Comic book fans will be hard pressed not to notice the return of Barry Allen as the Flash, after a 24 year absence since the original Crisis On Infinite Earths back in 1985. Just like they brought back Hal Jordan as Green Lantern, Barry is returning in a mini series called “Flash: Rebirth”, which has already sold out, according to the new DC blog.

I was born in 1984 and only got into comics in 1997, and read the original Crisis On Infinite Earths maybe in 2005, and so the only Flash I’ve interacted with, is Wally West, who to me, is the Flash. Barry was long “dead” in the comic book world, though his legacy lived on. So why bring him back now? The biggest reason I can think of, is that the comic creators who are currently holding a high profile at DC Comics, were those who grew up in the ’70s and ’80s, and are used to Barry as the Flash. However, is this representative of what comic fans in general think?

Here’s an excerpt from the Weekly Crisis:

It wasn’t bad would probably be the nicest way to describe this issue, which amounted to, more or less, 40 pages of everyone, save Bart Allen, praising Barry Allen as if he was the second coming of Christ. In between the blatant Barry lovefest scenes, the book does a good job of building up a decent mystery around Barry’s return to the land of the living along with his new powers.

Let’s look at more data. A poll on Newsarama (a leading comic book and pop culture website) asked readers who they felt was their Flash.

This is the screenshot I took yesterday:

Flash Poll: April 2nd

And here is the screenshot I just took:

Flash Poll: April 3rd

Even though the number of respondents doubled during the two time periods, the data stays roughly the same, with 63% preferring Wally and only 21% preferring Barry.

So why the change? As someone who saw Wally grow into his boots during Grant Morrison’s JLA and Geoff John’s Flash, it’s sad to think Barry is back to “steal” the show, and I wonder if Wally will be more than a supporting cast, a la Kyle Rayner after Hal Jordan came back.