I have decided to focus this blog on only reviewing major, concrete appearances of Bart Allen. My criteria is that he has to at least say something — merely showing up in the background of a big crowd shot isn't enough. But today I will make an exemption to that rule because of a significant and genuinely surprising find I made last month.
For Easter, I bought my two boys I Am Superman and I Am Batman, both by Brad Meltzer and Chris Eliopoulos. These are kind of a spinoff of their popular Ordinary People Change the World series (which has also spun off into the PBS cartoon Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum). The premise is to create biographies that present the subject matter as children, so that the young audience will see themselves in those historical figures — whether that be Abraham Lincoln or, in this case, Superman.
I Am Superman came out in 2022, but for whatever reason I never bothered to pick it up until now. But I have always enjoyed the Ordinary People series and Xavier Riddle (even though it's still a bit too old for my kids). And, of course, these creators have always been on my radar. Brad Meltzer has popped up on this blog a few times for his work on Identity Crisis and Justice League of America (when Bart was the adult Flash). Chris Eliopoulos was a longtime letterer for DC before becoming an illustrator. Don't quote me on this, but I'm pretty sure that Eliopoulos lettered every single issue of the Impulse series.
Anyway, this book is absolutely delightful. After telling the story of Superman's origin (pulling heavily from the 1978 film), the book gives us a big two-page spread of 59 characters crammed into the Fortress of Solitude. And most unexpectedly, happily standing in the bottom left corner, is my beloved Impulse.
As far as I know it, this is the first time Eliopoulos has drawn Impulse. And I think that's really neat, seeing as how he spent years working on Impulse's solo title. Mostly, I'm just glad to see any little reminder that poor old Bart hasn't been completely forgotten yet.
And the world of DC comics hasn't completely forgotten Impulse, either. He's just been shoved very far away into a deeply marginalized position. Impulse did make a fleeting cameo in The Flash #19 by Simon Spurrier and Vasco Georgiev. Impulse, Max Mercury, Avery Ho and Wallace West were all called in to help corral an evil/possessed version of Wally. But we only saw a tiny glimpse of Bart's backside before he helped form a speed barrier around the evil Wally — holding him in place long enough to be boom-tubed away. One would think that Bart, Max and the others would have something to say about an evil, rampaging Wally, but Spurrier wasn't concerned with that. And Georgiev only begrudgingly drew them as small and inconsequentially as possible.
But maybe, just maybe, Bart will actually do something of consequence in the pages of The Flash. And when he does, I'll be here to blog about it.