Posted in: Comics, Recent Updates | Tagged: Comics, dc, dc comics, entertainment, flash, wally west

Fear Of A Biracial Flash

IGN reported,

"DC said they wanted us to re-introduce Wally West and they wanted him to be bi-racial, and I thought that was great," Venditti said. "I'm all for diversity and those kinds of things. It was a story that didn't derail us with what we wanted to do. Adding Wally into the series really expanded what we thought the series was going to be and has led us to take some really cool, very character-focused turns that really gave us a look not just at Wally but also Barry. Some of the most fun I've had so far is those scenes where Wally and Barry are playing off each other."

Reader Mike Bachelor writes in to Bleeding Cool about the new look Wally West, that we suggested was coming back in January. And now is.

since all hell is breaking loose with the wally west faithful and we need someone to blame, in various interviews its just been said editorial mandate well we need to know who gave the orders,
if anyone can tell us it would be bleeding cool.
a lot of us are dropping dc books entirely out of the lack of respect dc has for us flash faithfull. its not the fact that hes half black its just the crappy editorial mandate for diversity for no reason we see as a slap in the face. i mean come on wally was married to a korean lady in a mixed marriage explore that.
if they had just come out and said hey we want to make a new black flash character we would have welcomed him with open arms. its the whole hey we are gonna give you what you want then just pull the football away charlie brown style really is just plain shitty on dcs part and we deserve better, the entire wallyfan base is alienated and are never going to accept this version of the character i dont know what dc is thinking

Mike, here's why. The comics industry and its readers are a conservative lot. We like what has been before. Comic book characters created in the thirties, forties and the sixties rule the roost. There are a few from the seventies, but that's about it. The general comic buying population preponderantly buy comics featuring classic characters – indeed with the move to remove legacy characters and replace them with the original iterations have made this worse. These are characters created in a time when black characters would never have been approved for lead roles, let alone gay characters.

Add those two facts together and the superhero comic market is in the position where its biggest, most prominent books star white characters, and the books are not representative of the wider audience. Not because black characters wouldn't sell, but because new characters won't sell. The Milestone books from DC were leagues ahead of the DC superhero books they were published alongside at the time, in terms of quality of characterisation, stories, pretty much everything, but the Justice Leaguers still won the day.

So, as with Nick Fury, one way to beat that is to reboot and reintroduce characters with a fanbase, with a different ethnicity. Personally I think the New 52 should have done that more, not less. A black Superman and a female Robin from the get go would have been my thinking.

TV and cinemas know this. They too are victim to the appeal of revived TV shows and movies to find an audience. And they have been ruthless at recasting classic white characters from one medium into different ethnicities into another. Because they want an audience who isn't turned off by just another show with an all-white cast or all-white leads. People do like to see themselves reflected in the characters they enjoy, and a dearth of black lead characters makes for less involvement from a wider population. The Flash TV show pilot for example, where this reworking of the look of Wally West began.

The ideal situation, of course, is to create excellent new work, with new diverse characters. And that's been done. And it has often failed due to low readership. Because we all want our Batman and our Superman and our Flash.

There's no reason such characters need to change in personality. The black Nick Fury behaves pretty much exactly like the white Nick Fury. But the Marvel Universe looks a little more inclusive than before.

It's not saying new characters can't be introduced, they can, but more needs to be done given the conservative nature of the market.

And guess what? Knowing what was inside it, Flash #30 has sold out, and reorders are up for the upcoming Flash Annual. As for who is responsible, it feels like Dan DiDio. And if so, well done Dan. It's a good start…

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