Secretive Superheroes make disastrous parents.
Tom King ignored Wally West’s real confession.
When I heard Heroes in Crisis has going to focus on dealing with trauma and include confessions from various heroes I was thrilled. My mind immediately went to a story entitled “Wally’s Choice” by Mark Waid and George Perez.
The real confession in “Wally’s Choice”.
In Brave and the Bold vol. 3 #8 entitled “Wally’s Choice” by Mark Waid and George Perez, the Doom Patrol offers to help the twins stabilize their powers.
Caulder invents what is basically a Star Trek transporter, a machine to pull the twins DNA apart and put it back together in less than a second. The machine is hooked up to Metamorpho whose powers keep the machine stable.
The experiment goes wrong and the twins are in danger of disintegrating.
Niles Caulder says they can only save one and Wally chooses Jai; placing him in a protective suit of armor, actually Robotman’s body, himself.
Wally then comes up with the idea that Negative Man can create a cocoon around Iris if she matches his frequency, having encountered his frequency earlier.
The day is saved.
Later, Wally reveals to Linda that before coming up with the idea to use Negative Man, the second between Caulder’s statement and his choice was longer for him, and he thought about it at least three times before choosing Jai.
(Wally doesn’t actually tell Linda he chose Jai, even after she asks him which child he chose. Wally does tell her that he chose one of the twins before he came up with the Negative Man idea, which means he chose Jai).
He chose to let his son live and his daughter die after thinking about it for, in his own words, the equivalent of a month. That has to weigh on him.
I know Wally is dealing with a lot, trying to restore Linda’s memories and get the twins who are trapped in the Speed Force, but Heroes in Crisis was billed as included therapy so I thought the series would at least mention this.
Instead we, the readers, get a false confession.
(This issue convinced me that anyone who complains about Batman’s treatment of his other people has never read anything with Caulder in it.)
The false confession in Heroes in Crisis #3.
“The kids…I don’t want to be alone” was Wally West’s confession in Heroes in Crisis #3, his answer to the question of why he needs his family.
Now to be fair part of the problem is the question he was asked. The question is very basic and immediately brings to mind recent events so it was easily for Wally to wriggle out of.
Except Wally makes this confession seconds before his death when he thinks he is alone, not when he is asked.
Wally’s response is just odd. He isn’t “alone”. He has Linda, even if she doesn’t remember their lives together, and they are trying to restart their relationship as seen in Titans.
Also, one of them not remembering their lives together is something they went through just before their wedding in “The Dark Flash Saga”. Back then it was Wally who forgot Linda existed because Abra Kadabra erased everyone’s memories of her. Only Impulse, Bart Allen, remembered because of his experience with time travel and because he is from the future.
Bart was her ally. Even though no one could see her, Linda never gave up on Wally. Linda had one ally, one person who believed she was real, who believed in her, Wally has several.
Even if he isn’t counting Linda because she can’t remember, he still has:
- Johnny Thunder who already knows something is amiss with the timeline even before Wally appears to him in DC Universe: Rebirth #1, just to name a few. Johnny Thunder who was the second person Wally spoke to on his return in DC Universe: Rebirth #1, due to Johnny Thunder’s link to lightning.
- Impulse and Jay Garrick who are trapped in the Speed Force but retain their memories. Impulse came back with his memories intact.
- Superman who retains his memories due to fusing with his Pre Flashpoint self. He is the first Leaguer to mention Linda.
- His Uncle Barry whose memories of Pre Flashpoint were restored when he saw Wally though not all of them. This is evident in The Flash #9, several issues after Wally’s return, when Barry sees Jay Garrick’s helmet and becomes hopeful but doesn’t know why. Barry didn’t immediately remember Jay Garrick or at least not that Jay Garrick was the Flash.
- His Aunt Iris and the Titans whose memories he had to restore.
- Zoom.
Earlier when asked what was it about Linda Park that he needed his answer was the twins. On the surface this might seem as though he is defining Linda by her children, however the answer is a little more complicated.
Wally may believe the twins, or Iris rather, can help him. The twins should remember life before Flashpoint. If Wally had not died Iris may have been able to help him give Linda back her memories of her life before Flashpoint.
The false confession could have been different. Wally could have responded with ‘because its my fault’.
Wally would feel guilty about being so blindly loyal to Barry, that he allows Barry to create Flashpoint by not being there to stop him.
Wally is literally the only person fast enough to stop Barry as he is faster than Barry. Both Barry and went by the Flash, even though Wally was semi retired, when Barry created Flashpoint.
If Wally had stopped Barry then Linda never would have lost her memories, his children and fellow speedsters wouldn’t be trapped in the Speed Force, everyone else’s children wouldn’t be erased from existence, and the League would be missing half of their sidekicks, partners, and successors.
Except for Jenni Ognats is still with the Legion of Superheroes. She seems to have avoided being trapped with no explanation as to how she managed that.
Also its curious that Wally hasn’t asked for or mentioned any of his old partners: Connor Hawke and Kyle Rayner.
Additional questions yet to be tackled: Why is Max Mercury trapped in the Speed Force? Max discovered the Speed Force before Jay. All the other speedsters are related to Barry or inspired by Jay. Is Johnny Quick in the Speed Force?
If Wally’s children are in the Speed Force where are the others? Could the other children of the Leaguers and/or villains be trapped inside a different Force?
Of all the children of the Leaguers and/or villains why was Damian Wayne the only one to survive (cross over to the new timeline)? Why not Owen Mercer, Bart’s half brother and Captain Boomerang’s son?
What happened before and the aftermath.
There are only three issues between the birth of Jai and Iris and Wally turning Inertia into a paralyzed cognitively aware statue for murdering the Flash aka Bart Allen in The Flash: The Fastest Man Alive.
This was bound to change Wally somewhat, so the Wally Jai and Iris know will always be different then the one everyone else knows.
After Wally’s confession in “Wally’s Choice” Jai and Iris appear in seven more issues. After Iris depowers him in Flash Rebirth in 2010 Jai appears in five issues. Iris would go on to appear in two more issues without Jai.
Wally chose his son over his daughter. This may be why Wally isn’t seen talking to Jai as much as he used to after Jai loses his powers. He spends his time training Iris who becomes the new Impulse.
Wally may have spent more time with Iris out of guilt while telling himself training her was important. It is, but not so much that he distances himself from his son.
In Flash Rebirth Professor Zoom, Eobard Thwane, says that one day Jai jealous of Iris being a speedster will become the Turtle and kill his father, Wally.
After he loses his powers Jai starts playing lots of video games and frequently wearing a shirt with a turtle on it. There is zero indication this alarmed his parents, after all Jai was already fond of turtles because he has a pet turtle.
Even if Jai does eventually take the name the Turtle, there wouldn’t be immediate cause for alarm, he wouldn’t be the first to hero to take a villain’s moniker. He would be following in the footsteps of Doctor Light aka Kimiyo Hoshi, and the Toyman aka Hiro Okamura.
This has happened before.
In the Arrowverse Lois and Clark will probably name their baby Jonathan, after Clark’s foster father.
They could name the child after Clark’s father Jor-El. Their son was named Joel Perry Kent in Generations. Its never directly stated that Joel was named after his grandfather, but the similarities between the names is close.
This Joel Kent would go on to be a murderer.
Joel lost his powers as an infant due to Luthor’s scheming, but his younger sister was born with powers. They are several years apart.
Joel didn’t know Luthor was responsible for the loss of his powers, or even why he didn’t have powers while his sister did. All he knew was his sister was his parents favorite, the one who got all the attention.
Raising a super kid takes a lot of work and training (bonding time).
Joel was mentored in secret by Luthor, and on her wedding day revealed his allegiance and killed his sister, out of jealousy over her powers and their childhoods.
Unfortunately, Luthor is never loyal and kills Joel hours later.
Sadly its happened again.
In Arrow 7x19 entitled “Spartan” John Diggle Jr. orders his adopted brother Connor Hawke killed. A fate Connor manages to avoid.
What is revealed in Heroes in Crisis #3 through #8.
Heroes in Crisis establishes Jai is afraid of masks. Its unclear whether that fear is of all masks or only ones that cover the wearer’s entire face.
To me the masks the participants at Sanctuary wear bear a resemblance to Psycho Pirate mask.
Zoom returned Wally’s memories of this children to him in the Flash. Even Wally doesn’t remember everything.
One other thing that is different this time around. Wally did not attempt to restore Pied Piper’s memories of him, as he did pre Flashpoint when the world forgot the Flash’s secret identity.
This could be a clue that the Wally West at Sanctuary is an impostor, as suggested in Heroes in Crisis #5, but isn’t as Heroes in Crisis #8 reveals that there was no impostor, only an older Wally.
This doesn’t Wally’s real confession, a confession still left untreated and therefore unchecked.
