Welcome to Comic Book Legends Revealed! This is the six hundred and ninety-second installment where we examine comic book legends and whether they are true or false.

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COMIC LEGEND:

There is a story as to why Wally West is afraid of time traveling that Mark Waid never got a chance to tell.

STATUS:

True

I did a chat with Mark Waid this past Tuesday where readers sent in questions. I will be publishing the transcript later tonight, but for now, I figured I'd give you all a taste of what is to come!

Reader Jon wrote in to ask:

In the ‘Dark Flash’ arc (the Flash 2nd series 152 - 159) there is a sequence on Wally/Walter (the Dark Flash)’s Earth where he is battling ‘our’ Wally. During the sequence ‘our’ Wally makes a couple of statements, one of which is that “we hate time travel because of what happened the first time we tried it alone”.

The line backs up a comment made much earlier (if memory serves this was during the Reckless Youth arc from Flash 2nd series 91-94) when he offers to return Iris Allen to the future. Iris replies “you never got over that thing when you were a kid” (or words to that effect).

My question for Mark is simple, if he didn’t write a story addressing this plot point (and as a reader with every issue of Waid’s run among others) I don’t believe he did.. what the heck happened to Wally the first time he time travelled solo?

Here's Wally mentioning how much he hates time travel in Flash #0...

My pal, Xum, also wrote in about that.

Here's Mark's answer:

It's the one Flash story I never got a chance to tell. Since it's unlikely I'll ever be invited back, the short version is this: Wally's first solo time-trip was to save a classmate from death, but he failed. So he tried again. And again. And again to the point where everything he was doing was just making other lives worse. The lesson to be learned was that time travel can't fix everything. In other words, I guess, I created Flashpoint about 20 years early...? (Kidding. I kid.)

Aw, that's a shame that we missed out on that!

Thanks to Jon and Xum for the question and thanks to Mark for the answer! Check back later tonight for the full chat transcript!


Check out my latest TV Legends Revealed - What is the bizarre origin for one of the most bizarre Saturday Morning cartoons of the 1970s, Partridge Family 2200 A.D.?


Also check back later for the final part of this week's Comic Book Legends Revealed!