Why DC Needed A Black Female Flash – Or The New 52 Sucks Part 14

So it just occurred to me as I'm reading the Flash Annual (I’m behind on my reading) on the way DC really screwed everything up. When they did the Flashpoint reboot they tried to have their cake and eat it too. That was a huge mistake. Making Barry Allen and Hal Jordan the Flash and Green Lantern again is not real change. They just made them younger and destroyed any legacy they had. Instead they should have restarted it in a bolder way and one that makes more sense in today’s market.  

It would've been cool if perhaps the Flash was a black female character to give us a little diversity and have the character have a different perspective. Heck make Hawkman a Hispanic man instead of what now feels almost vaguely racist in today’s world with Vibe being the Hispanic hero. Also why not have a Japanese America as Green Arrow or a Native American. Instead DC got wrapped into making everything the same yet strangely different. They have alienated old time fans like me and lost a chance to make the DC Universe more reflective of today’s society. Hell we shouldn’t have to limit ourselves to just a few characters or any race or gender either. Instead of trying to force fit Cyborg into the JL as a black character get bold and have this Earth’s only Green Lantern be black.

DC and Marvel have to learn (and Marvel is learning with Potto Parker) that the super hero name is important. Secret identities are almost passé in today’s super hero books so why not go the whole nine yards and be bold. Fans would reward boldness but having Carter Hall as the Hawkman was just boring. Oliver Queen as Green Arrow is only marginally better since Lemire took over and got rid of the Bruce Wayne type Green Arrow.

It makes no sense to destroy the legacy if you're if you're not going to build something new. Instead DC is building the same thing but the twist is that instead of Flash having Iris Allen as his girlfriend it is now Patty. Man what a shocker, Barry switched one white girl for another white girl.

While the Silver Age was started Flash was not Jay Garrick, Green Lantern was not Alan Scott and the list goes on and on. Outside of Superman and Batman, everyone else can be a different person and have a different background. In some ways James Robinson was doing his best to reinvent the Golden Age characters in Earth 2 and was willing to vary the cast with Alan Scott being gay and Dr. Fate and Hawkwoman are not white characters. The new 52 left everyone being essentially the exact same. Of course since it is a new “universe” DC gets to play fast and loose with their continuity so no one know what is the background of any character.


It reminds me of the illusion of change that Marvel always produces where they shake things up but nothing really changes. Peter Parker is still Spiderman Reed Richards, Susan Richards Johnny Storm and Ben Grimm are the Fantastic Four and Steve Rogers is still Captain America,  Clinton Barton is still Hawkeye and on and on. These characters are 60+ years old. The stories have been done over and over and over again.

Listen just because I put on a green t-shirt and shave my head, it does nothing to change whom I am. That is what DC has done with the new 52. I read that Marv Wolman wanted to change things up with Crisis on Infinite Earths and DC said no at that time. That was 1985 in 2011 you thing that using a bold stroke to make changes would have been a smart choice. Why not open up comics to being more in tune with America as it exists today and not the one I was born into in 1955.