Who Mourns For Barry?
February 17, 2007 by The Fortress Keeper
When it comes to seminal figures in the DC history, few characters are more significant than Barry Allen.
His successful debut in Showcase #4 kicked the Silver Age into high gear. The DC multiverse was unveiled in the pages of Flash #123. His spectacular death in Crisis On Infinite Earths #8 spelled the end of a comic-book era.
Yet the Interblogonet treats the guy like an Amway salesman.
Whenever the Flash is mentioned on a blog or message board, the topics usually concern fandom’s hatred of Bart Allen, a plea for Wally West’s return and (maybe) a kind word or two for Jay Garrick.
But poor Barry? Prevailing sentiments tends to range from “never really liked him” to “more interesting dead than alive.”
The Keeper realizes the character’s stature suffered greatly in the ’70s, but he wasn’t the only DC hero who sleepwalked through uninspired plots and Colletta-ized artwork in the Bronze Age.
(Does anybody recall the David V. Reed Batman?)
Like the Dark Knight, Barry possessed enough redeeming qualities to overcome poor storytelling. The Silver-Age Flash is much, much more than DC’s resident martyr.
Skeptical? Here’s a few reasons why the Keeper is an avid Barry booster.
He was a fanboy!
He was a CSI expert decades before it was cool!
His rogues gallery included a talking ape!
He loved Hal Jordan!
(A man-crush and love of comic books! Barry would have been a great blogger … )
His love interest possessed more depth than Lois Lane and Carol Ferris combined!
He broke the fourth wall!
He actually wanted to help people!
(Remember when super-heroes did more than brood and beat up bad guys?)
And last but not least, he told the Justice League to stuff it!
Cool, eh?
Despite our high opinion of Barry, however, the Keeper does not want the character to be resurrected. If he came back today, the Flash would be portrayed in the same joyless light as Hal Jordan or the Teen Titans.
No thank you.
We would just be happy if the character’s role in DC history was properly acknowledged. Barry might not have been the first (or last) hero to use the codename “Flash,” but he definitely deserves to be remembered as THE Flash.
I think for a lot of people, Barry Allen is THE Flash. Who amongst us wasn’t moved during the Superboy-Prime fight in IC #4 when Bart muttered “Grampa?” Thing is, if we all started talking about that, then DC might get the idea in their head that we all want to see Barry come back from the dead. And as you mentioned, no one wants to see that. It’s a catch 22. We can’t proclaim our love for the character, because if we do, we won’t love him anymore.
Never a big Flash fan, even though he had the one super power everyone wishes for.
And the SA book did proceed from the premise that super speed was the best and most endlessly useful super power on the planet.
Face, it, the SA Flash set the industry standard for all other super speedsters.
So yeah he is missed.
Who hates my Barry Allen? Let me at ‘em!!!!
Honestly, though…I don’t know if its a hatred of Barry out there. You and I remember a world before Wally, but, I think, many of the blogosphere really only know Wally as the Flash.
I’m with you, though. I don’t want to see Barry resurrected because it would take away from one of the truly heroic deaths in any comic universe. That would be like bringing Captain Marvel back from the dead…oh, wait a minute!
I liked Barry Allen as Flash. In the 60s the writers were always coming up with some new cool way for him to use his speed. And Barry was a clever, tricky sonofagun! I even liked some of the lame villains he went up against. Mirror Master and The Top come to mind. Back then he was one of the more regular guy DC heroes. And he was a pretty together fellow.
Iris is “the loyal news-hen”? What’s Lois then?
Aw c’mon. I LIKE Barry. He’s a nice decent guy. Comics seems to be running low on guys like that lately.
Barry was a great heroic character because he was so steadfast. He never got a makeover, because he never needed one. I loved the idea of a police scientist. I loved the relationship he had with Iris. He had an idyllic existence, at least until it started unraveling at the end. I might be one of those interbloggerwriters who wants Wally back, but that’s just because I know Barry’s gone.
[...] This right here is an excellent argument for exhalting Barry Allen, for placing him in the proper perspective in regard to all this superhero mumbo jumbo. As it points out, Barry Allen was a superhero who actually wanted to help people. I would add that he was a superhero with a lot of intergrity and a great rogues gallery, possibly better than Batman’s. And unlike characters like Batman and Superman and so on, his story actually has an ending. It is a finite thing and though his demise disappointed me at the time, I now see it as a good thing because, as the pro-Barry Allen blog entry points out, if he were around today he’d just be one more horrible modernization that DC decided to come up with in order to trample on the wonders of days gone by. No, thanks. My hope is that Barry Allen remains dead for as long as comic books exist. [...]
Wow! Looks like the silent majority has emerged!!
I actually grew up with both Barry and Wally…the former on reruns of Superfriends, the latter on Justice League Animated…and I thought they were the same guy.
But Barry should stay dead.