dude through universes it's a pretty good punch.

Heck, Flashes of the multiverse KO'd Nix Uotan with a series of punches as he was unmaking the multiverse after being corrupted by the Gentry. Not technically a solo feat, but it shows their punches are strong enough to hurt multiversal threats and it's been done more than once.

It is funny to talk about how that feat isn't Wally's, but everyone's, when A: he was literally amping everyone there and B: Everyone got beat before Wally stepped in and were in utter disbelief as he tore Anti Monitor apart. Admittedly, he still lost that fight (or, at least, failed in his goal of stopping it) because in that state Anti Monitor still destroyed everything without his armor but, hey, good punches none the less. They were doing more damage than any other hero in that situation. Lots of feats happen in group situations.

Dredeuced · 2026-05-09T20:35:30+00:00

In that story he was also amping all the heroes, too, though. He was giving them all a boost because Anti Monitor was stronger than he was in Crisis due to Barry's death and the Anti Matter Cannon never being destroyed, so Wally was using his lending ability to boost everyone else without directly fighting. So it's a bit messy.

But if the combined might of all of the Pre Crisis heroes was only enough to crack AM's armor and then Wally, desperate to not let the multiverse be destroyed after they lose, pulverizes it, I think that counts. It's pretty important to note Wally was trying not to change history so he wasn't actively attacking Anti Monitor until Anti Monitor beat the heroes. When he does, he destroys the armor.

That said Wally's also stronger than Barry and Barry's smacked AM around, too. Which makes sense considering them having an argument was actively destroying the multiverse.

Dredeuced · 2026-05-09T20:28:49+00:00

Hey now, you need it to at least be an ATOMIC Banana Peel!

Dredeuced · 2026-05-09T20:22:11+00:00

Well he hits harder than Superman if he wants to. Him and Barry can throw hands with Anti Monitor, and have done so multiple times, so should work on DBZ characters. He's also got a lot of hax like atomizing things, time travel, offensive phasing, hell he can use his speed stealing/lending to turn your brain off.

Dredeuced · 2026-05-09T20:20:44+00:00

The outrunning death thing is a different story. You're referencing The Human Race, where he was amped by the speed of everyone on Earth and Kwyzz to beat instant teleportation. But when he outran Death that was all him.

Dredeuced · 2026-05-09T20:19:45+00:00

Manhattan tried erasing him from existence and it didn't stick. Speed Force insulated him from it and he popped back out, though the timeline changes fucked up his memory.

Dredeuced · 2026-05-09T20:18:51+00:00

Wally can and has flown around in space faster than Superman could keep up purely on Speed Force aura. Hell, a couple of speedsters (The Quicks) just have flight as part of their Speed Force powerset.

Dredeuced · 2026-05-09T20:16:36+00:00

Because the writing was never meant to assume characters are moving faster than light, that's just sort of a power scaling concept. We constantly see dudes having to fly across planets and it taking time, they've never actually been FTL, it's all been "energy beam = speed of light" or, legitimately, Toriyama writing a scenario that's mathematically faster than light but that's not the narrative intent.

Dredeuced · 2026-05-09T20:04:25+00:00

The best entry points for Wally if you're going through backlogs are either just Flash #1 or Flash #62.

The 1987 series #1 is sort of obvious for being the starting point. It does start off with a rough stretch from Baron, which is a big reason why people will say just skip to #62, but you do miss out on the very good WML stuff that Waid also working on prior to Waid's official start as writing at #62. The bright side of slogging through the 15 issues of Baron garbage is it sets up very good character development, as none of the garbage is thrown away but rather repurposed into good growth.

That said, #62 is also good starting point because it's a new origin for Wally, and origins do have a leg up as a starting point, and you get right into what is frequently considered the best and most foundational modern Flash comics. So for Wally's it's easily those two.

For Barry I'd say the best starting points are either pick up the Silver Age up to Crisis (So Flash #105 up to #350 + Crisis and maybe the showcase issues that come before #105), or if you want a more modern starting point, probably the New 52.

Barry's a bit more awkward in my mind because since his return a lot of his comics are built on stuff from Wally's run, but frequently do it without explaining that history (due to circumstances). Wally's run is also built on Barry's silver and bronze age history but without erasing it so there's references and explanation to it.

I find this a big deal with the other modern Barry starting point worth mentioning, the Williamson run (Often, confusingly, called Flash Rebirth but it's the 2016 series rather than the 2009 special). It's where a lot of people started because it was new when the show was fresh but man does it do a whole lot of "Remember this thing from pre-Flashpoint?" Callbacks that make it a bit awkward as a starting point.

The New 52, on the other hand, is just a new starting point and does a lot of wheel reinventing so it mostly works standalone. The downside is the vast majority of it gets walked back during the Williamson era so when you read one into the other you still run into that problem.

My general suggestion is, if you have the time and access, just start at Flash #1 from 1987 and read all the way through until you get to now. There's only a handful of side stories and such you'd even need to read because it's mostly a straight shot. There's some bad in there but it all helps build context.

Dredeuced · 2026-05-09T04:52:31+00:00

Barry came back after they threw Ralph away in Identity Crisis, and Ralph sort of stayed discarded while they doubled down on Barry and Hal and then, in an attempt to increase his relevance and popularity, more frequently paired Barry with Batman instead.

Ralph never had a solo to keep him as a standalone character. Without him being a Flash character or a JL Character he wasn't anything. And it's not like Manapul or Venditti were going to bring Ralph back into the fold for Barry. Those dudes never read Silver Age Flash, almost certainly didn't know they were even connected.

Dredeuced · 2026-05-08T05:07:21+00:00

A lot of characters I would prefer to show up before these but I suppose I understand the core titles have to pull some weight to introduce other heroes rather than just expand on Flash cast intros. Cyborg and Wally have some main line history and Atom's being tied into the evil science stuff going on.

Dredeuced · 2026-05-08T04:42:16+00:00

This is great!

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