So, normally on this blog I respond to question posed directly to me or posted around the web. Today’s post is a little different as I’ll be covering, on a point-by-point basis, all the arguments for why changing Wally West’s ethnicity in the New 52. Also, why most of them are ridiculous at best and racist at worst.
I think it’s important to note: I’m not a DC apologist, nor am I, by pointing out why some arguments are wrong, saying that everything DC does is right. Twisting the argument to this, as people often seem to do, is ridiculous and it’s perfectly possible to admit that a company like DC has a long way to go and that people opposing them starting to make those changes are wrong.
Furthermore, Wally West is my Flash. Yes, I’m a Golden Age nerd and love Jay Garrick, along with Barry Allen, Bart Allen and all the rest in the Flash Family Tree. However, I was born in the same year Crisis on Infinite Earths hit the stands and Wally will always be the true scarlet speedster – so this is not coming from a place of someone who doesn’t care, deeply, about the character.
Ask the DC Multiverse Historian 