"How can you look up to a sexual bum like him?"
From Flash #7 (Dec. 1987):
“I am perplexed and disappointed that this magazine contains so much sexual content. No, it is not blatant, graphic, or obscene. Just tasteless. […] Wally’s ‘bed romping’ is something I don’t need to be let in on.”
From Flash #9 (Feb. 1988):
I am very disturbed, even disgusted, that the fine attributes of the new Flash are being cheaped by the inclusion of exploitative sexual encounters. Not only is Wally West’s [sic] exploiting the women he is so casually ‘falling in love with,’ but DC is exploiting its pubescent readers by tantalizing them with a ‘hero’s’ sexual conquests of curvacious women.
[…]
“….If you are going to portray ‘realism’ rather than idealistic heroism […] then you should also write about the broken hearts, despair, loneliness, anger of the women who feel ‘used’ when he leaves them behind after having his ‘way with them.'”
From Flash #11 (Apr. 1988):
“I’m really peeved about Wally’s one night stands, too. Don’t you think he’s gotten AIDS yet? Isn’t he supposed to be a HERO, someone to look up to? How can you look up to a sexual bum like him? That’s what he is – a gigolo!”
From Flash #12 (May 1988):
“Now that he […] has his own book, Wally needs character. Instead of a heroic and intriguing person like, say, Batman, Wonder Woman, most of the Legion of Super-Heroes, and the Teen Titans, the powers that were turned Wally into an immoral, musical bed-playing adulterer.
“This is a personality I absolutely loathe: in life, on TV, and in books. Such a character uses his sex partners as objects and is unable to control his own urges. The term is gigolo, an unpaid whore. He deserves nothing more than a good, retributive come-uppance: like jail, death, disease, or emasculation.”
Number of women Wally West has apparently been intimate with in the Flash series, as of issue #12:
1. Francine Kane (Wally’s girlfriend at the beginning of the series, leaves in issue #3)
2. Tina McGee (introduced in issue #3)
Number of one-night stands presented in the Flash series, as of issue #12: EDIT: none apparently one, in the first Flash annual, which I still haven’t found time to read. Still, that doesn’t mean the above writers aren’t overblowing things a tad.
Number of women apparently used by Wally as sexual objects, without regard for their feelings, as of issue #12: none (Francine’s relationship with Wally seemed fairly normal, as superhero relationships go, and he and Tina, at this point in the series, are having some issues, but the two appear to be on equal footing…no one’s being used as an “object”)
In reference to Tina McGee…yes, she was a married woman, but separated from her abusive husband for quite some time. This is a little different situation from Wally waiting for the husband to leave the house so he could sneak in and have a little slap ‘n’ tickle with the wife. The fact that she was still married, legally, did cause some consternation for Wally, and the topic was brought up several times during the course of these early issues. So it’s not as if any of the possible moral issues were ignored.
In other words, Wally wasn’t speedin’ around town, flashing from one bed to another and shtupping every gal he saw, which is what the above letter writers apparently thought he was doing. I don’t know what comic they were reading, but it wasn’t The Flash, where Wally went from one monogamous relationship, which had ended, to another monogamous relationship. Okay, the timing between the two was pretty tight (like, hours), but this is the Flash…like he’s gonna take anything slow.
The problem these fans had was apparently that Wally was having any sex at all, which, I guess, compared to the relatively sexless Batman or Superman or Wonder Woman (but not Robin, the Randy Wonder), Mr. West looked like Mr. Manslut McSluttyslut.
Oh, and when Wally was trapped in another dimension during the Chunk storyline, one of the women who had been stuck there for a while tried to seduce him, and Wally nearly kissed her, but luckily there was some Flashus Interruptus and nothing came of it.
Another caveat: I haven’t reread the first Flash annual yet, which came out during the first year of the series. If it’s “The Flash’s Sexy Adventures in the Land of Bikini Girls,” I take it all back.
