I really like the scenes with Jay and Wally helping people during the Christmas season. I like how non-chalant they look as they do good deeds around the city.

Also, I like how shocked all the citizens look as these red blurs fly around them.

Hmmmph.

I wish you had knocked off the very end. The bit with the present was predictable but still sweet. Opening the door to Barry just seemed cheap.

“Happy Holidays from (…) Brian (…)”

Well, thank you !

Great moment from a great run. You could do a week of moments just from this storyline. Not even the run, just this storyline. It was around this time I think like 85% of my pull list was DC, if not all, and me and my friends, all Marvel Zombies, would be enthusiastically buying stacks of DC books to read, trade and discuss. Quality stories everywhere.

I love how the shock of the moment turned Wally’s hair blonde.

My favourite part is “the baby is the godsend, junior. I was just along for the ride.”

I just got the “Return of Barry Allen” from the library (I didn’t start buying Flash until Wieringo, so there’s a bit of Waid’s run I’ve missed).

Ohhh, for the days when bringing back Barry was simply a plot twist you knew would be resolved quickly.

Ohhh, for the days when bringing back Barry was simply a plot twist you knew would be resolved quickly.

Nah, I look forward to Barry being back. In fact, this is the first story that made me think that Barry Allen being back full-time could really work.

cool moment espcially the shock look when Barry pops in to say happy holidays too bad dc does not do those stories any more

Speaking of Barry Allen, is it true that Geoff Johns gave his bowties an origin in Flash Rebirth? He actually explained the bow ties? Couldn’t they just be written off as the fashion of the 50s and 60s and never mentioned again? I mean Jimmy Olsen’s bow ties have been retconned, right?

Every time a bell rings, Wally gets an erection.

‘I love how the shock of the moment turned Wally’s hair blonde.’

Haha. I’ve been holding off on buying the Flash Rebirth (though I seem to be the only one). Is it worth buying?

This was a nice moment – I agree with Rusty’s take….comics are losing relevance when dead people don’t stay dead…I am just waiting for Marvel to pull the trigger and bring back Gwen Stacy…unless it hasn’t been done already…once and if they do that…comics will be a complete joke.

@T. Yes, Geoff Johns told us the Secret Origin of Barry’s Bow Tie in issue #2.

It is, after all, a matter of critical importance, and key to his character. I mean, Barry Allen without a bow tie would be…Barry Allen from the 1970s. And we wouldn’t want that, now would we?

There has got to be better Wally West moments than this one. How about when he’s watching a movie at the theater and all of a sudden it pauses for no reason, and then he sees that everyone around him is frozen. Wally is like WTF is going on, and then he realizes that a bullet is slowly (to him) going into the back of his head, and as soon as he felt it he instinctively kicked into superspeed, effectively hitting “Pause” on reality.

That was the first time I ever saw his superspeed used that way, where he was moving so fast it was almost like time was just moving unbelievably slow and he was moving at a normal pace. As a kid it really fascinated me (although I never really liked the idea that his speed turned itself on at the touch of a bullet, like he could somehow tell that he was feeling a bullet touch his skin and had to react right away – never really got that concept).

I think it was issue #30.

[...] Should Be Good’s Year of Comic Book Moments features Flash v.2 #73, Wally and Linda’s first Christmas together and a surprise visit from the man in [...]

@JoeMac: that was a good one (and yes it’s issue 30), though I was kind of annoyed that they forgot that the screen would go black between frames, meaning he’d be alternating between low-light and near-dark conditions as he searched for the other bullets.

Another great moment, which I think may have been highlighted here already, is near the beginning of “Nobody Dies,” the story in Flash #54. Wally’s in an airplane when gunmen blast a hole in the side, and a flight attendant is sucked out. He freezes for a moment, torn between “I have to save her!” and “But I can’t fly!”, tries to rationalize that she’s probably already dead, and finally says, “Hell with it!” and jumps out after her. The rest of the story is all about trying to improvise a way to use super-speed to help them survive the fall, but the key moment for me is the one where he leaps out after her even though he knows that it’ll probably kill him, and it might be too late to save her anyway.

“There has got to be better Wally West moments than this one.”

Five words: And. You’re. No. Barry. Allen. (Five issues after this one, too, if memory serves)

Not to steal a gag from TVTropes, but that may be the greatest Crowning Moment of Awesome in comics history.

Now, is this where I get to whine that DC’s never re-printed Return of Barry Allen with the GL tie-in included?

I’m with Jeff, I prefer Barry’s “returns” to be plot twists that are quickly resolved. I mean, this is the guy who dressed up in spandex while alone with his girlfriends 10 year old nephew, got him hit by lightning and doused in chemicals(“shh…don’t tell Aunt Iris”), and when the kid developed super-speed Barry turned him into his own personal Mini-Me! And didn’t bother to tell Iris about any of this until AFTER the wedding. And I’ve mentioned before how shabbily he treated Fiona Webb.

Barry dead is a great man, a great hero, the greatest of all Flash’s whom Wally can never live up to. Barry alive is a dick.

Then again, maybe this time he’ll stay alive long enough for Wally to figure that out! One can only hope.

I remember almost falling for this until about the third issue. Truth be told, I liked Waid’s matter-of-fact way of bring Barry Allen back much better than as part of the convulated mess that ended up being Final Crisis. This whole story was great right out of the park because nobody except regular Flash readers neither expected nor cared until it actually happened. It wasn’t a huge crossover or annual “event” but a single, well-done story arc.

I’d also forgotten about Wally’s costume being so glossy. Compared to Barry’s, it looked more like an armored suit. And those white slits instead of pupils look rather odd now as well.

“I’d also forgotten about Wally’s costume being so glossy. Compared to Barry’s, it looked more like an armored suit. And those white slits instead of pupils look rather odd now as well.”

They apparently did it so that it would match up with the TV series suit… but the TV suit didn’t look anything like that.

I think the suit would look great given modern colouring, but traditional colouring techniques just weren’t capable of handling that.

Is the part where Johns explains Barry’s bowties going to a be a future cool moment? Please, Brian!