Talk About What You Love

A few weeks ago, DC Comics released the second omnibus collection that contains writer Mark Waid’s historic run on the character The Flash, the Wally West incarnation of the character. It is one of the best DC Comics runs on a character from the nineteen nineties, and as I am rereading the run now, I can confirm it is also just one of the best there has ever been. Massively influential on me as a writer and human being, and one of those comics that I would discover brought many of my friends down a similar track in life. Pun intended, we have here on the Weekly UpDave Newsletter. Tell your friends to subscribe.

This omnibus collection contains a lot of iconic/game-changing stories for the Flash and his mythos. It also features a murderer’s row of artists contributing to the character, including Salvador Larocca, Carlos Pacheco, Jim Cheung, Paul Ryan, Humberto Ramos, Ron Lim, Oscar Jimenez, and more. Mark also co-wrote many a great issue later in the run, and this collection specifically with the late great Brian Augustyn, who also edited this run at one time.

The artist who I often think of the most when remembering this run is Mike Wieringo, one of my favorite comic artists of all time, who we passed almost eighteen years ago. Mike had a beautiful style influenced by classic superhero art of the 60s and 70s and animation, especially the golden age of Disney. I think he set the tone of what the Flash would look like for the entirety of the nineties and be one of the best artists the character ever had.

I wanted to highlight Mike specifically because he drew my favorite issue in this collection, in this run, and one of my favorite issues ever. Flash #0. Spoilers for a comic that is thirty-one years old ahead.

Part of DC’s zero issue initiative as a part of the Zero Hour event of the mid-’90s, Mark and Mike had been setting up this issue for a good amount of time in the series prior. Wally West had been looking back on his not-so-great childhood with his mother and rough father, but had been reflecting that at a family party a relative had given some comfort, and set him on a good path mentally, assuring him the future ahead was a bright one before his time as Kid Flash, the previous Flash’s sidekick, began. In issue zero, Wally West travels back in time to that fateful family party and realizes that he was the older relative who assured his younger self that he was going to be okay. It sounds simple, but it’s elegant, well written, well drawn, comes from a beautiful place, and captures a lot of the elements we Post Crisis kids loved about Wally West.

Wally idolized the Flash. As his life with his parents got rough, he would go spend time with his aunt Iris in Keystone City and learned her boyfriend Barry Allen, was his hero the Flash. Then he got into the same accident that Barry did and got the same super speed powers. Eventually taking over the mantle of the Flash upon Barry’s passing. He is such a wish-fulfillment character. That idolizing of Barry’s version of the Flash is not different from a lot of us who were reading the book, who started reading comics young and wished that our heroes were real, that we knew them, that we could run alongside them. Wally, got to do that. And then Wally got to become the hero he idolized.

And in this issue…in a way a lot of us eventually have to do as we grow up but in a really strong superhero/sci-fi storytelling way, Wally got to talk to his inner child and let him that his life turns out pretty great, and he doesn’t have to feel bad because of the cruddy situation he finds himself in with his parents. It’s beautiful stuff. A story that has stuck with me my whole life since reading it. But why am I talking about it today?

Because it's a lot like the time loop that Wally West found himself in…I read this comic as a boy. I was ten or eleven years old, dreaming of working in comics someday as a writer, and this comic ultimately ended up helping me get my first job in comics.

As the legend of Dave Wielgosz goes. I interned at DC Comics during the summer of 2012, and then I became a temp assistant editor in the spring of 2014. I got the invitation to come interview for the position two weeks after I had graduated from college; I was working at the Holyoke Mall at the Sears in the Warehouse in Holyoke, Massachusetts. I said yes to the interview. I took the Amtrak train down to New York City with my younger brother Josh, and my adventure began.

Part of why I said yes to coming in for the interview was because Mark Doyle was the Batman group editor, and he’s who I was going to interview with. This was after a tremendous stint at Vertigo, where he had edited one of my favorite comic series at the time, American Vampire by Scott Snyder and Rafael Albuquerque, a comic I had every issue of and sold only because it helped me fund my college thesis project. I had a lot of respect and reverence for Mark, he made books that I loved to read. He also was the assistant/associate editor to one of my all-time favorite editors, Will Dennis, so I knew Mark had a ton to pass on knowledge-wise.

What I didn’t know at the time was that, like me, Mark was a kid from Massachusetts who grew up loving comics, which must have come up when we first spoke in that interview. He had done his homework about me, too. In addition to interning at DC, the year after I had interned at Marvel Comics in the X-Men office, one of the editors I worked with was the brilliant Jeanine Schaefer, Mark’s wife. When Mark had been recommended to interview me by DC, Jeanine vouched for me and told him I was all right, something I owe her for to this day.

“Dave, you didn’t know Mark when you interned at DC?” No, I interned for the DC Universe editors specifically. The Vertigo editorial team had their own intern, and they were on a different floor. I spoke to Mark once on my last day as an intern, and I remember he was enthusiastic and nice as I said goodbye, assuming I would never be in this building again.

Smash cut back to two years after the internship, I got to the DC Comics offices in New York City on Broadway. I see people I interned with, and I walk to the Batman group editor office Mark is now occupying. Now, walking into this, I’m not sure what the next part of my life is. I knew that in the long term, I wanted to be a writer, but I knew at the time that I was not ready for that. I’m not sure I want to be a comic book editor, but I enjoyed being an editorial intern, and I liked the idea of having a job where I was going to learn more about storytelling. Mark and I had a great conversation, but then he got direct. Something he does better than almost anyone else I know.

“What do you want to do?” This was the moment he started sizing me up. I was a nice kid who had interned at DC, I had studied creative writing, and I wanted to be a writer in the future, but he wasn’t looking for a writer, he was looking for someone who could edit, who could be on his team, and someone who would do a good job. I was panicked, but I knew I didn’t have a lot of time to be panicked. I looked up at Mark’s shelf behind his desk and saw a copy of The Flash #0.

In that moment, I centered myself, pointed at the comic and said, “I want to do that.” I took a deep breath. “I want to use the comic medium, and these DC characters specifically, to tell stories that are true to the human experience and help people articulate things they may otherwise struggle with. I want to tell stories.” And Mark nodded his head and said, “Okay,” and then told me about some of the plans ahead for the Batman line. I was a little behind on the books at the time, but Mark spoke about what they were doing with such conviction and passion that I wanted to be on his team. And I did. I got to work with Mark in the Batman office for around four years. That was the first time he changed my life.

Then, when I was ready to leave DC but needed a solid start as a freelancer, he gave me the freelance editing work I needed to make the leap. He changed my life twice. And it all started with Flash #0.

What’s the moral of the story here? I think it means something to talk about the things that you love. We all hate a lot of stuff, and we hate a lot of the same stuff. But hating the same stuff doesn’t build a steady bridge to another person. It’s when you talk about what you love that shows you are, the content of your character, the things you believe in. Talking about what you love can change your whole life for the better. I’m living proof.

Thanks to Mark Waid and Mike Wieringo.

Thanks to Mark Doyle, who I’ll always call “Boss” in a text, even though he hasn’t officially been my boss in a little bit.

Stay safe!

—Dave Wielgosz

P.S. And thanks again, Jeanine.