While working on my Flash site last night, I noticed something interesting: several of the Flash’s classic Rogues Gallery have children.
The Trickster was the first: he discovered he had a 12-year-old son by an ex-girlfriend. (Neither Billy nor his mother has appeared since this story, which was part of 1998’s “New Year’s Evil” event.)
The Weather Wizard was next. Early in his run on the book, Geoff Johns introduced an ex-girlfriend of Wally’s who had an infant son with lightning-based powers. He turned out to be the result of a rebound one-night stand with the Weather Wizard (in his civilian ID, of course) just after she and Wally had broken up.
And now, with Identity Crisis, Captain Boomerang has a long-lost adult or teenaged son… who looks like he’ll be taking over the “family business.” Who his mother is remains to be revealed, though the next issue of either IC or The Flash seems likely.
According to Phil Foglio’s 1990s Angel and the Ape miniseries, Sam Simeon (the “Ape” of that old humor feature) is Grodd’s grandson. No word on his father’s identity.
And, though it doesn’t quite rate, there was that clever fantasy sequence during the “Black Flash” story in which Wally imagines the toddler-aged children of the Rogues battling his own (hypothetical) children.
Hmm, I hadn’t even thought about Grodd. That Angel and the Ape miniseries was the one that also brought back the Inferior 5, right?
During the JLApe annuals back in 1999, they stated Sam Simeon was actually Grodd’s brother. I guess they wanted to keep some relationship, but changed their minds about the relative ages. But they did establish a “son of Grodd” named Gorbzil Mammit. I think he fought Impulse once and disappeared, though he may have also been in the main JLApe storyline.
Looks like Meloni Thawne, Bart’s mother, in Flash #224. She didn’t have superspeed though, did she?
Yeah, it does look like her. She didn’t have super-speed, though. The Thawne family’s power legacy is a physical object, the Cobalt Blue gem, which was destroyed shortly after the Tornado Twins’ deaths (Bart’s father and Jenni’s mother). Professor Zoom’s super-speed is entirely artificial, and not (as far as we know) inheritable.
Of course, there’s nothing to say she couldn’t be a carrier of the metagene who never manifested powers, though it would be a staggering coincidence. The novel Flash: Stop Motion took a similar approach with Iris.
Well, today’s probably my last day to speculate (since I hope the question will be answered in #225, which should be out tomorrow). Assuming that Meloni is Owen’s mother, that still leaves several questions: Is this before she met Don Allen or after he died (since I don’t see her having an affair), and why—and how—did she send Owen back in time?
Actually, there’s still one more question: How does Bart’s origin fit with the current Legion of Super-Heroes? (Or does it need to? I’m actually okay with the idea of multiple possible futures, but I know a lot of people prefer a “future history” type of single timeline.)
Well, i’d love to see an explanation like this, tying Identity Crisis with Flash story and the current Legion of SuperHeroes:
Owen Mercer is Bart Allen’s elder brother. He is son of Don Allen and Meloni Thawnee and inheritor of speed powers too.
On her way back to the XXI century, Brainiac 8(Indigo) noticed a disturbance in the timestream. Going to investigate, she finds Wally West(Flash III) fighting against Zolomon Hunter(Zoom II). She notices Wally has the power to go through timestream by his own power and that he was able to ‘bring back’ Donna Troy once so she decides to find a way to keep him distracted. Noticing Don nor Dawn Allen had powers, Brainiac 8 captures the baby and prepares to depart on the timestream. Noticing a way back to his own time, George Harkness(Captain Boomerang) follows them too.
Harkness doesn’t know a word about Brainiac 8’s plan but he thinks the boy could have a big power himself so he decides to watch him. Brainiac 8 leaves the boy on an orphanat, maybe implanting on him a programation to hate the Flash before she goes to find Donna Troy.
Time passes and one day a tabloid talks about a romance between Captain Boomerang and Golden Gilder. Harkness notices that is his chance so he pays to a photograph so he could ‘identify’ the young Owen Mercer as Captain Boomerang’s son, to gain access to the boy, who, maybe because Brainiac 8’s programation, feels near any foe of the Flash.
Harkness dies and Mercer takes his place, going against his own greatfather…
Meanwhile, on the XXX century, Don Allen and Meloni Thawne, after looking for their child in vain for the entire galaxy, learn she’s pregnant again. This time the boy is Bart Allen(Impulse), whose speed is so fast that he needs to be raised on a VR environment, so his perception and memories of his time are not precise.
Fearing to lose a child again, Don Allen and Meloni Thawnee propose a netlink so any child could be, for security, traced and found in the galaxy. Because he plans to use this to his own benefit, president Thawnee(Meloni’s dad) support this idea and makes it a law in Earth. Soon all planets in the U.P. are following this idea and so the kids and adolescent could be monitored.
Bart Allen grows too fast and, since there is no other speedster around, Iris Allen West takes him back to the XXI century. Now, since i’m a dad too, i won’t accept nobody taken my child so either Don and Meloni are dead or they went to the xxi century too. In that case they could be still around Bart and he wouldn’t be able to identify them because he was raised on a VR environment.
Anyways, the netlink trace system becomes the rule about the entire UP. And with a use of it to trace criminals, the United Planets becomes a pacific environment. Culture changes to don’t think direct interaction is right(and if you don’t think culture could change so easily, just realiice 10 years ago we didn’t use internet as we do now).
But from that paradise a new group rises: A Legion of Superheroes…
That seems a bit complex to me. I’d be perfectly OK with his bursts of speed being non-hereditary—after all, neither Wally, Barry nor Jay inherited their speed. Tying him to Bart is already more complicated than necessary, but the presence of time travel nicely solves any issues of age. He could also make a good opposite for Kid Flash, since Inertia was very Impulse-specific.
Regarding Bart’s father: Don and his sister were both killed around the time Bart was born.
Just speculation as to why but:
Simplest answer to me seems the speed for Owen traces back to Barry.
This does make two assuptions I agree, but here goes.
Malcom Thawne was Barry’s twin, and as such shared an identical meta-gene (assumption 1). In relative terms that means if the doctor had swapped them the other way, he would have becom the second Flash and Barry would have become Cobolt BLue.
Now, Barry’s liniage shows that his meta-gene geared to super-speed is passes on. The same should be true for Malcom. If Malcom had kids (assumption 2) then there could be a direct genetic line from Malcom to Eobard and Meloni, though they could be seperate branches instead of one line.
That would mean that for both Professor Zoom and Owen, they had the meta-gene, it was just waiting for something to kick start it. Eobard did it with science, Owen with adrenaline.