Year in Review: 2021

Here we go again. Another year in the books, and sadly, not a whole lot of Impulse to talk about. But first, a quick review of the year that just barely ended. I don’t need to remind you that the pandemic continued to mess with release schedules and box office numbers. But despite all that, it was still a pretty busy year for superhero movies. Marvel released Black Widow, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Eternals and Spider-Man: No Way Home, which dominated the box office with over a billion dollars at the end of the year. DC wasn’t quite as prolific (as usual), with only one film being released in theaters, The Suicide Squad. Zack Snyder’s Justice League did come out on HBO Max, but that doesn’t really count as an original film. At least in my book.

The enhanced streaming options really made this two-year pandemic bearable. And once again, Marvel led the way in this new front, with the Disney+ shows WandaVision, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Loki, Hawkeye and What If…? DC really couldn’t compete with that. Sure, they had their usual slate of bland CW shows (Superman & Lois being the exception) and Young Justice: Phantoms premiered on HBO Max, but there wasn’t a whole lot to get excited about. And for Impulse fans like me, there was even less.

I had predicted that Bart Allen would disappear and be forgotten after Brian Michael Bendis’ Young Justice was cancelled and Joshua Williamson left The Flash. Unfortunately, I was right. I can count on one hand the number of significant appearances Bart made in comics and television in 2021. Impulse was quickly killed in the opening pages of a Future State comic, made a cameo in Jeremy Adams’ Flash run, and then finally made an appearance on the CW’s Flash show. But that was it. Still photographs/memories of Bart did show up here and there — Teen Titans Academy, Suicide Squad, Young Justice: Phantoms — but each of those “appearances” were so small and worthless, I didn’t see the point in reviewing them. What would I say about them? “I’m glad that Conner/Gar remember Bart?”

So anyway, I’m saying all this to say that this is an especially difficult year for handing out awards. There were few options to choose from and, frankly, none of them were that good. But the show will go on! Because I have hope that one day, DC will start producing fun stories about Impulse once again and I’ll be able to fondly look back on this record of the dry spells.

Best Story: The Flash #769

I really didn’t like this comic that much. I’ll be honest with you. It featured Impulse in name only and forever banished him to the unreachable future for no rhyme or reason. But … it was the best choice of the year. Future State killed Bart before he could do anything. And the CW show was laughingly, embarrassingly, even insultingly bad. The Flash #769 was none of those things. It was actually a fairly interesting Wally West story. I just wish Impulse had something to do in it.

Best Writer: Jeremy Adams

Adams gets this award by pure default. Yeah, he really annoyed me with what he did to Impulse, but it wasn’t nearly as unforgivable as what the CW writers did to him. Or Brandon Vietti’s choice to kill him in a super quick, super lame way. Besides, Adams does deserve some credit for bringing a fresh approach to the mess of Wally West.

Best Artist: Dale Eaglesham

Eaglesham didn’t do anything particularly noteworthy on Future State, but he was a competent, solid artist that got the job done. The team of artists on Adams’ Flash stories churned out computery, rubbery art that really annoyed me.

Best Supporting Character: Jay Garrick

I would have liked to give this award to Wally or even Gold Beetle, but we really didn’t see Bart do anything with them. And since Bart’s story in Future State was so brief, I’m left with the CW show. That Bart was interesting in that he had a mother, father and older sister — unlike any other version of Bart we’ve ever seen, who’s almost always been somewhat of an orphan. But despite that large, loving family around him, this Bart was most closely connected to Jay Garrick — to the point where he recklessly risked his life to try to protect his old mentor. And so the original Flash picks up his third Supporting Character award on this blog.

Best Villain: The Calculator

I almost gave this award to Godspeed, the ridiculous and confusing villain of the CW. After all, he did kill Jay Garrick (off screen, in the future) and he did arbitrarily declare Impulse as his mortal enemy. But he never really did anything to Bart, and, worse of all, Bart didn’t even get to participate in the final battle that ended in Godspeed’s defeat. The Calculator, though, gets to go down in history as one of the very few villains who managed to kill Bart Allen. And that’s just enough to earn this award. At least for this year.

What does 2022 hold? Who knows. My wife is expecting our second son in April, so that’ll be quite the adventure. Young Justice: Phantoms might return from its hiatus by then and maybe, if we’re lucky, they’ll actually give Kid Flash something to do. The CW’s Flash is still chugging along, but so far (thankfully), they haven’t brought Impulse back. And as for the comics? Sadly it seems like it’ll take a miracle to bring Impulse back. But I’ll keep watching and waiting. I hope you will, too.