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irritated West Fan writes...

Is there a specific reason why you decided to make Wally's only suited up appearance this season (so far anyways), being shown up by Impulse? If you weren't going to make Wally important to the plot at all this season then why did you even bother having him appear in Bloodlines to begin with? Yes I know Wally was a Flash once upon a time, just like Garrick, but he could've easily NOT been in the episode and it wouldn't have affected the plot in the slightest.

I suppose it doesn't help that I don't really care much for Bart Allen (never really have); I feel he came in and "replaced" a vastly more interesting character in Wally. His first appearance reaked of "Hey kids, do you like Kid Flash? Well forget about him because here we have the faster, shinier, and "funnier" character in Impulse." A tactic I felt the show was above, until now. You told us Wally hadn't been replaced in the slightest, no offense but when Bart is the one on the team now and Wally is the one benched, I feel it's a little silly to tell us that when the show shows us other wise.

Why is it that Wally is no longer involved in the plot at all? Yes I know he's retired, but Artemis was retired as well. You guys easily could've plotted out some scenario that utilized Wally's scientific mind to help Dick out, something I think is 100% in character for Wally to do that would get Artemis home faster, "The Life" or not.

After all Wally is one of the original 6, and you and Brandon have stressed over and over again in interviews that the main six would still take center stage. Yet as of The Hunt, Wally has only appeared in 1/4 of the season as a minor presence at best. That holds true for the other five, but Jamie and Bart feel more important this season than Wally does.
I feel due to Wally's lack of presence, the show lost that certain something in it's second season, and those that have taken up his screen time are nowhere near as interesting in my opinion. It's gotten to the point where Wally could take up the Flash mantle sometime in the last 3 episodes and I STILL don't think it would be worth his absence.

Just to be clear, I don't think Wally being slower than Bart is bad, I just haven't cared about the way it's been presented. (Ex.: We all know Superman is superior to Batman in strength, but most writers don't go out of their way to beat that point into the ground like you guys did with Wally/Bart). Nor do I think his feelings for Artemis are what defines his importance on the show, like a poster below does.

However I feel like somewhere along the lines of plotting this season (of the original 6) Wally became unimportant to you guys in the grand scheme of things for season 2. Perhaps that's not necessarily true and that he is important to you guys, but I feel that's the way it has come across.

Greg responds...

I don't think Impulse showed Wally up at all. It was Wally and Jay who saved Barry and Bart's lives. Or did you miss that? The fact that we got a little humor out of Wally's frustration and Bart's arrogance doesn't rise to the level you're indicating, at least not in my opinion. Not unless you're looking to see that.

Bart interests me. Wally interests me. We tried to honor both characters. It worked for some. Didn't work for you. I can live with that. But in any case, I don't think Bart REPLACED Wally in Season Two. Wally retired. Bart joined. But so did Arsenal and Guardian and Static. We weren't thinking in terms of a one-for-one replacement. We were trying to honor both speedsters' stories.

And, yes, I suppose we could have plotted anything. We could have plotted that Wally became an out-and-out villain. We could have plotted that he was magically transformed into an anthropomorphic aardvark. None of that felt right. What felt right to us is what we showed you. Now, we would have loved to have had the luxury to give Wally more screen time in Season Two. But there were only so many episodes and so many minutes in each episode. And we had a very specific story to tell. So you get what you get.

You say "you and Brandon have stressed over and over again in interviews that the main six would still take center stage," but I don't think that's an accurate statement. I believe I gave at most two interviews where I said something to that effect. But it's largely been misinterpreted - or rather over-interpreted. The story took center stage in Season Two. (I've stated THAT "over and over" ad nauseum.) That was intentional. You may not like it, but that's what we were doing. What I have been trying to say all along is that we still see our core original six characters as extremely important. Some, in Season Two, got more screen time than others. That was defined by story. Superboy was big in the first half of Season Two, and not so big in the second half. Artemis barely appeared at all until Episode 207, etc. But despite that, we made a real effort to honor the stories of those six. And I believe we did that with Wally. (I'm also not sure why you were writing this before seeing the end of the season.) Now, I'll hazard a guess that you didn't like the way we ended Wally's story either. But we'll never please everyone, obviously. We have to do what we think works and hope that enough of our audience agrees that the series is a success.

As for the notion that Wally became unimportant to us, you've missed the boat entirely. If that's the way it came across to you, I'm sorry. But Wally was always extremely important to us, and his presence even in Season Two is not defined by screen time, but by WHO HE IS. And I think our ending proves that point. Wally West, Kid Flash, is a hero.

Response recorded on May 16, 2013