Ok, so there’s been some big announcements in the DC Universe this week. First, the Flash:

So, the Flash solicitations for #14 and #15 were fake, and the book is being relaunched, with the current run ending at #13. The cover seems to indicate that its curtains for Bart.

Now whether Bart actually dies remains to be seen (I hope not), but I do hope they’re not replacing him as Flash.

Don’t get me wrong. I thought the decision to replace Wally with Bart was awful. The reasoning was ludicrous: “because its a Crisis, and Flashes die in them”. It happened once. And at least Barry was given a decent write-out. Wally’s exit was poor in the extreme, and all it did was remove a character who was enjoying some serious post-Geoff Johns popularity.

Saying that, the decision was made, and the action taken. Wally vanished into the ether, and Bart was the new Flash. And for myself, I’d rather see them see the decision through, and make it work. Move forwards, not backwards, and that kind of stuff. The book may have stuttered out the starting block, but Mark Guggenheim has done really good stuff with the book lately, and its a shame to ignore the progress he’d made.

Of course, Bart may not be losing the title. I hope not. There’s been a lot of rumblings about Barry Allen lately, and I seriously hope he’s not coming back. We’ve already got Hal Jordan back as GL and the multiverse back, and Kara Zor-El back, and a more silver-agey Fortress of Solitude. And most of these things I’ve really enjoyed (let’s not mention Supergirl). But bringing back Barry Allen would be undoing another iconic death. Something that’s happened way too often in comics.

Saying all that, if anyone can sort all this out, its Mark Waid. The guy who got me reading the Flash title in the first place. So we’ll see. But I’m hoping its not curtains for Bart, and if Barry does indeed come back, then Bart remains as the Flash, with Barry acting as an advisor, which would allow Mark Waid to play up the family/legacy elements of the title he used so well in his run.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 18th, 2007 at 14:49 and is filed under Comics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.