The Flash is one of the DC superheroes best served by the publishers legacy character philosophy. Owing to some amount of fictional time passing and realising that fans need to have things shaken up every now and again, the mantle of characters like Green Lantern, Blue Beetle, and Flash get passed on to younger characters who take their place. Barry Allen replaced Jay Garrick, Wally West replaced Barry, and Bart Allen was all set to replace Wally West when the time came. Except then DC got cold feet, decided everything was much better as it used to be, and Geoff Johns went on a sustained campaign of undoing all legacy characters. Hal Jordan is Green Lantern again, and Barry is The Flash. In the light of the New 52 reboot, its now official in the DC Universe that Barry Allen is the only Flash who has ever been, and probably will ever be for the foreseeable future. Its Barry Allen in the hit TV show, Ezra Miller will be playing Barry Allen in the upcoming Flash movie. Meanwhile, every other Scarlet Speedster has been erased from existence.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
