I Miss Wally

Dang it.  It has suddenly occured to me, that there are a whole passel of characters that DC has placed into limbo since the start of the whole 52 Universe.  Well, actually it occured to me quite some time ago...but it only dawned on me more recently that I really really MISS some of those characters.

I miss Booster, but at least he is still occasionally showing up, most recently in All-Star Western with Jonah Hex.  They work surprisingly well together actually.  I still miss Ted Kord, Ralph and Sue Dibny, Dmitir and Gavril, the Rocket Reds, as much as ever, but there are a lot of younger newer characters out there too.  Stephanie and Cass of course, Donna Troy, Connor Hawke and heck, I even miss Damian Wayne.

But man, I do miss Wally. 

Wally was one of the younger crowd, in the Teen Titans, and a sidekick, but dammit, he's been around forEVER, and it's just not fair.   I like Barry, and I'm glad that they brought him back...but did they have to get rid of Wally to do so?  Geoff Johns managed to bring back Hal and NOT kill off Kyle, even though that would have been the easy thing to do.  Instead, Kyle is still alive and kicking and has his own book! 

I suppose that Wally committed the cardinal sin of getting married and having kids...which is the kiss of death apparently.  Marriage, and kids, and being an adult are verbooten at DC these days.  Which is odd, when you come to think of it, because they are trying to appeal to a younger crowd...except that NONE of their books are particularly kid friendly, and the ones that were have been cancelled.  You don't suddenly wake up on your 18th birthday and immediately go out and start buying comic books.  Well...maybe some people do, but comics are usually something that you ease into at a younger age.

It also seems that a large part of the comic-book reading audience are older.  The ones who can actually remember the Silver Age. The ones who experienced the 90's for God's sake.  At least, I can console myself that they didn't kill him off.  But I sure do miss all of my lovely lovely continuity.  Trying to make sense of the current history is just so...frustrating.  It supposedly all happened within the last five years, but even over the last year and a half, it is confusing.  Different stories contradict other stories. 

There also seem to be a LOT of disgruntled writers...which can't be a good thing either.  I know that DC seems to be doing its level best to recreate the Marvel books of the 1990's, but is that really the best idea?  Bob Harras may be a perfectly nice person, but there was probaby a REASON that the Marvel bullpen rejoiced when he left. 

Marvel still drives me nuts, and I don't particularly want to read the fifteen Avengers books out there, but there are some decent books coming out, such as Young Avengers, and Hawkeye and Thor and Journey Into Mystery.  Still miss Nextwave though.  But at least they haven't dumped all of their history.  Except in the Ultimate books, which when you come to think of it, was the precursor to the 52 Universe, with the same characters, but sans all of the continuity.  I don't particularly like the Ultimate books either.  They had their chance to tell NEW stories, and just retold all the old ones, but bloodier. 

Man, I'm cranky today.

Lord knows Wally is no Green Lantern.  I mean, just LOOK at that behind!  But he was funny, and he was smart...at least occasionally...and he did some amazing things.  We need more Flashes.  We need the Justice Society, and the JLI.  We need Ma Hunkel.  We need Power Girl and Huntress back.

At least Geoff Johns brought back G'Nort.  And for that I thank him.