Flash: Rebirth #5

[redorion]

4 pages from today's Flash: Rebirth #5 by Johns and Van Sciver.

While chasing Zoom, Wally makes costumes for the group out of the Speed Force:



(Jai is de-powered earlier in this issue and Iris is the new Impulse)

The reason for the retcons:

Comments

[icon_uk]

Bart was introduced as a 14 year old kid on the cusp of adolescent. Promisingly good looking, but slightly gawky and with his HUGE feet he was almost a toon.

Iris on the other hand appears to be under ten and has EVERYTHING "little girl" turned up to 11 about her, the pigtails, the cutsey little hairgrips. I'm surprised she doesn't have a "adorable" gap in her teeth or a lisp.

Bart was Impulse for 90 issues of his own titles, he became Kid Flash and faded into the wallpaper of the Titans.

As you say, swings and roundabouts, but this isn't an appealling Flash set up to me.

[theanswer]

Bart seems like a typical little boy to me with hair you wanna ruffle. *shrugs*

They're both little kids, Iris is technically only around a year old or more. She's nosy and mischievous just like Bart was.

[raygunjill]

I agree. Frankly, the arguments against Iris have an air of sexism about them. Bart being cartoony boy with big hair and cutesy things like thinking in pictures was fine, but Iris being a female equivalent of it isn't. Why is everyone mad that she didn't ask Bart first? He spent the first few years bugging the crap out of every hero alive by interfering with their work. She's clearly his spiritual successor.

[theanswer]

I don't think Bart would care if she calls herself Impulse so long as she's not evil. They're family after all.

[icon_uk]

Oh please, my dislike has nothing to do with sexism, and everything to do with my long established dislike of unconvincingly contrived trying too hard to be "cute" (and I don't care which gender it is).

If they'd made the new Impulse Jai in a sailor suit, I'd have disliked that just as much.

[raygunjill]

And it's sheer coincidence that Bart just happens to be the one contrived cute character you like out of a category populated mainly by women.

[icon_uk]

I just don't view Bart as contrived cute. He was a fun and novel take on the concept of a speedster. He never came across as standing there with a "I'm designed to be cute, love me" appearance like this.

[raygunjill]

Then what is so different about Iris, that she has pigtails and hairclips? I don't know how you can read her appearances until now and think she's so contrived compared to Bart.

[icon_uk]

Yes, particularly the ponytails and hairclips, but because they are "contrived cute" rather than because she's a girl.

As I've already said, if they'd taken Jai as a ten year old and dressed him up in an equivalent "love me I'm cute" look like a sailor suit and hat derived costume with the lightning motif, or something out of "Our Gang" I'd think the same thing.

Essentially it comes down to my acceptance of studied cuteness. If you create cute by accident, then it's a joy, but you going to aim for cute deliberately, it has to be done with some sense of heart or it falls flat on it's face and just hits me as "cloying".

The Black Cat's "Batman and Sons" aims for cute, but has a heart as big as all outdoors and so achieves it with seeming effortlessness and is adorable. IMHO

The presentation of Iris as Impulse lacks that sense of heart, it's trying too hard to make me think it's cute, and so it's just... not. If she wins me over with her cuteness, then I'll be as happy as anyone, but this isn't a good start for me.

[raygunjill]

Pigtails are not contrived, they're a perfectly normal and practical hairstyle for girls. When you have a lot of hair, ponytails are heavy and come out easier. She's not wearing a cutesified outfit, she's wearing the same exact thing Bart wore, only rocking matching hairbands with it. The difference is of perception, little girls are seen as cute by default and judged harsher for it.

Iris doesn't lack heart at all and it sounds like you're taking this one scan completely out of context of the rest of her personality. She's brave and loyal, idolizes Bart and her dad, and is protective of Jai. She wanted to be Impulse not to be cute, but to help people and to stick it to the Justice League who came to lecture Wally about how horrible it was that he was letting his kids come out with him. She's capable of being as good a hero as Bart when he was her age.

[icon_uk]

Pigtails are not contrived, they're a perfectly normal and practical hairstyle for girls. When you have a lot of hair, ponytails are heavy and come out easier. She's not wearing a cutesified outfit, she's wearing the same exact thing Bart wore, only rocking matching hairbands with it.

And, as in my perception of them as "overcute", your view of them as "rocking" is entirely subjective. :)

The difference is of perception, little girls are seen as cute by default and judged harsher for it.

I judge anything trying too hard to be cute, harshly, the gender genuinely doesn't interest me.

Iris doesn't lack heart at all and it sounds like you're taking this one scan completely out of context of the rest of her personality.

This scan is all I have to base her debut as Impulse on, so of course it's out of context. My apolgies if I hadn't made that clear.

She's brave and loyal, idolizes Bart and her dad, and is protective of Jai. She wanted to be Impulse not to be cute,

I never said she did, I said her appearance was cute.

but to help people and to stick it to the Justice League who came to lecture Wally about how horrible it was that he was letting his kids come out with him. She's capable of being as good a hero as Bart when he was her age.

Then I wish her well, the appearance still looks "off" to me.

Oh, and unless something was said in panel, and given the way her age as yoyoed Lord knows what it is in real terms, she's significantly younger than Bart was when he became Impulse, she appears to be no older than 10, Bart was about 14 going on 15.

[raygunjill]

She's a trend setter. Just you wait, in five issues even Damien will be wearing little bats in his hair.

[minervasolo.livejournal.com]

Actually, Bart was introduced as a much older teen (as seen in his original Teen Titans run) and was deaged for the Impulse series. That's when he got the huge feet and hair, and was cutified himself. Mark Waid acknowledges it himself in the intro to the first Impulse trade, so it's not just changing art styles.

I like Bart as Impulse much better, and to be honest, I'd rather have him as Flash than Kid Flash (so much left unexplored that they're blatantly never going to, ignoring the potential character development), but you can't deny that they were actively trying to make him cuter.

(I'm not thrilled about Iris as Impulse, mostly because I like the Kingdom Come version where she's Kid Flash - if she's Kid Flash Bart is freed up to be an indepedent speedster! Max Mercury Junior XD )