People who don't want Wally to be "shoved aside" are the ones who say Barry Allen is boring.  I always felt he was one of the more stable people in comics.  Happily married, totally in love with his wife, no other "outside influence" affecting their love for one another (i.e. Namor with Sue & Reed).  Barry had his flaws, which made him very much the everyman type of character.

You take away his super speed, he was still just a good guy who fought for what was right.  His speed powers gave him the chance to do more good than he would normally do for the police department.

He was a great father figure for Wally.  Taking him under his wing and helping him to grow and use his powers wisely.  A lesser man wouldn't want to be bothered by a kid.

He always put others ahead of himself.  Always.  He always tried to be a good man.  Period.

If that's a boring character, I'll taking boring over edgy any day!

The first stories I read with Barry were around 270 (the Killer Clown saga <g>) where there was an effort to inject excitement into the book with a more 'modern' approach. Cary Bates did a great job with cool cliff-hangers and an interesting 'decompressed' storyline involving Iris' murder (hmm, a precurser to today's approach, I suppose, or maybe nothing ever changes <g>).

As I said above, I never found Barry boring; I considered him a nice guy, extremely clever (it always impressed me how he came up with solutions to the death traps of a given rogue), and a true hero. I liked that he never lost his wits no matter how outlandish the predicament he found himself in.

I'm glad he's back <g>.

...nailed shut the coffin on DC's Silver Age.

Which DC is scrambling to resurrect in the Superman titles as we speak.

"We've done all the stories that can be done with this character."

                       Dick Giordano, speaking to me circa CRISIS.

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SER: The weird thing is that the Wally West FLASH could have been done with Barry. You basically have him exit CRISIS significantly slower than he was before (running at the speed of sound), so the legend he has to measure up against is his own! You also have him dealing with his identity now being public and with his financial issues, post the trial.

But as JB said, it's not fair to call Barry "boring," when he never got the makeover that Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman received.

It's a shame that he's coming back *now* though, after Bruce Timm with JLU gave us a truly likeable Wally West and demonstrated that a young, "heart of the Justice League" hero could work. I'm still waiting for *any* Flash to have a moment like Flash had in "Divided We Fall."

I am glad that Barry's back. Like many have said here, I agree with. When I was younger, I thought of Barry as boring too, compared to O'Neil/Adams' GL/GA or Batman, etc. But after the Crisis, with such things as Man of Steel, Batman Year One, Emerald Dawn, Hawkworld, etc. TPTB never gave Barry his "Crimson Dawn" showing a Barry for the 1980s. I find it ironic that my interest in Barry actually grew with Wally and the Rogues reminiscing of  Barry. Made me want to take another look at Barry if everybody was missing him.

Of course, I think the real reason that Barry's back is he suddenly has the coolest job ever thanks to various versions of CSI, Cold Case, NCIS, etc. etc.  I remember how when the Flash tv show was coming out that the creators of the show thought Barry's job was boring and wasn't there a way to make it more interesting?

I am more interested to see what is in store for Barry, and how he will relate to this world. In one story, it was mentioned his parents were dead. Which is a bummer if still true because Barry was one of the few heroes whose parents were still around. How will he related to Iris? In the last few years, she has been shown to be older of grandmotherly age. Will she and Barry still relate? What about all those guys at the Central City police dept? I am keeping my fingers crossed that Julio, Murph and Bellows, etc. might make DC debuts.