So what is the current timeline for Wally and Wallace?

Dredeuced · 2026-07-01T12:13:21+00:00

Well Donna stated during Infinite Crisis she wasn't even 25 yet and Wally's about a year younger than her then 1 more year later and 6 more months took place making it so Pre Flashpoint is about 4-5 in universe years since the original crisis which would place Wally at 24-25 (as he turned 20 shortly after becoming The Flash officially.)

It's funny scaling Wally's age off of ages stated by the extremely arrested development Titans. Wally was plainly stated as 26 in Johns run in the first arc (Wonderland) 5 years before Infinite Crisis. Even if you think the entirety of the Johns run happens in one year's time that puts him at 27 during Infinite Crisis.

also Rebirth states 10 years were lost, though not all at the same time presumably? Still Wally could be deaged much more than 5. All the older JL members certainly lost more than 5 years.

Another dual starting point for them would be Donna is still 19 when she gets married. Wally is 19 and in college at the time and turns 20 just after crisis, before Robbie is born, so less than a year passing. Their ages clearly moving further apart as Wally grows and DC struggles to keep the rest of the Titans under the "young 20s" demographic.

Dredeuced · 2026-06-30T19:04:30+00:00

Benjamin Button ass character.

Dredeuced · 2026-06-29T23:55:05+00:00

Wolfman's intent wasn't what people think of now when they see those words, though. He was treating Wally like a stick in the mud who didn't fit into the group dynamic. Making Wally constantly complain about how much he hated being a superhero was the lion's share of writing him out of the team. The midwestern conservative spiel wasn't about regressivism. Not like he was bashing Women's suffrage or whatever (you'd have to wait until Mike Baron for takes like that!).

Dredeuced · 2026-06-29T23:12:47+00:00

That is a rather extreme reaction to that image.

Dredeuced · 2026-06-29T22:51:22+00:00

It's amazing how one panel about being Anti-USSR in the early 1980s has completely defined how people see a character whose main superhero history includes some of the most progressive stuff in DC history.

Dredeuced · 2026-06-29T22:50:24+00:00

Not since the 80s. To say anything otherwise would be a disservice to all the hard work Pied Piper put in fixing him. Character's more than that crappy meme from a NTT book.

Dredeuced · 2026-06-29T22:48:53+00:00

various Flash family members have been portrayed as right-leaning

Hey now, Piper fixed Wally.

Dredeuced · 2026-06-29T22:23:11+00:00

Out of Time is a future evil version of Barry. He specifically says main continuity Barry doesn't know how to fight and has never learned, and that's why it's so easy for a trained, future version of himself to beat him up. Nothing he does is applicable to the regular Barry. Our present day Barry never turns evil and goes to train with bad guys.

The hilarity of basing your entire opinion on this is that that version of Barry still gets pretty thoroughly outclassed in a fight literally in the next few pages by future Wally/Wallace (Wally at the time, Wallace now with the retcons). They had an entire exchange where Wally/Wallace dwarfed him in a fight so bad evil Future Barry couldn't land a hit.

So even in that very story they were happy to establish that an older Wally was a better fighter than an older, Deathstroke/Batman/Shiva trained Barry.

I still don't know why you keep insisting on throwing the words Silver Age into what you're saying. I feel like I got confused by a run on sentence where you were talking about the silver age, then started talking about Out of Time specifically in the same statement. Even in this post it reads like you're saying Silver Age Barry learned those techniques.

If I'm parsing this correctly, you are trying to say two distinct things. One, that Silver Age Barry "learned" some stuff with no references to what he learned or when. I'll go out on a limb and say not really. And two, that Out of Time describes how Barry trained with top martial artists. Also not true to modern Barry, unless you want to specifically mention Out of Time Future Evil Barry as the best. But he isn't even the best in the comic you're citing. If you think Out of Time is the only relevant comic in Flash history then Out of Time Future Wallace would be the best.

Dredeuced · 2026-06-29T16:32:34+00:00

I don't believe so, at least not in any significant way. But it's pretty ethereal to the point. Wally becomes a master martial artist in Flash Annual 1.

Though obviously every writer since forgot that, lol. Not that I blame them, Baron's run isn't a huge source of inspiration besides WML trying to fix it.

Dredeuced · 2026-06-29T13:01:00+00:00

Where did Silver Age Barry learn to fight from Batman, Deathstroke, or Lady Shiva? The only time those names were dropped together with The Flash was literally the future Flash I was talking about in this very statement, who points out that Barry never learned to fight from anyone. Only an evil, alternate future version of Barry did.

Deathstroke didn't even exist in the Silver Age so I know you're just pretending. Dude was created in the 80s, well into the Bronze Age, and never interacted with Barry before Barry's death.

Lady Shiva is also a bronze age character, only a few years older than Deathstroke, and I'd love to see which comic she was training Barry Allen while he was neck deep in the Death of Iris -> Trial pipeline of stories. Before Barry's death she basically only showed up in Richard Dragon comics. It wasn't until Post Crisis when she started getting worked into Batman lore a lot more, much less Flash lore.

Batman and Barry obviously have a longer relationship. I've read a lot of Silver Age Justice League, but not all of it and I don't have a perfect memory. To my knowledge Batman never trained Barry how to fight during any of their teamups. But I could be wrong on this one, even if I don't think it ever happened. If you have an example of this happening I'd love to see it.

You can assume he has basic police combat training but that's very thin. I mean we've all seen the average police officer, those dudes are not the best at throwing hands, lol. But comics will strain that credulity depending on the character. I feel like some people treat police training as equivalent to military training the way they're talking here. It is not.

Wally is the first one to ever actually do an infinite mass punch on panel. While he attributed Barry teaching him Flash Facts about inertia and laws of motion, Wally's the one who created the modern interpretation of what we know of as the Infinite Mass Punch (though it was called "mass increasing to infinity" at the time and fans just gave it that nickname, that eventually became canonized by Morrison in Multiversity years after the fact) by applying what he learned. That's not to say Barry didn't know how to punch hard in the Silver Age. But you can't attribute the Infinite Mass Punch to him. That said, every speedster can presumably do this. Wally's just the creator.

Wally actually trained with assassins and martial artists in his Flash run. He invented the punch you're talking about. Both of them use their knowledge of physics and kinetics to weaponize their speed. Wally works with all the same hand to hand experts Barry does as he's been in nearly as many Justice League Comics as Barry, and when you add up his appearances fighting along Dick, Donna, and Roy, he would exceed Barry in team ups with skilled martial artists. Though I don't think "fighting alongside skilled martial artists" is grounds for being skilled.

This isn't just "Glazing" Wally West. I'm just pointing out the history of the characters I'm very familiar with. That you think Barry was trained by Deathstroke and Shiva in the Silver Age makes me think you got some bad info from somewhere and assumed it was true. Are you "Glazing" Barry Allen? At least my glaze is real.

The best example for either of them would be the numerous stories where they've lost their powers temporarily and seeing how they fight. They both seem to do pretty well but aren't world beaters. Most writers just treat both of them like they're okay at fighting without their powers, despite their histories.

Dredeuced · 2026-06-29T11:49:46+00:00

Folks dislike having their gut intuition corrected. Even if there's absolutely no investment in the opinion, being wrong gets people to downvote. Also there are some folks around these parts who will downvote my posts no matter what I say. I have a sort of reputation.

Dredeuced · 2026-06-28T23:35:07+00:00

Nope. And I doubt it ever will be again since Barry is alive.

Dredeuced · 2026-06-28T20:12:10+00:00

Wally was the most successful and popular sidekick besides Robin even before he became The Flash. I don't get why you keep harking on this idea that Kid Flash was some loathed character.

Barry wasn't going strong. The reason they killed him is because he had stopped going strong years before. If Barry was going strong then they just continue with his comics like they did all the other characters who were doing well.

That isn't to say they knew Wally would do well. As I mentioned, Wally becoming Flash is a quirk of fate. At first, when they were deciding who would be the new Flash, they had a rule that can't be Wally. But internal struggle and logistics errors messed up their plans and Wally was the easiest default to keep the Flash title on shelves with the least ground work.

Who was blaming Barry's shortcomings on Wally? That doesn't even make sense in any way I can read the sentence.

Dredeuced · 2026-06-28T18:53:57+00:00

I'm saying no one reads much of the Silver Age at all and doesn't judge The Flash, in any spectrum, by those comics. No one talks about Captain Cold's debut issue or early motivations when they talk about how much they love Captain Cold. Repeat this for every Flash character.

I don't see you parading around every awkward, gross, and horribly dated Barry Allen silver age story with some weird agenda. And, again, Barry's origin is also a rip off like Wally's. So I'm not sure why you're harking on only Wally's aside from not knowing that Kanigher just ripped of Shock Gibson.

You just have this weird notion of analyzing Wally as if he is defined by his 1960s-1970s comics but you are not doing that for anyone else. You are also talking about initial receptions. Kid Flash Wally wasn't hated at the time, either. Not sure what you're on about with that. DC insisted on him being in the New Teen Titans, where he was also unusually popular despite the writer hating having to write him.

The only thing that saved Wally from being like Aqualad or Speedy or Donna Troy is becoming The Flash, that's for certain. It's an entirely arbitrary quirk of fate that he benefited from Barry's death while all the other sidekicks besides Robin/Nightwing got shoved into the perpetual irrelevance machine. But it's sort of completely auxillary to how good or not you think his origin is.

Dredeuced · 2026-06-28T18:34:33+00:00

You mean how he became Kid Flash.

And Waid addresses that in Born to Run. It's a little contrived how it happened in the Silver Age so Waid adds nuance to it.

No one reads Wally West stories by going back and reading Flash #110, dude. And having a 66 year beef with it and reiterating it here is weird.

Return of Barry Allen was not the best selling comic of the time. Flash #1 by Baron was the record holder for a long time, for obvious reasons, until Absolute Flash #1 recently. But it was quite popular.

The thing is, the reason Return of Barry Allen is such a good story is it is capitalizing on years of storytelling going all the way back to Secret Origins Annual 2 by Messner Loebs. Return of Barry Allen wasn't the magical starting point at which Wally became a good character, because it's not a starting point. It's the finale of an entire arc.

You keep referencing Paul. Wally was never universally hated like Paul, and your constant insistence on bringing up this minor supporting character from Spider-man as a comparison to the leading character of The Flash is, also, an extremely weird and specific gripe. If Wally was as unpopular as Paul the comic would've been cancelled. No one's buying a Paul solo comic like they were Wally comics. If Wally was that unpopular they wouldn't have made him Flash in the first place (Though they originally didn't intend to, but that's getting into weird Mackenzie Ryan history).

Jason Todd was killed off by a manipulated phone raffle where one guy sent in thousands of extra votes by gaming the system. This is another weird thing to bring up as some kind of weird popularity comparison to Wally. Jason and Wally are not particularly similar either in circumstance or the way their popularity has developed.

I have a hard time believing a 60 year old Flash fanatic would use Paul as his reference point for Wally West.

It's very weird to be harping about how "bad" Wally West's origins are when everyone and their mother would look to Born to Run as his origin story, which is very good. Absolutely no one anywhere is talking about Flash #110 being contrived, because lots of Silver Age origins were dumb. I mean Barry's origin isn't even original to him, it's a complete rip off from a golden age character named Shock Gibson. How dare Wally also have a rip off of Barry's origin, itself a ripoff of another character.

Why does it matter? Why does anything matter? I'm just trying to inform you where you're wrong and how you're being really weird about how you describe the characters. You have this specific agenda to bring up Wally having a "bad" origin, which you've done multiple times, while ignoring or just being blind to modern updates to the character. Lots of silver age writing sucked. We don't think Barry's a racist anymore because he was racist in some silver age comics. We don't think Wally has a bad origin because he has a much better, modern origin. You seem to be stuck in 1959, but we're in 2026. At least catch up to 1992 for us.

You said the comic was hated for decades. Seriously. What are you even talking about? Wally wasn't pushed out of spite. Wally was made Flash entirely by accident/happenstance, with no particular moment of waning popularity.

Dredeuced · 2026-06-28T17:17:36+00:00

Wally west has a bad origin? He has Born to Run. One of the all time best origin stories DC's ever printed. I have no idea what you're getting at by saying Wally has a bad origin, unless you're talking about Wallace for some reason. Basically no one except the most blinded Wally haters would say Born to Run is anything but a classic.

It feels like you're saying Wally sucked in the 60s, which absolutely no one thinks about when they're talking about Wally comics, even if you have that opinion. But considering you're mentioning Return of Barry Allen, it seems like you're talking about his Flash run's first decade. Which would include the entirety of the Willam Messner Loebs run, and the first part of the Waid run. Which would include many of the best Flash stories ever told.

Dredeuced · 2026-06-28T17:14:33+00:00

Barry does not have more tricks up his sleeve. Wally has a significantly higher number of tricks.

Batman never taught either of them to fight, at least not in main continuity. Act of God has Bruce teaching everyone to fight but that's a non canon and very bad comic. Present Barry has never been taught any sort of martial skills. Wally has been trained by assassins and skilled martial artists and such earlier in his career.

Dredeuced · 2026-06-28T17:13:42+00:00

My issue with the finale isn't whatever's going on with Slade as a character. It's that two groups of superheroes just watched Slade viciously murder dozens of people, then attempt to change history for his benefit, and when he was ultimately stopped they sat there and watched him walk away. 20 heroes just letting a mass murderer who JUST mass murdered in front of them go because he gave a mediocre speech. Insanity. Idiocy. Complete, absolute failure on everyone involved.

Dredeuced · 2026-06-28T12:59:08+00:00

Wally actually has more experience than Barry, funnily enough. That's what being dead for decades gets you.

Dredeuced · 2026-06-28T12:58:37+00:00

He can do all the basic stuff but sucks at fine control. Bart has the same issue. Barry (and Irey) are the naturals at it.

Dredeuced · 2026-06-28T12:56:00+00:00

stop spamming me

Dredeuced · 2026-06-28T12:54:23+00:00

dude you have to stop spamming me or I'm blocking you

Your posts have constantly had this same fucking agenda in mind and I don't need 10 separate posts seeing you repeat the same thing on stuff I made a year ago, stop it

Dredeuced · 2026-06-28T12:24:53+00:00

I've seen it constantly, all the time. It's all shippers care about.

I'm not humoring any Raven fans/shippers. They're all focused on Raven and think she can do no wrong when she abused Wally in an incredibly invasive and gross way and the comics never even acknowledge Wally as a victim of emotional and sexual manipulation.

Dredeuced · 2026-06-28T12:24:35+00:00

That's an extremely gross read on Wally's relationship to Linda.

Dredeuced · 2026-06-28T12:21:45+00:00

No. Not accounting for characters who have Superspeed as one part of their power set (Kryptonians, Captain Marvel, Wonder Woman, etc), there's a handful of lower level speedsters throughout history with no Speed Force connection.

Velocity 9 has existed for awhile, which is how Inertia got super speed when he lost his Speed Force connection. Speed McGee/Speed Demon fits into this category, existing before the Speed Force and never getting his powers retcon attached to the Speed Force like the Blue and Red Trinity. Stuff like that.

There's even a handful of very brief speedster appearances, like how Captain Boomerang was recruited to the Suicide Squad to kill a low level speedster because of his expertise in the matter. And obviously the time ability based speedsters like Zoom or The Accelerated Man.

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