When Mark Waid took over Flash in 1992, no one could have expected the writer to craft some of the greatest and most important stories about DC’s famous speedster. But, that was what Waid ended up doing. He helped Wally West get over his impostor syndrome (for the most part) by having the hero face off against Eobard Thawne, the first Reverse-Flash, created the modern version of the Flash Family by introducing Impulse and Max Mercury while bringing Johnny and Jesse Quick into the fold, created the Speed Force, and, as if that wasn’t enough, had Wally West marry his longtime girlfriend Linda Park.
And yet, despite writing almost 100 issues during his initial run, with a short return to the character years later, there was one story that Mark Waid teased time and time again, but never actually told. And while it isn’t uncommon for writers to end their run on a series without telling every tale they came up with, this one promised to fill in a major aspect of Wally West’s character. Namely, why he hated time travel so much.
Even now, nearly 30 years since Waid first hinted at the tragic adventure that soured Wally on messing with the time stream, Flash fans continue to wonder what the writer had come up with, and what it could have meant to the character’s future.
Time Travel Was A Flash Staple Before Wally West Took Over
Pretty much from the moment Barry Allen became the second Flash in 1956, time travel was built into the character. His second adventure, which directly followed his first adventure in Showcase #4, wasn’t titled “The Man Who Broke the Time Barrier!” for nothing. Barry’s greatest enemy, Reverse-Flash, came from the future, as did Abra Kadabra. Barry Allen even built a special Cosmic Treadmill that allowed him to travel through time. And, in the final days of his life, Barry Allen retired to the future to live with his wife Iris West and their twins.
But when Wally took over as Flash following Crisis on Infinite Earths, he didn’t go on time travel adventures. Part of it was because Wally couldn’t hit the speeds needed to break through the time barrier, but it was also because the first two writers of Wally’s stories, Mike Baron and William Messner-Loebs, didn’t seem all that interested in time travel tales. But Waid, who loved the Silver Age Flash stories did, and almost as soon as he took over, he tossed Wally into the future.
Just six issues into his run, Waid had Wally head off to the 64th Century to help Abra Kadabra overthrow a tyrannical government. And he followed that up by bringing Reverse-Flash back from the future (and the dead) before having Iris and Bart Allen show up from the future looking for help. But it was in Flash #0, a Zero Hour tie-in, where Waid first gave readers an inkling of what he was thinking of doing with Wally and time travel.
Wally West Hates Time Travel… But Why?
It’s a quick line. Just one sentence in a packed issue, Wally West, who is trapped outside of time and watching his own life in bursts, simply states “I hate time travel.” At the time, readers didn’t realize that those four words were more than just Wally complaining, they were Waid plotting. And Waid apparently plotted well in advance because the next clue wouldn’t come for another five years.
The biggest hint to the untold time travel tale dropped in Flash #155 when Wallace West, a “Dark Flash” from an alternate timeline, proved who he was to the real Wally West by recounting who the first girl they ever kissed was (Janet Heatherton) and why they hate time travel…
We hate time travel because of the awful thing that happened the first time we tried it on our own.
And that was it. That was the last time Mark Waid mentioned it during his run. But ever since, fans have held out hope that the writer would get a chance to tell the full story. In 2010, after a decade of people wondering what Waid had been planning, he finally revealed it all during a panel at Long Beach Comic Con that, as it turns out, comics writer and My Adventures with Superman co-creator Josie Campbell covered for CBR. Here’s what he said:
I always wanted to tell the story of the moment Wally learns from Barry Allen he can travel through time. What I wanted to set up was a week before, one of his classmates is killed in a freak accident. So Wally seizes on this as an opportunity to go fix the past. So he goes back and he fails. And he goes back again and he fails. And he goes back again and he fails. And then you’ve got a bunch of different Kid Flashes running around, stumbling over each other to try and fix this. He finally realizes, “I can’t fix this.” There are some things you can’t change. He accepts that, but he hates time travel after that.
Mark Waid’s Idea Sounds A Lot Like A Modern Flash Classic
While Mark Waid never did tell his Flash time travel story in the books, a similar concept was used in one of the most well-known Flash stories, Flashpoint. In that adventure, Barry Allen goes back in time to save his mom’s life and, in doing so, messes up the time stream real bad, leading to a reality where Superman has been held captive by the US government, the Atlanteans and Amazons are at war, and Bruce Wayne was killed as a child.
The basic idea that changing the past can create a much worse present isn’t new, and Waid wasn’t the first one to come up with it. It’s a time-honored time travel trope for a reason. But that doesn’t change the fact that somewhere out there — the out there being Waid’s brain — is a Wally West story that was never told. Maybe one day someone will create time travel and go back to convince Waid to write the story before he left the book. Of course, there’s no telling what kind of havoc that would cause.
- Created By
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Gardner Fox, Harry Lampert, Carmine Infantino
- First Appearance
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Flash Comics
- Alias
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Jay Garrick, Barry Allen, Wally West, Bart Allen, Avery Ho
- Alliance
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Justice Society of America, Justice League, Teen Titans
- Race
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Human
- Franchise
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D.C.