Hi! I hope you are having a great day. As someone who likes DCAU’s Wally West I always wanted to know your opinion about him in the episode “Flash and Substance” (the Flash apreciation episode): Do you think Wally being caring and super nice is a reflection of how awesome he is or he has became a better superhero/person by working with the other Leaguers? Maybe both? Sorry for the lenght of the question, take care :)
“Flash and Substance” really pinpoints why I love Wally so much as a character. Even with powers, he’s the most human member of the league–and, in a lot of ways, he not only serves as the heart of the team, but keeps it grounded in its collective humanity. That’s been canon since before JLU: in “A Better World,” the sole difference between the Justice League and the Justice Lords is a living Wally West.
But “Flash and Substance” is the first time we really see the Flash in his element. In the League, he comes off as a goof-off and often as a minor player, and “Flash and Substance” is where we learn why. Wally is essentially a local hero. His heroics, and even his relationship to his villains, are grounded in his community. His day job is in law enforcement–specifically, the less flashy end of it. He fights supervillains, but that’s a relatively small aspect of how he engages with the people of Central City. (We get a glimpse of that earlier, too, in another of my favorite episodes, “Comfort and Joy.”) He’s just a really, really good dude.
If Batman is the mastermind/general of the league, Flash is the social worker. He’s not solving global problems, but he knows every single person he’s encountered by name, and he treats them all like people.
There’s a scene midway through the episode that gets discussed a lot, where the Flash, Batman, and Orion encounter the Trickster in a villain bar. They’re trying to get info on a rogues’ plot to attack the opening of the Flash Museum–and this, above all other moments, is where you see why the Flash is so goddamn great.
Batman and Orion, true to form, are ready to beat the information out of the Trickster. Flash, horrified, calls them off, sits down with the Trickster at the bar, and gently convinces him not only to tip the heroes off to the other rogues’ plans, but to check himself back into the psychiatric hospital from which he’s escaped with a promise of a visit and a game of darts (”the soft kind”). (And you know he’s gonna follow through, too, because of “Comfort and Joy.”)
Orion is floored. Batman is impressed. Flash is nonplussed: to him, this is how being a superhero works.
And that’s why Wally West is the best guy in the Justice League, and “Flash and Substance” is my favorite episode of JLU.
This is great, and also reminds me of a lot of what I like about William Messner-Loebs’ run on Flash in the late ‘80s; the idea of Wally treating supervillains as people and operating as super social worker as much as anything comes pretty much directly from that run. Mark Waid’s Wally is great, and some of my favorite superhero comics, but Messner-Loebs’ Wally – as wonderfully messy and anxious and uncertain as he is – is the origin point for the character that Jay’s talking about here.
