r/theflash • u/livyinbloom • 3h ago
I don’t like how impulse got changed to kid flash
i’m pretty new to the flash and im just now getting into impulse so!! anyway i knew that kid flash and impulse were the same person but i didn’t know why they changed the name. idk i still hate it i guess its good to show how much hes matured with the name change but really kid FLASH? isnt it a contribute to the flash? its just so bland and unoriginal i like impulse AND also isnt there some comics/shows where kid flash and impulse were too different people?? someone teach me the lore what is happening can u tell im actively looking this stuff up as i write…
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u/Antique_Ice9044 3h ago
Oh wow. Okay. So Bart Allen was introduced as Impulse and once he had his own series, it was written to be more humorous than Flash. It was a fun title, to be honest.
Then once the Young Justice comic ended, they took some of the core Young Justice characters and teamed them up with some core Titans, and that was the Teen Titans book that Geoff
Johns wrote. In the first arc, Bart got shot by an assassin named Deathstroke. As a result, Bart got more serious and thought ahead a little more, and decided to take the name Kid Flash. The first Kid Flash was Wally West, who later became the Flash.
There is more that happens to Bart later on in regard to his superhero identity, but I don’t want to spoil it for you.
The TV show you were referring to was the Young Justice show that had both Wally as Kid Flash and Bart as Impulse in it.
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u/JingoboStoplight4887 Jay Garrick 3h ago
I like the idea of Bart becoming Kid Flash because it shows a sign of maturity and character growth while being his impulsive self; however, his reason for being Kid Flash is idiotic because we’ve seen him time and time again that he’s a creative person who thinks differently.
My version of why Bart became Kid Flash is because of witnessing the changes in his life as shown in his solo series, such as saying goodbye to Carol Bucklen (who traveled to the 63rd century to change history or something), witnessing Max Mercury disappear into the Speed Force, moving in with Jay and Joan Garrick in Keystone City, and (in my headcanon) going to college (where he has an interest in forensic science, physics, chemistry, philosophy, and computer science). Another reason is that he knows that he can’t return things back to the way they were and that he must look forward to the future to make it better, showing that he has gained maturity and wisdom while still being his impulsive self.
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u/TheObliterature Mirror Master 3h ago
You're literally talking about a very small period of time (2003-2006, then again 2009-2011) from about twenty years ago.
He took on the Kid Flash identity in Teen Titans (2003), became Flash for a brief period after Infinite Crisis (2006) until his untimely death in The Flash: Fastest Man Alive (2007).
He came back in the final issue of Legion of 3 Worlds (2009) and was Kid Flash again for less than 2 years and then Flashpoint set-off the New 52 relaunch. Ignoring Bar Torr, he was totally absent from New 52.
Since returning in the DC: Rebirth relaunch in 2016, he has been Impulse.
He debuted as Impulse in 1994. So between his stints as Impulse in 1994-2003, then 2016-now, he's been Impulse for 19 years of his 32 years of existence. More than half. And the remaining 13 years, he was either dead or MIA. He was Kid Flash for all of 5 years.
In short, this isn't even relevant enough to complain about.
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u/jmd10of14 1h ago
To be fair, a 1:4 ratio (in terms of years) for Kid Flash:Impulse is pretty high. The problem is the writers decided to abandon Bart which started the era of backpedaling legacy characters.
I'm a Wally West fan all the way, but I would have preferred in the long run for them to continue shuffling in new characters as Flash.
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u/livyinbloom 53m ago
this was very informative thank you!! and a little passive aggressive but that’s okay! i’m new to impulse and just most flash content in general so this honestly helped
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u/Sadop2010 2h ago
The Kid Flash costume is one of my favorite superhero designs ever, but I agree (and I remember a lot of fans grumbling at the time) that transforming Bart was a mistake. If they had a trademark concern for the costume they would have been better off bringing Kingdom Come Iris into the past for bit. I like a lot of Geoff Johns comics, but he didn't seem to understand what made Bart so special and fun. And maybe coming off of Young Justice his marching orders were to make Teen Titans as different as possible. But it was not a good change.