Wally West II

Wally West II
Wally West II as Kid Flash in the DC Rebirth era. Art by Jonboy Meyers.
Publication information
Publisher	DC Comics
First appearance	Flash Annual Vol.4 #3 (June 2014)
Created by	Van Jensen Robert Venditti Brett Booth (based on Wally West by John Broome and Carmine Infantino)
In-story information
Full name	Wallace "Wally" West II
Team affiliations	Teen Titans
Partnerships	Barry Allen
Abilities	Ability to run at the speed of light Superhumanly fast reflexes Augmented by the extra-dimensional Speed Force Frictionless aura

Wally West II is a fictional character in the DC Comics Universe. Originally introduced as a new interpretation of the original Wally West, as part of DC's The New 52 relaunch, the comic DC Rebirth #1 later established that he is in fact a new character of the same name (the original Wally's cousin).

The "reintroduction" of Wally West to DC Comics following its 2011 The New 52 reboot, which removed Wally West from continuity, was first announced in January 2014. Originally conceived of as a biracial reintreptation of the classic Wally West character, Wally is stated in his introductory comics and creators as being the son of Iris West's brother Rudy, as in pre-New 52 stories. However, the original interpretation of Wally West, having been the starring character in the Flash for many years, was still missed by DC's fans, and so the company decided to bring the original Wally back into continuity in Geoff Johns DC Rebirth #1 (2016). Rebirth retroactively established that the new Wally's father was not Rudy, as previously stated; he was in fact the son of Iris's other brother, the recently introduced Daniel West (also the latest incarnation of Reverse-Flash).

Wally first appears in Flash Annual 3 (2014) in a story set twenty years in the future, when a jaded, older Flash (Barry Allen) reads about Wally's funeral and vows to change history. Tying in with the ongoing story The New 52: Futures End, the story The Flash: Futures End #1 depicts an encounter between Barry of five years in the future (when Wally is supposed to die) and the Barry of 20 years in the future, who is out to prevent it. In the course of the story, Wally ends up learning that Barry is the Flash and absorbs part of the Speed Force — the source of the Flash's abilities — during the battle between Barry and his future counterpart. He becomes a speedster but his hero career is short lived; he sacrifices himself to fix a wound in the speed force. Due to the effects of time travel however, this has implications for Wally earlier in his history. Around the same time, in the present-day narrative of The Flash, Barry meets Wally for the first time through Iris. Wally is struck by lightning and acquires super speed abilities; an apparition of his future self explains that, as a consequence of how his future self died repairing the Speed Force, all the power within him was able to travel back in time and use Wally's lightning accident as a catalyst. Wally's first act as a speedster is to use his powers to protect a classmate from a bully, using the same artistic elements as Professor Zoom's powers.