ReadingLirael, Hamlet, The English Patient, Heart of Darkness, Suikoden III, Candidate for Goddess
Watching House, Rick Mercer's Monday Report, Gilmore Girls, Scrubs, Corner Gas, Aishiteruze Baby, Prince of Tennis, Hikaru no Go
Playing Star Ocean: Till the End of Time, Katamari Damacy, Curse of Monkey Island, Final Fantasy VI, Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, Pretty Barbie Dressup Party Final Fantasy X-2(group gaming)
Back-burner Star Ocean: The Second Story, Final Fantasy Tactics: Advance, Baldur's Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast, Planescape: Torment, Final Fantasy VII
Obsessing Erik and Ray, Impulse/Bart Allen, Bruno and Boots.
Upcoming Things of Importance February 3 Chinese folk religion term paper proposal February 10 Chinese folk religion midterm February 11 Shakespeare essay February 12-20 Reading week February 23 Polisci term paper February 28English Patient essay
layout
Is by Meimi, that wonderful Goddess who brings joy and happiness to the hearts of Ingrids.
This time, Meimi brought joy by doing a layout of Isumi Shinichirou and Waya Yoshitaka, of Hikaru no Go. It is full of wub.
.
I think I'm one issue of Teen Titans away from forming a society to lynch Wally West
1/24/2005 06:09:53 PM
"The Thing? Silly String and orange paint. Human Torch? Bum on fire. Mr. Fantastic? Sock on my hand." - Penny Arcade.
I know on some level I have other things to talk about. School, the weather, the weekend, people smuggling cats into my apartment . . .
But Ven's recent tumble into Young Justice and Impulse, and the discussions resulting from that, have me thinking mostly about this stuff.
Mainly, it has me wondering "What the hell is Wally's problem?"
This ended up being . . . very long, and rather like a rambly essay, but I'm posting it anyway, because hearing stuff about Teen Titans is -annoying- me.
A lot of the information about non-Impulse speedsters comes from Those Who Ride the Lightning, a site I poured through at great length every time a new character popped up in Impulse in an attempt to figure out what the hell was going on.
The DCU, I've been told, is very big on families. You can group a lot of the different superheroes together like different species that do, in a lot of ways, interact like families. The Bat-family, the Super-family, the Flash-family . . . I dunno, there's probably some others. I only read stuff with Impulse in, dammit!
So, Bart Allen (Bartholomew Allen II) is the youngest member of the Flash family. He's the grandson of The Flash, Barry Allen. He was the student of the eccentric, mysterious zen master of the family, Max Mercury. He's now the ward of Jay Garrick, The Flash of the JSA, and Jay's wife Joan (although I have no idea how much Jay's been doing of the whole teaching thing since Bart became a Teen Titan - I'm guessing the answer is "Not much").
And he's the something-cousin of Wally West, now The Flash, formerly Kid Flash.
Bart's grandmother is Wally's aunt, Iris Allen, and she's the one who brings Bart to the 20th century because he's dying, and she knows that Wally, as the only former teenager speedster, can help Bart temper his powers so he doesn't die from his hyper-metabolism. Unfortunately, she brings Bart to see Wally when Wally isn't exactly in a happy place (although I get the impression that Wally is -never- in a happy place). But, to give Wally credit, he helps Bart out anyway, even though it's not the best time. He realizes that keeping Bart from dying is more important than his own stack of personal problems, for the moment. But as soon as Bart's no longer in any danger of dying from rapid aging, he quickly becomes a very clear annoyance for Wally. Even though everyone compares him to Wally, even though Wally denies it, it's very obvious that he doesn't like Bart, that he doesn't want anything to do with Bart. He says he doesn't do sidekicks.
They don't get off to the best start. Bart's confused and dragged out of the labs of government scientists very quickly, out of containtment for practically the first time, and into a strange century, and Wally has to change him halfway around the world and punch him to get his attention. And Wally seems to be going through a lot of shit. Of course, Wally repeatedly insults Bart and tells him he's stupid. When he vibrates on gut instinct through a wall, Wally's initial response is jealousy, because Bart can do something he can't.
Wally just wants to get rid of Bart, to not have to worry about someone besides himself, and to not be stuck teaching a kid with serious ADD. Max puts it bluntly that Wally is getting angry at Bart for being Bart, which is why the two can't click and why Wally is far from heart broken when Iris gets Max to take Bart in when she goes back to the 30th century.
But they're still family, real family. And Wally's still the one who's taken up the mantle of Bart's grandfather, and it looks like in the Flash family especially, real family is really important. All the Flash's are married. Barry had Iris, Jay has Joan, and Wally eventually got things sorted out with Linda. The other speedsters, too, even if they aren't part of the whole Flash thing. Max has a daughter, and so does Johnny Quick. Family is important to the speedsters. But even after Wally has Bart out of his hair, no longer technically his problem, they still fight and bicker and snipe at each other every damn time they come into contact, practically (there are a couple times when Wally is nice to Bart, but it doesn't seem to be out of any genuine fondness for the kid, he seems to be doing it out of a resigned sense of obligation to his aunt, who loves Bart deeply).
Bart's just a kid and while Wally never becomes his favourite person, Bart does seem to accept that even if he and Wally don't get along, Wally knows -something- and can be helpful, and is a hero. When he's worried his powers are getting out of control after he vibrates all of Young Justice and the Supercycle through a floor, he's shaking violently and he says he needs Max - or Wally - to help him come down from the rush. He knows that if he really needed Wally to come through for him, he would, despite their differences.
Wally's a grown man, more mature than Bart, more experienced, but he's just as bad as Bart when they come into contact with each other, if not worse. In World WIthout Grown-ups, while the Justice League are worried about the kids trapped in some alternate world, Superman and Batman reassure everyone because Superboy and Robin are there, and Wondergirl. Responsible teenage heroes who know what they're doing.
Then Wally freaks out because -Bart's- there. The kid may not be Robin, but jeez, Wally.
So what the hell is Wally's problem?
He's resentful, and says so himself at one point, because Bart is the son of Don Allen, Barry Allen's son, and Wally always thought he was the closest thing Barry had to a son.
Now, Wally's dad, who pops up in Impulse at one point, Rudy West, isn't a saint. He's not a nice man, a bad father, a bit of a criminal, of the petty variety. It's perfectly understandable that he'd look to Barry as a role-model and father-figure when he was Kid Flash. That's a -good- thing.
But.
Barry Allen died not long after Don and his unfortunately named twin sister Dawn were conceived. Barry never knew them. And -they- died before Bart was born. Bart never knew his father, and he certainly never knew his grandfather. He doesn't even recognize his mother when she comes to the 20th century to find him. The closest thing Bart has to a real father is Max Mercury, but Wally's still totally, irrationally jealous. And it's weird that it's not the other way around.
Bart has serious hero-worship for Barry Allen. You see it in Impulse, you see it in World Without Grown-ups. His grandfather is a legend and Bart worships the thought of him. In Sins of Youth when Bart goes to tell Max what's going on, Max compliments him by telling him he's living up to Barry's legacy. It's probably the highest compliment he could pay the kid, and when he's thinking admiringly of The Flash he's not thinking of Wally West, he's thinking of his grandfather. Wally's taken up Barry's mantle, and Bart never seems jealous of this, only angry when Wally tells him that he'll be passing the name on to Jesse Quick if anything happens to him.
Bart's seperated by a thousand years from the members of his family who love him - his mother, his grandmother, his cousin Jenni - and he looses the foster family he acquires in the 20th century, but Wally seems incapable of cutting the kid any slack except when Bart's world is falling apart, and even then he's not exactly sympathetic, because Bart's very existence makes him jealous.
Wally West is a grown man who should seriously be able to sort out his issues after all this time, but he can't. And for a guy who was so quick to wash his hands of the responsibility of Bart, it doesn't seem right that he should be allowed to criticize what Bart does. It's not right that his disapproval should be enough to frighten Bart, or anger Bart, or, God forbid, shame Bart into changing who he is. He's not, and he's never tried, to fill that father role that Bart desperately needs to guide him (a role that, when filled by the right person, can make Bart do incredible things). At best he's like Bart's significantly older brother, and only rarely is he the good kind of older brother who helps you out and shows you how to get through tough times. Mostly he's the annoyingly superior older brother who seems to be playing at Dad and doing a really crappy job of it.
I can accept a lot of the anger and snippiness between the two, because bad first impressions do last, but if the hyperactive teenager is willing to let some of it slide, a grown -married- man should be able to get his head out of his ass long enough to realize that maybe there's nothing really wrong with the kid.
Damn, damn Teen Titans.
Damn Wally West, too, Almighty Ingrid, Signing Off
Bart is still childish, and I don't think it would occur to him to be jealous of Wally.
Wally. Man, your post made me think and redo my thoughts a bit.
I don't think Wally is all that mature, since he's still bitter over Barry having kids and over Bart's exhistance in general. It's sad, really.
But I'm really commenting on Bart~ So, now that I read your post, my conclusion now is that there is no way in heck that Bart looks up to Wally. Wally is a putz, and Bart's eyes are full of his grandfather.
I don't think it would occur to Bart to think that he has to live up to Wally, because to Bart, Barry is the Flash, and Wally isn't. Oh, that's gotta hurt Wally. He declared himself the Flash, and now here's Bart.
That thought doesn't mesh with the whole "Flash is going to be in my shadow" though, unless Bart is referring to Wally.
Ah, but this would explain why there isn't a huge Impulse section in the Flash museum in the future.
Wally. Wally is like that older sibling that wants to make sure his younger sibling doesn't outshine him.
boy, I didn't have Wally-hate until Impulse showed. 8/
Wally really isn't all that mature, but I can't help but feel he -should- be. I know age is a kind of uncertain and hard to pin down thing in comic books, but the guy's married now. He's at a point in his life where he -should- be moving beyond his issues, but his relationship with Bart seems to get worse on his end over time instead of better.
While I can understand why Wally might initially have some problems with Bart (and, I gotta admit, if I'd been introduced via the characters through The Flash instead of Impulse, I'd probably be more sympathetic toward Wally, because Bart is an angry little idiot when he first shows up) and how Bart still thinks of The Flash as his grandfather, it makes me wonder if Wally has some kind of personal insecurity about being The Flash and not being as good as Barry that Bart brings up in him. But he should hardly expect Bart to be looking up to him like he would look up to Barry when -Wally's- the one who said "I don't do sidekicks".
The fact that there's three different guys who can be referred to as The Flash makes figuring everything out really difficult (although we can probably write Jay Garrick out of the equation). I think it's a pretty safe bet that when Bart talks about Flash in the negative way ("Flash is going to be in my shadow") he's talking about Wally, not Barry. He could just have a sincere desire to be an even greater hero than his grandfather, building on the legend, but I think he would have put it another way if that were true.
And if Wally -does- have insecurities about not being as good as Barry, then he probably does have a genuine worry that Barry's actual descendant will be able to outshine him.
. . . I think Wally needs to see a shrink or something. Because, eesh, when you bring up Bart, Wally looks -bad-.
Wally and Bart are more alike than either of them is willing to admit. While I didn't care much for Young Justice: Sins of Youth (I dropped Young Justice a few issues later), the Impulse/Kid Flash story made this very clear.
And I think that's the real reason they don't get along: neither of them has any patience, which was what, in many ways, made Max the perfect guardian for Bart: he has more patience than any speedster around... and yet Bart manages to get on his nerves as well.
Some of the things you mentioned: Yes, Wally has had major Barry issues at times, and he did see a shrink for a while.
Both Wally and Bart have matured a lot since "Terminal Velocity," but I've really wanted to see more interaction since Wally got his memory back after the recent "Ignition" storyline.
