The reasons for people not liking the change in Wally is pretty simple:
- basic fandom mindset; as you know fans are a conservative lot and prefer that major changes are eventually undone (Death of Superman, Breaking of Batman, Barbara Gordon and so on)
- changes like the ones in Wally thats been done only for reasons outside of the comics themselves are particularly hard to swallow for the existing fans because it's usually not for their sake the change is made, its for an hypothetical audience the company is hoping they can draw in.
- And in cases like this, the choice of altering the race of an existing character with a built in fanbase, just comes across as a cheap and lazy way to create diversity rather than spend the time and effort of creating a new character for the job and boost him or her to the desired prominence. (I have actually heard from one creator at DC half-heartedly excuse the change with "Nobody buys/cares about new characters.")
John Steward is a great Green Lantern, he didn't have to absorb Hal to be that. Even the new guy could have been great as well, but DC hasn't done anything with him in months... and so I've forgotten his name :S
Miles Morales is a great Spiderman, and since it's from an AU of a high profile, the loss of Peter is marginal.
Micheal Holt made a great successor to Terry Sloan
Cassandra Cain has a fanbase that rivals the other two Batgirls
And so on. Point is that there is no reason to change popular existing characters and annoy most of the characters fans when you (as a creative individual in the creative business) could just make a new character to be and do what you are aiming for.
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