“Because I’m The Flash.”
“The fastest man alive. You told us.” “Did I?” Let's be quick about this. The Flash rocks. I know it. You know it. He certainly knows it. Flash was one of the founding members of
the DC Animated Universe's Justice League, and we eventually learned that this Flash was the Wally West
version of the character, actually the third guy to take up
the mantle in the comics after Jay Garrick, the original Flash, and Barry
Allen, arguably the most famous Flash. But we never saw any Flash prior
to Wally in the DCAU, and the headcanon that the Flash we saw before in “Superman:
The Animated Series” was actually Barry has been perpetuated by the fanbase
since...well, since 1997. But was this a different person
or the same Flash? And if they're both Wally,
does Barry Allen exist in the DCAU at all? These are the things we're talking about
today, got it? Before “Justice League,” other DC heroes popped up here
and there on the “Superman” cartoon like Green Lantern Kyle Rayner,
Dr. Fate, and Aquaman. But on STAS,
we never really got to explore any of their expanded worlds either. No Parallax, no Wotan
And certainly no Black Manta Sleep is the company
that's bringing you this video. Superheroes wear masks.
We talk about superheroes. This is so on brand for us! You've
probably tried to sleep mask before. Maybe you wear one every night,
but likely it's one of those super slim slabs of fabric you see someone trying
to get away with on a redeye flight. It slips around your face
when you roll over. It barely keeps out the light
and you'll likely wake up with it around your neck
or lost inside your mattress forever. But not this wonderful work of art. Manta Sleep masks are like big,
super comfortable goggles. There's an easily
adjustable strap around the back that holds them snug to your face
while not being too tight. And these pillow soft cups go over your eyes,
which keep out, like, any light at all. My wife can only sleep
if there's a nightlight of some kind on, and I'm always shoving my face into a dark
crevice somewhere to blot it out, so this thing is like a New Godsend. Thank you, Highfather! There's also a bunch of different styles,
some that are weighted, some that are, like, heated or cooled,
and even one that connects to Bluetooth so you can play soothing sleep sounds as
you drift away...or Rammstein or whatever. You just take their online quiz
to find out which one's best for you. That's what I did,
and I think they got it right because I have gigantic eyelashes and
they ain’t touchin’ nothin’ inside this thing. And hey, you get to look like Cyclops
while you wear them. I assume, anyway,
I can't see myself or anything at all when these are on. I'll have to watch the footage later
and hope I look like Cyclops. I look like Cyclops, right? Manta Sleep's big thing
is their Pro-Nap Movement, bringing back the idea that stopping
to take a nap isn't just for toddlers. I certainly need to join my little dude in that movement,
and these are going to help out a ton. In fact, goodnight. Head on over to the link
in the description to get yourself a Manta Sleep mask
and use our code WTDB (that's Watchtower Database
If every syllable was a word, you see) for 10% off. Thank you, Manta Sleep,
for sponsoring this video. Now back to the fast guy. All right, Barry Allen, will he, won't he? Well, who is he in the first place, eh? If you're not familiar,
I'll give you the CliffsNotes. The character of The Flash
first appeared in Flash Comics #1 in 1940, The original Jay Garrick
version of the character. Fast-forwarding through a couple decades of Flash
and/or Justice Society Society stories with Cosplay Hermes,
we come to the second Flash, the revamped Silver Age version,
a quote-unquote “modern” twist on the idea for quote-unquote “modern” comic readers,
much like how Green Lantern went from an old dude in a cape
to a super suave space cop. Just don't go
looking into his relationship history. While Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman
held their tentpole spots as undeniably- flying-off-the-shelves DC heroes,
Flash went through a makeover and popped out on the other side
in 1967 as Barry Allen, a forensic scientist
who gained super speed powers after being struck
by lightning in his lab. Wait, how did Jay Garrick get his powers? I've never actually looked this up. Uh...oh. No.... Inhaling hard water vapors
after a smoke break? What? I guess we really don't know
what vaping does to you in the long term. Be careful, kids! “That’s metal...in your lungs!” Barry Allen is basically the guy
you think of when you think of The Flash: the red jumpsuit with the lightning ears
and all that. About 12 years into his publication
history, he got a sidekick, Kid Flash, aka Wally West. During a big,
giant, crazy-ass comic book crossover in 1985 called Crisis on Infinite Earths,
which was DC's first of many “Oh, Jesus, reboot the
entire multiverse, please!” Barry Allen tried to stop the big bad, the Anti-Monitor, and basically crumbled
into a crispy skeleton-boy and died. He didn't actually die, but we're not
going to get into that right now. Stay on target.
Stay on target! After this, Wally West took up the mantle of The Flash
and remained so throughout the ‘90s and 2000s, the entire time The Flash
appeared in the DC Animated Universe. Yes, The Flash was one of several
DCAU characters to get the history combo treatment. Tim Drake was basically Jason
Todd in background and Tim in name and computer-iness. Kyle Rayner got Hal Jordan's
origin, and hair, I can't help noticing.
Even Supergirl was pretty much every version of Supergirl rolled into one
and then some. DCAU Wally was sort of a Wally-Barry hybrid,
but in his case it wasn't so much that he was more
one than the other, but more so that... “I have no idea who this is.” ...and it didn't matter. This was just...The Flash. Sure, eventually we found out in “Justice League”
that he was indeed Wally. But look, us
super-geeks knew that from the get-go all the way back in the “Superman” cartoon. “Wally West is the Scarlet Speedster
from Central City, The Flash,” reads his official STAS
biography. Well, okay, actually it reads “the
the Scarlet Speedster,” But you know what I mean. And then for JL, we got: “Young, brash and impulsive, Wally West
gained the power of superspeed,”
blah, blah, blah. Both bios call him Wally West. He was always Wally West.
Let's just get that out of the way. Even the guy who wrote his first DCAU
appearance says: “I think in my mind, it was always Wally West. “We wanted him to have that sort of
fun, jokey personality “that would be a nice contrast to
Superman’s Boy Scout personality.” “Young, brash and impulsive,” baby! “Wally West.”
Always has been, always will be. “Look, it’s me, I’m here,
deal with it, let’s move on.” But...look, I get it. The fan theories about the first time
we see him being Barry Allen aren't baseless necessarily. The dude has a slightly different costume
and a different voice actor, Charlie Schlatter
instead of Michael Rosenbaum, who's done the voice of the Barry version
of The Flash and a ton of stuff since. So it's not crazy to think Wally was just
The Flash in “Justice League” and Barry might show up sometime in a later episode
to be like, “Hey, remember me from STAS, lol?” There even was an episode idea,
which you can hear the crew talk about on “Justice League
Unlimited” special features, where they were gonna bring in
Barry Allen, Hal Jordan, and Hawkman, presumably as older, original versions
of the Leaguers in some capacity. “Initially, we were gonna do a story
with the original seven from the comics “that we had never done.” “Right, with Hal Jordan and Barry Allen.” But while Hawkman did eventually appear,
the rest of them never materialized, unless you count Hal literally
materializing in John Stewart's place, but stay on target! But besides the Wally West name-drops
in the show biographies, a change in actor has never meant a character
is a completely different character. Do you think because Superman went from
Tim Daly to George Newbern that this is a different Superman now?
Ignore the cheekbones. Or that Robin was a different orphan
every time they didn't use Mathew Valencia for whatever
stupid reason? No. Same Flash. And look, if you somehow need even more evidence,
just check out the early JL episode, “Paradise Lost.” They needed an insert shot of Flash
running at the camera, and they literally just reused a shot
from his “Superman” episode. I rest my case. There was no precedent for Barry Allen Flash being in the DCAU,
and there didn't have to be. But even so, the question still remains: Is Barry Allen in the DCAU anyway? Even if he's not The Flash in “Superman,”
is he still out there somewhere? Do we have any evidence of his existence? “Barry Allen. Bruce Wayne.” And I'm only talking about things
that actually happened, not “what if?” scenarios like this
cutesy canceled lineup of DCAU Teen Titans where there's a Flash and a Kid Flash,
because this never saw the light of day and it isn't actually canon, so I'm sorry if this is the first time you're hearing about it
and you're very upset now. Early commenters will be quick
to...comment that we do get a brief mention of Wally West having an uncle
in the JLU episode “Flash and Substance”... “My mom’s gonna be there...
let’s see, my uncle’s flying in...” ...who, in classic
comic continuity, is Barry Allen. Barry married Iris West,
who's Wally's aunt, ya see. We also got this blond detective
in “The Brave and the Bold,” the “Justice League” episode,
not the Diedrich Bader cartoon, who goes unnamed, but he was dubbed
“Detective Allen” by all of us overzealous nerds on the message boards
back in the good ol’ days. And then there's this blond guy, who's Wally's boss at the crime lab
in JLU, who also goes unnamed. But Wally has Barry's
job, see? He’s both characters rolled into one! That same episode, we get the Flash
Museum, a...museum full of Flash stuff. Do I have to say it? We've done a whole video already
about literally everything in this place, and a few other DCAU Flash Museums
you might not have known existed, so just go watch that later. But there's a few Flash Family-centric
thingamabobs in here, most notably a Kid Flash costume. I swear, yellow costumes
are the bane of my existence. The only official word
we've ever gotten about this was from the late, great Dwayne McDuffie,
writer/producer on JLU and “Static Shock.” On his old forums, a fan asked for clarification
on what Flashes are out there in the DCAU, and he answered very matter-of-factly: “Flash and Kid Flash exist.” But I counter with...whuhhh...
what does that mean? Flash, as in Wally West, and a never-seen
Kid Flash sidekick of his? Flash, as in Barry Allen, with Wally West
as his Kid Flash in the past? Uh...some third thing
I can't think of right now but helps round out the pacing
of this moment in the video? “Do you think this is a problem?” Well, let’s roll back the rock to the dawn of time,
aka “Batman: The Animated Series,” and browse
the very earliest appearances of The Flash in any continuity to call itself the DCAU. Well, actually nobody was calling it the DCAU until, like, 2004
or so when fans were using the term enough that Bruce Timm
and co. started using it around the offices-- Stay on target! Hi, it's me, James from the future,
but not that far in the future, just however long it took me to edit
this video. I'm just here to announce the winner of
our latest giveaway from the video about “Red Robin! Yum!” All this stuff
on screen goes to...this person! If this person is you, email us at contest@watchtowerdatabase.com
with your name and mailing address. Also, psst, Pico DeGuyo,
you won the last batch, so email us soon or we'll pick someone else, k? The next giveaway is all of this stuff,
and all you got to do is leave a comment below answering our Question of the Day
from the end of this video. Subscribe so you don't miss more giveaways
every video for the foreseeable future, and hey, go check out our Patreon,
link’s in the description, to help us get to 200 patrons
so we can do a “Will It Canon?” episode on if “Teen Titans”
and “The Batman” exist in the same universe. Need I say more? No. No, I need not. That was not staying on target, Not-Too-Distant Future James! Less than a year
after the premiere of BTAS, we got Superman & Batman Magazine,
a short-lived publication that featured a ton of other DC Comics
characters in the animated art style, all designed by DCAU tie-in media
legend, Ty “The Guy” Templeton. “And you are...?” “I’m the guy.” In the final issue of this magazine,
we got a story featuring Wally West Flash, which starts off in an early incarnation
of the Flash Museum that displays statues of all three Flashes:
Jay, Barry, and Wally. It goes on to say that, just like in Crisis
on Infinite Earths in the mainstream continuity,
this Barry Allen “Sacrificed himself “to save the world,
to save all of reality, really.” Aka, he also fought an Anti-Monitor
and crumbled into a crispy skeleton-boy. But as time went on and the DC
Animated Universe flourished on our tiny, boxy, static electricity-y 1990s
televisions, almost everything within this magazine's pages would wind up retconned
into “Elder Scrolls: Oblivion” by the cartoons. This Flash story got knocked out of canon,
and so did Wally's eventual appearances in the Adventures in the DC Universe
comic a few years later, which similarly combined mainstream
continuity with animated designs. This unfortunate trend continued
as we moved into the DC Comics Superheroes branding era, with the likes of various
coloring books starring Wally's Flash, almost always accompanied by Impulse,
typically a Wally sidekick from ‘90s comics. But that's not Kid Flash, that's Impulse. Those are two different characters.
And these coloring book stories almost all got overwritten eventually too,
and were, like, dirt-level canon to begin with, so it's fine and it doesn't matter. I am working on a humongous video all about the history of this
era of DCAU licensing, and it's really cool, so you'll want to subscribe
and stick around for that, trust me. Where things
start to get really interesting is this storybook from 1998
called “The True Story of the Flash.” Here, Flash is Wally again, as expected,
but he's bringing us through his origin story, and hot damn, there's Barry Allen, right there, plain as day, zipping around
with Wally as his Kid Flash partner. Dude is as “in the flesh”
as you can get as a cartoon character. “He’s super strong,
and super naked.” Then, of course, Wally once again
goes on to refer to how “One day the Flash fought a villain
who wanted to destroy the whole universe. “Barry won the battle,
but he lost his life. “He crumbled into a crispy skeleton-boy.” Okay, it doesn't actually say that
last part, but it might as well. This continues the narrative that the DCAU,
or at least this version of it, was still tracing the continuity
beats of Crisis on Infinite Earths. This book alone would be all the proof
I need that Barry did exist at one point (It's “The True Story of The Flash,”
after all), if not for that
Wally goes on to encounter the likes of Vandal Savage
and Gorilla Grodd for the first time in completely different scenarios
than the later, higher-tier-canon cartoon. And the Flash Museum again already exists
despite its grand opening in JLU. So, so far, the ‘90s storybooks
and coloring books and animated style tie-ins of pretty much every kind
all eventually prove themselves to not be the same universe
as the animated series. And that's
what we're trying to figure out here. Is Barry Allen
a part of the cartoon continuity? Thus far, it's not lookin’ good. Luckily,
this is where we get to the “real” stuff, the meat and potatoes,
the actual DC “Animated” Universe, where anything going forward can be
considered the “real deal” for Flash mythos. Once the “Justice League”
show hit our staticky CRT TVs-- Seriously,
why are these things always so staticky? Can someone please tell me? OW! --everything onward was part of a new, official
take on the animated-style Flash, who, again, was confirmed in the JL series finale, “Starcrossed,” to be Wally West,
for absolute certainty. But all the way back
starting in the first season, we got more and more little drops of
Flash juice (yucky) that expanded his lore ever
so slightly. In the episodes “Eclipsed” and “Flashpoint”-- Not that “Flashpoint,” that hadn't even come out yet, Flashpoint is a word. It was clever, okay?! --we hear mention of a “Grammy Flash.” But while comic book Wally
has all sorts of known family members, like his uncle Barry, somehow
a grandmother doesn't ever come up except for this one time when we learn
she, uh, doesn't like crickets, so we don't get to assign her
any potential alias. You're no help at all, Grammy! You might be thinking
there's some intriguing Barry-related clues in this sequence
where Dr. Fate floats through Wally's mind in best-episode-ever,
“The Great Brain Robbery,” but nope, we get the girls from the diner, some goon he’s punching, the Cosmic Treadmill, which is pretty cool,
but not really relevant for this video, the Key to the City award presentation from a couple episodes prior,
and a bunch of beakers and vials full of chemicals, presumably referencing
Wally's superspeed origin, which, trust me, we'll get to.
Side note: the episode “Hereafter,” where Superman supposedly dies,
is just more evidence to me that STAS Flash isn't a different guy,
or else why wouldn't he have shown up to his buddy
Superman's funeral, hmm? And while the comics tied into this cartoon, Justice League Adventures,
gave us a lot of issues with appearances of new Flash-related characters
like, um...the Reverse Flash, for one, most of these issues would again
later be retconned by the shows, and therefore this comic run
probably isn't canon either. RIP DCAU Eobard Thawne.
But hey, don't count them out just yet. We'll do a full “Will It Canon?”
episode on this series someday, I'm sure of it. Subscribe please, okay? But the big one comes in “The Brave
and the Bold,” the episode, where we see
Wally West’s superspeed origin (See? Here it is.) in a quick flashback-y aside,
viewed through the lens of Flash being mind-controlled by Grodd’s Tinder date
...I wish that was a joke. Wally appears to be an adult here,
matching his redheaded backside from “Starcrossed,” which, well,
we've always interpreted to mean he was never actually Kid Flash,
but just Flash Flash. Adult Flash. So the Kid Flash that Dwayne McDuffie referenced must be Wally's sidekick, that
we never see? This guy? No, we've established, that's Impulse, those are two different characters! But...let's talk about that for a second. Just how old is Wally West in “Justice
League”? Throughout JL and JLU, he's constantly referred to as “kid”
or “hotshot” or any number of other nicknames by the seemingly-older-
and-wiser members of the League, like Green Lantern or Batman or what
have you. He's not always treated with the same respect as his peers,
and it's implied through context that this is because of his age.
“Young”! “Brash”! “Impulsive”! But not Impulse! In fact, in the “Justice League”
animated series guide book from 2004, Wally is described as “the youngest member
of the League,” and ol’ McDuffie hisself confirmed in another forum post
that Wally is about 23 or 24. It's the same post where he says
Wonder Woman is 18, but oh my goodness,
we'll talk about that some other day. So he's in his early 20s in 2000
or 2001 or so on the DCAU timeline, but we've got no clue
how old he was when he got his powers. Well, not to worry,
my dearest Databaes, for we've finally reached
the creme de la creme de la éclair. Wat, what? Éclair
means “Flash”? What are you doin’ France? “Mmmmahhhh, the French.” Huh. You come to Watchtower Database
to learn, people. You see, the “Justice League”
cartoon had a few tie-in novels as well, most of which were original stories,
like this Hawkgirl-centric one where Bane wears a neat little turtleneck. Book 7, “A League of His Own,” tells us
that Wally's origin was midsummer, and in Book 9, “Speed Trap,”
we learned that Wally was around 18 when he got his powers. Now, I'll toss this out there
just so it gets a mention: Over the years, some fans, in an attempt to make the Flash Museum's
Kid Flash costume be Wally's for sure, have theorized that this isn't actually
Wally we're seeing in the Tinder mind-control origin flashback, but actually Barry
(with red hair? I dunno) And our POV here is actually through kid
Wally's eyes, like he's off standing in the corner of the lab
or something. This isn't typically how the story went,
but it's not impossible. If Abin Sur can give his ring to Kyle
instead of Hal, anything goes. But this scenario has always felt
just very unnecessary to me. Because, look, if Wally was 18 when he got his powers,
this could certainly be him. His character design can be a Bruce
Timm-style adult by that point, no problem. Just compare this guy to 18/19-year-old
Dick Grayson, or even 17-year-old Terry McGinnis,
or equally high school-aged Nelson Nash. Wait...red hair? Nash? Flash?! Nelson became Flash and then time-traveled back
and joined the Justice League and then eventually sired
the West kid from “Zeta Project” because everything is canon
and you can't stop me. But seriously, since we now know DCAU Wally is around
the same age as, say, Nightwing, Wally being an 18-year-old Kid Flash is really not beyond
the realm of possibility. Master Dick was Robin
when he was in college, it’s fine. And like we talked about
forever ago in our “Who's Who in the DCAU Titans?” video, maybe the two of them
were even on a Titans team together at some point, off screen. So that Kid Flash costume in the museum?
My creds are on it being Wally's
very first costume in this universe. But...[SIGHS] These novels unfortunately almost always came packaged
with various continuity kerfuffles. Like, Hawkgirl
can do the Aquaman fish thing with birds. She can't actually do that.
That was just part of her cover story. I mean, what cover story?
What do you mean? So even though in the “Red Justice” book,
a conversation between Wally and J’onn J’onzz
very nicely confirms Flash's costume used to be worn by Barry
Mothaf***in’ Allen, it might not be canon?
But don't get discouraged! Look over here! Oooh! Shiny! The novelization for the “Justice League”
debut episode, “Secret Origins”! Regardless of anything else,
this one's got to be much more easily considered canon, since
it's like the book to JL’s hip hop. And here, Barry Allen is mentioned by name again
in the scene where the remaining heroes learn of Batman's supposed demise
at the slimy hands of the not-Imperiums. “The Bat’s gone?” Which, when you consider Flash's one
and only appearance in Batman's Gotham Adventures tie-in comic a little over a year
prior, is a really sweet sentiment. But...target...staying...on! With version after
version of the DCAU committing to Wally having once been the sidekick of Barry
Allen, the previous Flash, who's gone now, dead even, crispy as f***, the continuity
that actually means a damn thing still trying to push this narrative
just puts it into perspective for me. Barry's gotta have been a thing, right? But nobody ever talks about him. What was he ever up to? Why do we never hear
about any of his adventures? Enter: Capstone Publishing. Since 2009 or so, literally
hundreds of kid-oriented storybooks drawn in the familiar DC Animated Universe
art style have been released, including a conservative
handful of Flash-titled books where Flash is, well, always Barry Allen. These came out right around the time that Barry was reintroduced
back into the comics as the primary Flash, so it makes sense
that any animated style stuff would want to be synergistic.
And in a pretty fun way, these books act like almost a window
into the missing adventures of this older Flash that we never knew...
or at least they would, if not for the fact
that some sort of non-canon nature befalls every single one of them, be
it appearances of villains with wildly different origins and costumes
than their animated counterparts, or the fact that we get a Kid
Flash sidekick, but he's named...Bart?! Like Bart Allen? Wait, Kid
Flash and Impulse are the same character? What is reality? Is this Kid Flash now?! And come on, man,
these books had no excuse! The cartoons had been out and over with
for years. They had every opportunity to stick to the
established canon and follow the rules. So...I guess it just goes to show
that these Capstone books, too, belong to a separate universe
or universes or whatever. Their history simply is not the same
as the one we saw on our staticky TVs. We'll go through all these books
eventually, but “Not now!” Despite that speed bump,
we can still piece everything here together into a clearer picture, and to me, anyway, this is what I think
we can assume: in the DC Animated Universe, Barry Allen was The Flash, after all, at some point a while ago.
Maybe before and/or during “Batman: The Animated Series,” if that helps
keep your brain happy about it all? Then in midsummer of around 1995 or ‘96,
really not too long before “Superman: The Animated Series,” Wally West got his own superspeed powers and became
Barry's sidekick, Kid Flash. One day, theoretically not super long after that,
Barry died in some kind of big, unknown, off-screen thing, and Wally took up
the role of Big Kid Flash, appearing in STAS and throughout JL and JLU. The...um...end! Now, how Barry got his powers
in this continuity, we have no idea. A DCAU-style how-to-draw
book from 2015 did give us this origin: The Capstone books provide an identical
origin, and this is basically always how Barry gets his powers
in every version of the character. So we can assume it was relatively
the same in the DCAU, and it doesn't matter
that this is essentially describing Wally's Tinder dream as well,
because the two of them also have identical lab lightning origins
pretty much every time, anyway. “Any of this ringing a bell?”
“What?” it all actually works out pretty smoothly, even though I hate that it's entirely
off-camera hearsay. We don't see Barry ever,
but I feel pretty good about saying that he was there. “My name is Barry Allen and I’m--”
“--not in the DCAU.” “I am in the DCAU!” “My name is Barry Allen and I’m--”
“--in the DCAU.” This is a very multilayered joke
and I'm not sorry. And who knows, had that JLU
episode with Barry and Hal actually come to fruition,
if it would have followed this pretty well-hidden throughline
or completely bungled everything? I mean,
I trust the writers of these shows, but... have you seen our videos? There's confusing oversights
like this all over the place, I promise. I wish we could see it all
go down someday, but for now, at least we've got this JLU
Mattel action figure that looks a hell of a lot more like Barry than Wally, even though he's only called “The Flash”
anywhere on the box, and the old WB Studio Stores used to carry these
animated-style prints for a bit, one of which showcased a very Barry-
looking Flash, what with the open eye holes and the little ear wings,
and all of which I wish I owned, oh my God. There's also this DCAU Barry Allen
character design by Gotham Adventures artist Tim Levins,
which he actually redid after we annoyed him enough
that his original Barry looked too Wally-y. And technically, this Flash
art on the walls of the Superbabes restaurant in “Batman and Harley Quinn”
is of Barry, just like this is Hal Jordan, because these are straight
out of ‘70s DC merch style guides. But who knows if it's literally Barry or,
like, an artistic interpretation of Wally. Man, the Superbabes wallpaper
really redirects our timelining efforts more often
than I'd care to admit. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention
how, a couple of years back, we got Barry Allen
teaming up with Terry McGinnis Batman in the Rebirth-era Batman
Beyond comic written by Dan Jurgens. But although it's pretty dang neato to see these two side by side,
this was the same futuristic Barry from the currently running
Rebirth Flash comics, and that Beyond title pulled continuity
from every source imaginable, so it's doubtful
we can count this. Not the same continuity, but it's still pretty cool. I like his beard. He's like fast Santa Claus. So to bring all of this to a close.... ...wait,
what's that? You're shouting into the void: “But what about Jay Garrick, James? “His helmet’s in the Flash Museum,
too, ya dingus!” Well, while I don't know how I can hear
your void-shouting, I'll give you a quick rundown on that
since I'm here and it's topical enough. That helmet? McDuffie says you only think it's Jay Garrick’s
because you know of Jay Garrick. It could be anyone's helmet. Could have
stolen it off the actual Hermes, even. He's chummy with Wonder Woman, you can't say he's
not. Strike one against Jay's existence! We got the Justice Guild in the episode “Legends,” who were doppelganger replacements
for the Justice Society. There's been a rumor floating around for years that this was what the episode
was originally going to look like, but, me oh my, we got to talk about that
in a different video. The JGA existed in comics
in the League's reality, much like the original Jay/Barry crossover
that introduced the multiverse in DC. Since The Streak was that world's Flash,
basically Jay Garrick in a motorcycle helmet, it's kind of implied Streak is
the equivalent of Jay in this continuity. Steeeeee-rike two against his existence!
And in the Justice League Unlimited comics, Jay did appear in a single issue,
noted to be the first, “original” Flash, with Wally as the second. But he also appeared as a cameo in JL Adventures #20 as one of many alternate universes visible only to the
shattered mind of The Psycho-Pirate. So maybe JLU Jay came from this
alternate universe and an off-screen story, or he exists in both,
like an Earth-1/Earth-2 situation. The very-DCAU-inspired Earth-12-set comics
that ran throughout the early 2010s continue this idea of it going
“Jay then Wally,” with no Barry in between. But we also see a ton of other Flash-
related heroes and villains we never saw elsewhere, and we've already done
a whole “Will It Canon?” episode on Earth-12 that proves it's a different continuity
than the cartoons. So...strike...three? I don't know. Maybe Jay Garrick was Flash at one point,
too, before Wally and Barry. Or maybe this is someone else's helmet, like something Wally wore for a second
before realizing it didn't go with the Kid Flash costume
at all. Maybe that's
why the top of his mask is missing-- James, stay on target! I'll just...leave all of that
up to you to decide. In the end, perhaps that uncle
that Wally mentions is indeed Barry Allen. Or it's not, and it's just some uncle. This detective guy is just a blond
detective, and the Central City crime lab dude, while looking a heck of a lot like how the Capstone books portray
Barry, is also just some guy. They can't be Barry. They're not crispy, crumbly boy
skeletons! But knowing with much greater certainty than I did
half an hour ago that Barry did very likely exist in the DCAU,
but is dead and gone now somehow, what do you think happened to him? Did he and Retcon Thawne have some big fight
that erased them both from history? Did some version of Crisis
on Infinite Earths happen within the DCAU? Are there Pre-Crisis and Post-Crisis
versions of this animated universe? Does that explain the art style change and
Joker's face and a thousand other things? Well, as an anti-matter of fact,
I've had that on my video topic to-do list nearly as long as this video, so... My Question of the Day to you fine folks is as follows:
Do you like the idea of Barry Allen being an unseen part of the DCAU’s history, or would you prefer
Wally West to be the only Flash? ...writer Derek Fridolfs said about his work
in the Beyond-era Flash stories... Mic drop, Mr. Fridolfs. Personally,
I think it's really neat that Barry may very well
have been out there at some point, but if I'm being honest,
I've always been much more of a Wally fan. I'm a ‘90s kid,
I like ’90s éclair, what can I say? Thank you for watching this video, thank you again to Manta Sleep
for sponsoring it, and thank you for buying this new t-shirt
we just made. Yes, this is real
and you know you want it. Our Teespring store is linked below. And thank you, as always
to our beautiful Patreon supporters who truly do wonders to help out us
Databuds over here on a regular basis. Lots of cool new exclusive stuff
we've been posting over there lately, so check it out. We really couldn't do it without you all,
especially our top patrons, Shaun McAllister, Luke Mears, Mystic Angel,
and Jonathan Andrew Brantley. Also, hey, please go watch our last video
all about the DCEU timeline. It's very much worth your time, I promise. Even if you don't give a damn about
those movies, you will not regret it. It is an experience. It'll change your life. I play the saxophone in it. Okay, Bye.
