Wally West

Wally West began his DC Comics career as Kid Flash before succeeding Barry Allen as the Flash. He first appeared in The Flash number 110, published in 1959, in a story by John Broome and Carmine Infantino. Introduced as Iris West’s nephew, Wally visits Barry and is struck by lightning amid chemicals in an accident mirroring the one that gave Barry his powers. Barry reveals his identity and trains him as Kid Flash. Wally joins Robin and Aqualad in the team that becomes the Teen Titans, first brought together in The Brave and the Bold number 54.

In the 1985 crossover Crisis on Infinite Earths, Barry dies while stopping the Anti-Monitor’s antimatter cannon. Wally takes his mentor’s name and costume, becoming the main Flash in post-Crisis comics. His solo series begins in 1987 and initially portrays him as slower than Barry, with a public identity and financial troubles after winning a lottery. Writer Mark Waid’s 1990s run explores Wally’s legacy in Born to Run and The Return of Barry Allen. In the latter, Wally confronts a man claiming to be Barry who is actually Eobard Thawne, the Reverse-Flash, from an earlier point in Thawne’s personal timeline.

Waid’s Terminal Velocity storyline introduces the Speed Force, an extradimensional source of speed that becomes central to Flash mythology. Wally learns to draw on it and eventually exceeds Barry’s old limits. His long-running relationship with television reporter Linda Park leads to marriage. Under writer Geoff Johns, Wally faces Hunter Zolomon, a former FBI profiler who becomes Zoom. Unlike the original Reverse-Flash, Zoom manipulates time around himself to appear superfast. In the Blitz storyline, Zoom attacks Linda, causing her to miscarry their unborn twins. Later changes to the timeline restore the children, Jai and Irey West, who also develop speed powers.

Following Infinite Crisis, Wally, Linda, and their children spend time away from Earth before returning in 2007. During DC’s 2011 New 52 relaunch, the original Wally is absent from the revised continuity; a different, younger Wally West is introduced later in that era. DC Universe: Rebirth number one, published in 2016, brings the original Wally back after he has been trapped outside normal time. Barry remembers him, and their reunion restores Wally’s place in the story. In Heroes in Crisis, Wally inadvertently causes deaths at the Sanctuary rehabilitation center and tries to conceal his involvement. Later stories return him to the ongoing Flash title as its lead character.