Barry Allen is F’ING DEAD – DEAL WITH IT!

Warning: I go on an insane rant this time….you have been warned. (Yes I know it’s likely a day late too but I had a lot to say!)

Today I have decided to participate in the  “What’s your Scott and Jean?” meme

The link above pretty much tells you about it, but if your ADD like me and too ornery to click it, the meme in short is, What is that one comic story  you cannot discuss reasonably, that one plot that you hold dangerously close to your heart, some would say FANATICALLY so.

My “sacred” story.

The Death of Barry Allen.

In the beginning of my education to comics I kinda gravitated to The Flash.  At that time Wally West was the reigning Flash and Waid wrote him, and all was good but, every once and awhile a reference was made to Barry Allen and a “crisis”.  Eventually I had to know what the hell happened to Barry, it was a gap in my knowledge, a piece of Flash trivia that needed to be filled.  Again, these were the days when the internet was at best slow as crap and wikipedia was but a twinkle in someone’s eye, an good luck trying to find a Flash “website”

I gained some info from the paragons of my local comic shop but, even THEY only knew small pieces of the story I craved.

So…I hunted for all 12 issues of Crisis on Infinite Earths

Let me be clear.

When I say HUNTED I mean HUNTED. I traveled across three or four damn states just to get every damn issue. Trade paperbacks were not the norm at the time, and trying to find a complete set of ANY story at any local comic shop was near impossible.  You could always find the first or third issue of Crisis On Infinite Earths in a comic shop but those last four or so issues, where the BIG stuff happened,  those were impossible to find. Hardest of all to find was the one issue I held particular interest for

Eventually I collected all 12 issues together and consumed them slowly.

When I got to an finished #8 I put it down and knew right there, what I had just read was the model for all heroic deaths. Everybody remembers Supergirl dying in CoIE, big whoop, how many times has she died now BUT, Barry’s death, that was one that was truly heroic, truly finite,  and hardly anybody in either the actual comics or in the comics world remembered his death.

This is a story that I remembered though.

The panels still clear in my mind even today. Barry running past the point of no return, running to destroy the Anti-Monitors weapon,  saving world upon world, those saved never knowing his ultimate sacrifice when he literally ran himself to pieces, to dust.

Whenever somebody said that things in comics were never finite that everything changes, I could proudly say, Barry Allen went out like a champ, and his death meant something, I might even say it was tragic and powerful as it was because it was FINITE.

…..then Final Crisis happened, and I slowly stopped reading comics.

You try talking to me even today about Barry Allen being alive, I will not hear you, I am pretty much incapable of hearing you out on the subject.  (see Spider-Man fans and Brand New Day)

Flash : Rebirth, even though I love Van Sciver’s art and Geoff Johns’ writing…if it’s bringing back Barry Allen for good…I can’t read it. That’s how much of an impact the Death of Barry Allen story had on me, and still has on me even today

Negating Barry Allen’s death, bringing him back, it makes the sacrifice made in Crisis on Infinite Earths, MEANINGLESS. The finality of Barry’s death, it’s effect on Wally and the rest of the Flash-line, it almost undoes all that..*sighs*

The story of Barry Allen’s death, its’ a cornerstone for me I guess, upon which all my love for comics is built upon. What’s the point in reading a story after all if some other writer later on can just undo it cause they feel like it. Nothing ever moves forward then, we keep rehashing the same damn stories over and over again. I mean, I am not opposed to characters coming back once and awhile but, there has to be an equal amount of finality within comics, otherwise, again, nothing new is ever written, just the same ole stale stories and the past almost becomes irrelevant.

So yeah…that’s my “sacred story” in comics.

Maybe that’ll change someday, maybe somebody will loan me a copy of Flash: Rebirth and I’ll actually read it, and change my mind…maybe but, for the time being, don’t get into an argument with me about Allen being back cause good money I will cuss you out.

So ends my insane rant an bless you if you read all the way thru it.