TOT: Barry Allen, The Fastest Man Who Died

Remember that one time The Flash died?

In 1985, DC Comics underwent it's very first "crisis". In the world of DC Comics, a "crisis" is an event in which the DC Universe experiences a reboot, usually one of small scale. Not all things are erased, but rather changed. The ages of certain heroes, the fine-tuning of origin stories, and overall the direction and tone of the company's stories. However, in order to transition into all these new changes, the company must assemble a team of writers and artists to create a huge, universe-spanning story that ties in all of it's most popular heroes, old heroes who the company wants to get rid of for a few years, and new characters either created for the event to be used latter or characters the company recently bought like Shazam, Blue Beetle, and Captain Atom. 

The first crisis was "Crisis on Infinite Earths". To summarize: a villain known as The Anti-Monitor wants to destroy all universes and create one of his own, but the heroes of both DC Comics and DC Comic's Golden Age universe unite to stop him. A major factor of the event were the number of characters killed off. A total of 34 characters (including three teams of characters) were killed off, some of the more important deaths include Aquagirl, Dove, Clayface, Mirror Master, Starman, and Supergirl, the latter was heavily featured on one of the covers. One day we'll talk more about Supergirl's death, but the one death I left out was the death of Barry Allen/The Flash. 

Throughout "Crisis on Infinite Earths", Batman is visited by a projection of The Flash. He appears as a figment, his body deteriorating each time he shows up. With every appearance he warns Batman of events to come. Some may find this reminiscent of a scene from "Batman vs Superman: My God, Why is Zack Snyder Still Working?". At the end of the story when The Anti-Monitor prepares his story-ending weapon, The Flash runs around the device so fast it is dismantled. When the machine is finally destroyed, all that remains is the empty costume of The Flash. In the wake of his death, his nephew/sidekick Wally West dons the mantle. Kid Flash was no more, as Wally West became The Fastest Man Alive.
For the next twenty-three years, Wally West WAS The Flash. For a whole generation Barry Allen was a but a memory. He was an Uncle Ben, a Jon Kent, a key figure in the character's origin story. Wally West was Flash through the 1990's, The Flash on The Justice League, and The Flash featured in DC's cartoons. Wally was so unanimous with the mantle of The Flash that when Barry Allen returned in 2009, younger readers had no idea who this guy was or why he was The Flash. It was especially jarring because in 2011's New 52 Barry Allen was the only Flash and Wally West was completely gone.
Barry Allen is relevant. Not just because of the comics or the video games or the movies or the TV show, but because his death was one of many to send a cruel, but inevitable lesson: everything dies, everything comes back, but things always change. Whether it be an entire universe, or one really fast man. Let The Flash's death by a lesson about legacy. Maybe your Thor is a woman now, and maybe your The Hulk might be Asian now, but one day your male Thor and your white Hulk will return. And when they do there will be a legion of twenty-something year olds online bitching about it.
Thanks for reading.