I liked Rayner because of Superman: TAS when I saw it.
And they also made Rayner LOOK like Hal in the show. The funny thing is is that single episode of Superman: TAS with GL is the best Green Lantern ANYTHING in alternate media even to this day.
Wally was different than Barry in the beginning of his run, aside from wearing his costume and having an origin that was a copy of his of course, but since the mid-nineties he's been "Barry-lite", when they gave him the tv reporter gf, secret identity and police job, brought the Rogues back, even gave him a "Kid Flash" of his own....all the stuff that violated their "nothing that relates to Barry Allen" rule they broke...except for having Barry in the title.
He has Barry's storyarc as well and status as The Flash (Barry was a founding member of the JLA - even suggested the word "Justice" be in the title, Wally never founded the JLA). He also lives in Barry's city (Central City, Wally lived in Keystone in the comics) and fights Barry's versions of the Rogues.
As for personality, Wally in the comics is a lot brighter and more serious than the JL/JLU Flash was portrayed, the creators of the show did their own thing with him as far as personality and characterization goes for much of it, but they without a doubt just used their original Impulse template but put him in Flash's body. The original plan was to use "young" versions of all the DC heroes and their speedster was originally set to be Impulse:
It's pretty obvious to me they just brushed that character off and turned him into Flash for the JL/JLU show and incorporated much of their ideas for their take on who he was as a character and the dynamic he'd bring to the show to JL/JLU.
No one's tearing down anyone, just pointing out some facts is all.
They hadn't even decided for sure that Flash was Wally West under the mask until towards season two of the show (hence all the Barry related elements). The writer of the Superman: TAS episode in which he appeared also saw Flash as Barry Allen in the episode where Flash and Superman raced, hence all the silver age nods in the episode (which makes sense now, I suppose). They left it so it could be either or under the mask.
Disagree, I prefer the "time travelling psychotic enemy he had not yet made" from the future. The less guys who have super speed powers the same way The Flash does, seeing how his accident was supposed to be a one-off, especially in his timeline, the better. Having a bunch of guys running around with superspeed who get their powers similarly so close to The Flash in their existence sort of cheapens something they're already asking you to buy into a lot, IMO. I also think Thawne is the better character and more threatening and evil. I'm not a fan of these half bad guy/half good guy villains where they make them completely sympathetic and not
really a "bad guy", which is exactly what Zolomon is, IMO.
I like bad guys who are just bad most the time, like Joker and Thawne, without the "they're almost a good guy if they would just...." angle.
