Wally West Chronicles #1: Flash #9

Hey X-Maniacs, tis I, the great and powerful X, here with a bonus post for the week!!!  You see, a few years back I did a couple of posts called the Jason Todd Chronicles, where I'd take an old Batman comic book, something pre-1988 and with Jason Todd in it and do a picture-type review for it...  What do you mean Batman's only been around since 2011?!  There WAS A DCU before the New 52, you know!  Anyway, I'd mix "comedy"(and I use the term loosely) and pictures and presto, I'd have a post!  Now, that lovable scamp, JT, loved those posts(for some reason...) and would often mention them during our conversations.  He's weird like that.  In order to shut him up... I mean, in order to appease him, I told him he could pick a comic book out of my collection and I'd dazzle the readers of this blog with a new post.  Much to my dismay...  I mean, much to my joy, JT took me up on the offer, which brings us to this post.  Unlike my regular reviews, I won't be scoring these issues because, well, I'm simply reading these comics with the express purpose of having a little fun.  So there ya go, that's what you've gotten yourself into by checking this post out.  One last thing before I get started...  If this post sucks as much as I suspect it will, this was JT's idea, JT's choice of book, in other words, JT, this is ALL your fault!!

Flash #9(Feb 1988)

This issue kicks off with Wally West, you know, THE ONE TRUE FLASH, talking to his psychiatrist about his father...  Um, that's interesting, I guess...  Don't know if I'd put it in a comic though...  Maybe this is why Didio and Johns hate Wally...  While rapping with the shrink, a woman barges in and exclaims that somebody was stealing from the diamond exchange down the hall...  Well that's weird.  Why would there be a diamond exchange down the hall?  Luckily, Wally is THE ONE TRUE FLASH and all and runs down to the hall to find...  Oh.  Oh no.  Damn you, JT!  The Chunk stealing the diamonds!

See, I told you, The Chunk.

Like most of us when we see a deformed, morbidly obese man, Wally immediately attacks.  Unfortunately for Wally though, the Chunk SPITS a diamond at him and hits him in the temple...  Now let's all think about that sequence for a moment...  Wally is THE FLASH.  Fastest Man Alive(or at least he was in the 1980's, 1990's and 2000's).  He's battling against a 500 pound man wearing a bow tie.  He's felled by a diamond that was SPIT at him?!  Ugh...

Apparently there's no way to avoid that attack, Fastest Man Alive or not.

To make matters worse, The Chunk then spits a mess of diamonds at Wally, shredding his costume and disorienting him.  And with good reason!  Who could have seen THAT coming!  The Chunk slowly lumbers out the door and by the time Wally gets up, he realizes that The Chunk was GONE!!!  Gone I say!!!

That's got to be the most embarrassing loss suffered by any superhero ever!

Jeez, after that I understand why Wally is seeing a shrink...  Anyway, Wally heads home and finds his mother and girlfriend(who just so happens to be married to another man...  Yeah, and?) arguing.  Wally gets a notice to go to a City Council meeting, but since that doesn't really go anywhere, I'm going to blissfully ignore it.  The next day, The Chunk strikes again!  This time he climbs into a truck carrying 1900 pounds of gold and disappears with it.

Well that was easy!

As luck would have it, Wally's shrink had heard of a young man fitting The Chunk's description (500 pounds and deformed?) so Wally goes to Cyborg and asks him to hack into some medical and school files hoping to figure out just who The Chunk was.  Cyborg is seemingly fine with the whole invasion of privacy thing and gives Wally The Chunk's real name.  With that, Wally goes to dinner with his girlfriend...  Instead of, oh, I don't know, looking for The Chunk!

Huh, he actually said hello for Cyborg...  I never do that...

Later on, The Chunk is robbing a museum that was showing some platinum...  Why they were showing it, I have no idea, but there we go.  Wally races in and buys time for The Chunk's hostages to escape.  Wally then tries to reason with The Chunk since he knew his real name and all.  Long story short, The Chunk ate a miniature matter transmitter and became a walking singularity because...  Hey, look out behind you!!  Ahem...  Anyway, being a walking singularity will make you really hungry(trust me, I'd know!), so The Chunk has been gorging himself on dense materials.  The Chunk also calls Wally "smooth, cool and popular".  Not anymore, The Chunk...  Not anymore...

Sure you could wear a suit like that, The Chunk!  You just probably shouldn't is all...

Unfortunately, Wally makes the mistake of swiping The Chunk's bag o' platinum, so The Chunk sucks Wally over and teleports them into... Um, himself?  Another dimension?  A black hole?  I'll be damned if I know, but he teleports Wally somewhere and tells him that he was never getting back home!  Holy cliffhanger, Batman!

Wally West is mmm, mmm, good!

Final Thoughts: Well that was... something...  I guess this post will make all of those The Chunk fans happy...  I mean, there are The Chunk fans out there.  Probably.  Like JT!  He MUST be a fan of The Chunk!  That's the only reason I can imagine he'd subject me to this comic book!  Plus, if nothing else, this post gives you somebody being defeated by spitfire diamonds...  HA!  Get it, "spitfire"?!  Eh.  I'm mercifully done here, until next time, X out.