Is it me or are Wally West fans annoying as hell now?

I'm just tired of grown men acting so PMS-y about this race change. I wish the fans would just grow a pair already. I'm actually curious to see where they take him. He's only appeared in 2 issues so far. Fans never wait for things to develop nowadays I see.

Well his first appearance was just embarassing. But we'll see.

Beata

I'd be pissed if batman was changed into a poor, disrespectful black kid (and I'm black) so I understand their anger...

This is nothing new, comicbook fans are naturally averse to change and stubborn. I mean, I understand that the character they love being altered can be annoying, but the levels of nerd rage I've seen over it is staggering.

I live by the "wait and see" method. So far, he's been in like, two issues and has a long way to go before he becomes Kid Flash? Impulse? Whatever, anyway, only time will tell if this is good or not.

You went there...

@the_stegman: At least you get it.

I understand their anger, but I wish they would give the character a chance.

This times a thousand. >_> I would have been pissed if all they did was changed his hair colour and made him disrespectful.

I'm gonna go ahead and disagree with you for the very simple reason, there is no need to give this Wally West a chance, because he's not Wally West.

Race change for diversity sake is one thing (And not something I endorse), but the fact of the matter is, that the character presented to us in these few issues is very simply not Wally West. Sure you can argue that the fact he was White and Ginger was not part of his definitive make-up as a Character, but he's not some law breaking, cliched disrespectful punk as has been presented. Wally West was a Middle Class-Mid West kinda guy, a paragon, and he loved being the Flash and everything it stood for. He was light hearted, and sure impatient at times, but undoubtedly selfless.

This 'Wally' doesn't seem like any of those things, and so whilst I'll read on, just to see home much more they're gonna mutilate him, I still don't see the point of him having to be 'Wally West'.

They do have a reason to be pissed atm, their favorite character from the last 30 years or so have gone from being one of the most prominent and respected characters to being an angry punk that virtually has nothing in common with the previous version.

DC pulled this stunt in the name of diversity and in the eyes of many ruined the early relationship with the new version, instead of just inventing a new character to fulfill this role.

This post explains it so well.

They pulled this also to eradicate comments of being shallow. Catwoman and Starfire.

There was no need for changing his character and race, they could've easily created a new character or used the character from JLB.

I love how this thread is complaining about complaining. Geez, we never see threads like this.

Seeing that it are mostly teenage boys and men who are complaying like little toddlers about this I would instead suggest to sprout a pair of breasts or ovaries. But I am pretty sure you will disagree with me on that point.

That aside, I can completely understand the discontent of many Wally fans. I am more of "meh" on this topic, I prefer Barry as the Flash even though I grew up with the thrid Flash. Still, I can just agree with this:

I don't even wanna imagine what kind of shit-storm such a change would have brought with itself. Changing a beloved character to a degree that they are no longer recognizable is a really disrespectful act towards their fans. DC didn't re-introduce Wally, they have reinvented him, which is quite lazy on their part. Why not making him into a totally new charakter to begin with if they don't actually want to bring Wally back just yet.

I think changing the race of a person is cutting very deeply into their character, similar to changing gender and while I would be all for a female Flash, I woulden't want for Wally to become Walla or Barry into Barra or something like that. People are downplaying the effect because they don't wanna be called racist but I think stating that it totally changes the identity of a person if turn them into another race is not really that hard to grasp.

Well, it is a pity, because this stunt hurts the Flash comic as a whole, not that the current run is anything to write home about. Hope the next creative team will be better or this one will be able to improve - especially the artist.

@outside_85 said:

There's not really much to say after this post. Agreed.

After hoping for years that the Wally West we all knew and loved would be left alone some how and brought back into the fold even if it was in Red Hood and the Outlaws. I now consider Wally West dead. This new Wally West is a new character the (besides the suit) i dont like. I am still giving him a chance but unless some Multiversal event changes things we will never see the Wally West we all used to know

@degraaf said:

Although there can be possible changes due to a multiversal event, I doubt it will happen since there's possibilities that other flash readers who don't have any prior knowledge of past continuity with Wally West to grow on this new Wally West character. If Wally somehow reverts to the original, there will still be race controversy among new fans like there were with the new Wally West reveal by older fans. It's a non-win situation to be honest. So I doubt DC would allow this.