How Flash War Sets Up Kid Flash To Join Robin's Rebellious Teen Titans

SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for The Flash #51 by Joshua Williamson, Scott Kolins, Luis Guerrero and Steve Wands and Teen Titans #20 by Adam Glass, Bernard Chang, Marcelo Maiolo and Rob Leigh, both on sale now.

Damian Wayne has established a new roster of Teen Titans with a much more anti-authoritarian approach and a much more disrespectful attitude towards their mentors in the Justice League. It’s easy to see why characters like Robin and Red Arrow would be on board with this new direction and the rest of the team are new members and unknown quantities, the outlier seemed to be Kid Flash.

Compared his contemporaries, Wally West has generally had a good relationship with his mentor but the events of "Flash War" have strained their relationship to a breaking point and it’s no surprise that he wants to go off and make his own mark away from Barry Allen for a while

The Real Wally West?

When DC introduced Wally West in 2014, the plan seemed to be for him to be a new incarnation of the fan-favorite character who grew up to become The Flash himself. Like his previous counterpart, his father was Rudolph West and his aunt was Iris West; he was brought to Central City after the Crime Syndicate’s attack on Earth and was a bit of a tearaway heading down a bad path until he met The Flash and started to turn himself around. In typical Flash fashion, he even met a future version of himself who grew up to be The Flash, in a unique silver and red costume. For all intents and purposes, he was the new incarnation of the classic character re-imagined for a new generation.

However, a year later DC brought back the original Wally West to kick off the DC Rebirth initiative and while the younger Wally didn’t take a backseat by any means, his character needed some quick reworking and his history re-establishing to separate him from his namesake. He initially acquired a connection to the Speed Force from his future Flash self, but it was the Speed Force storm which swept through Central City which stabilized them and allowed him to become Kid Flash, working alongside Barry Allen and finding his place in the larger DC Universe by joining the Teen Titans.

Quickly, Wally went through a number of traumatic experiences which caused him to question who he can trust. While he thought Rudolph West was his father, he discovered that his father was actually Rudy and Iris’ brother Daniel West, who became the The New 52's Reverse Flash. He was mentored in his speedster abilities by Meena Dharwin, but she was seemingly killed by Godspeed. He learned The Flash was really his aunt’s boring friend Barry and that he had a cousin with the same name in the adult Wally West; Deathstroke stole his powers in an attempt to go back in time and save his son; he learned his true father died serving in the Suicide Squad and Meena returned working for the villainous Black Hole as the Negative Flash.

Understandably, Wally was left shaken by all this but remained a member of the Flash Family, helping Barry defeat Gorilla Grodd and Black Hole alongside his adult counterpart, Godspeed and the Negative Flash. However, when Commander Cold and the Renegades of the 25th century came back in time to arrest his aunt Iris for the murder of Eobard Thawne, Wally followed the Flashes to the future in order to keep an eye on her and make sure she was okay, but what he saw there would change his outlook on everything, forever.

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The Final Straw

Since getting superpowers and becoming a part of the Flash Family, Kid Flash hasn’t felt like much of a priority to Barry Allen and he’s definitely noticed.

When he and his aunt Iris accompanied the Flashes to the twenty-fifth century with the Renegades, they ended up stranded there as Barry and the adult Wally dealt with the problems brought up by the return of Hunter Zolomon, but in doing so they changed the future and broke the Speed Force, leaving Kid Flash, Iris and Commander Cold stranded in a timeline which didn’t exist and threatened to collapse at any point. In order to save them, Kid Flash stepped up and ran into Hypertime on his own (before the Flashes broke that, as well) and got everyone back home, realizing his full potential, and realizing he doesn’t actually need The Flash to guide him or tell him what to do.

Kid Flash has grown into a young man right under Barry Allen’s nose, and The Flash has been too busy to slow down and realise it. Now going by Wallace rather than Wally, Kid Flash has had the adults in his life let him down at every single turn and while he was in the future he learned some information that would scar any young man; he’s not supposed to exist.

In the Flash Museum of the 25th century there were exhibits for all the speedsters of the 21st century -- Jay Garrick, Barry Allen, Wally West, Bart Allen, Jesse Quick, Johnny Quick, Max Mercury… but no Wallace West. Kid Flash’s time in the future revealed to him that the only reason he exists is the universe trying to fill a gap caused by the Flashpoint

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Titans Together

Meanwhile, while Barry Allen has been too busy to notice everything that Wallace has been through, Kid Flash has been making connections across the DC Universe, finding places where he does fit in.

He joined the Teen Titans, but didn’t quite gel at first and while he and Raven danced around each other's obvious attraction to one another, they could never quite make it work. After the events of "The Lazarus Contract," he signed up for Deathstroke’s super-team Defiance in his search for a mentor that actually paid attention to him, but now Wallace is realizing he doesn’t need an adult to make those rules for him. Realigning and burying his differences with Robin, Wallace has joined a new incarnation of the Teen Titans, a version of the group that's much more anti-authority -- and much more anti-superhero -- than any incarnation before.

Wallace realizes there are things the Teen Titans can do that the adult Titans or Justice League can’t, and that in every generation it falls to the young adults to step up and push the envelope further than their adult contemporaries may be willing to go.

As one of two former Teen Titans members on the new team, Wallace comes into the new line-up with a level of experience that he’s never had the chance to exhibit before; he knows Damian well-enough and he’s confident enough in himself as a hero that he can stand up to Robin if the son of Batman attempts to take things too far — which, if you’ve seen the last page of Teen Titans #20, may come sooner rather than later.

There comes a time in every young hero’s life when they outgrow their mentor and become their own person and Kid Flash is finding his feet solo, but thankfully, he’s got a new group of friends to help him if he stumbles.