Everywhere you turn these days, someone is talking about the Flash. With the character experiencing never-before-seen heights of popularity on television, the creative team on DC Comics’ monthly book is moving full speed ahead to meet the demand. We sat down with co-writer Van Jensen and series penciller Brett Booth to chat about the arrival of Zoom, Wally West’s place in the series, and how the television series is impacting their monthly work.

Matt Santori: Bringing in Zoom, especially after he’s played such a big role on the Flash television show, is a major leap for the comic. Can you both talk about why you felt it was time and what each of you are doing to reconfigure him for DCYou?

Van Jensen: Well, we were going into the next story arc after Convergence quite a bit in advance, and had no idea Eobard Thawne would end up being the character on the TV show. That hadn’t been revealed yet.

Brett Booth: Yep! We found out with everybody else!

VJ: The one thing that we knew about June was that a lot of new series would be coming in and vying for attention. So, we knew that we needed to do something big not to get lost amid all the cool new books.

When you think about what the biggest story you can tell with the Flash is, Professor Zoom is the top of the mount right there. And as we were developing that, we started focusing on the nature of the Flash’s power, imagining it as something a lot bigger and weirder than it has ever been interpreted as before. Approaching it from an angle that the powers that would manifest opposite the Flash’s would be a lot more. It’s not just here’s one person that runs fast and here’s another person that runs fast.

With Zoom, we’re going to see a lot more of exactly what the nature of his powers are. It may look like he’s just moving really, really fast, but it’s a lot more complicated than that.

BB: I actually had been tinkering with some new designs a few months before this, trying to figure out how I could make Zoom’s costume more modern. The yellow is really bright, and kind of overpowers everything. Which is why you generally use yellow sparingly. On the tv show, they grey it out, so there’s only a little bit of yellow. I thought, what if I use gold? What if I made the red black? I pushed it a bit more here and there — and then they asked me to redesign Barry’s costume for DCYou as well.

I didn’t want to do it exactly the same. Yes, he’s the Reverse Flash, but who wants to draw the same costume over and over again? You have to change it a little bit and make it a little different to draw. But yeah, the gold helped. Andrew Dalhouse is doing an awesome job coloring metal in the book, so it definitely became a plus. The metallic reflects stuff. Plus, shiny stuff looks faster!

MSG: Well, you’ve both been on the book for a year and I hear you saying you want to shake things up for the second year. How are you looking at Barry and the title differently now than when you first started?

VJ: I think there’s a certain desire to come out with something different or a big change of pace when you first come on a book. We wanted there to be a sense of continuity with Francis and Brian’s run — which, of course, was great — but we also wanted to do something very much our own. That led to the future Flash storyline.

Now I feel like we’ve seen Barry growing in maturation and with his powers. and we wanted to see him evolve as a character to the point where he’d be physically and emotionally able to deal with a big thing in his history. That is, the death of his mother, who was murdered, and the conviction of his father for the crime. That and the lightning strike are really the two defining moments in Barry’s life. Again, there’s this challenge to tell the biggest Flash story we can tell, while really dealing with this murder, that had been set up in the first story arc, really for the first time.

BB: When they approached me about doing the new design, I had already been drawing Barry for a year. So, drawing and adding touches to what I’d like to see in the Flash costume going forward was intriguing and fun. I’m just happy to be drawing them. They’re my favorite characters, but in some way, redesigning the costumes is really like getting all new characters! Barry’s hair is a little longer. Little more hair gel. [laughs] But otherwise, it’s pretty much the same for me.

MSG: Speaking of favorite characters, Brett, I know that one of your all-time favorites (and mine) is Wally West. We’re going be seeing Wally again in the next issue and they just announced the television casting.

Can you guys share your thoughts on his future?

BB: What I see us doing now is switching Wally a little away from being angry with the Flash and more team-Flash now. He’s moving more toward the Wally we all know and love, sort of like what you saw in the Futures End special and issue #35. He’s still the Wally everyone knows and loves, but he is a little more flip. A bit more of a smart-ass. An act first and think about the consequences later kind of guy.

But you know, he’ll be a little more jokey and fun. And I know that that’s what people my age, who grew up with Wally as the Flash, are a little more keen on. Barry is a cool guy, but he’s a little more like Superman. Little more science-y, and a little more preachy. Wally is more of an average person who gets thrust into this crazy world. Whereas Barry is there to help figure everything out with his science background, Wally is more of the everyman who has to learn on the way.

I think that’s one of the things that appeals to people about Wally. He reacts to things the way a normal person would. And I think comic fans like me identify with those regular joes a whole lot more. Maybe a little bit of a broader appeal in general, although Barry works so well too because he can hold his own, especially on the television show.

VJ: For me, I grew up reading Wally as the Flash, and he’s a character I have a big affinity for. It’s a huge, huge honor to be able to reintroduce him.

When the news came out that Wally was cast for the tv show — which we knew was coming eventually — seeing Brett’s artwork up there to show off who the character is was a pretty awesome moment.

Wally is coming back in the series in a really big way with issue #43, the next issue. A lot of people were really thrilled with the reintroduction of Wally, and a lot of people were understandably upset. One of the things we got from all that was that people were upset that Wally was a troubled kid who didn’t have his life all figured out.

To me, even if you don’t have terrible circumstances in your family history, that’s what being a teen is. Teens rarely have their life all figured out. And characters that do really aren’t all that compelling. Wally is someone who came from some really serious challenges and went through a very difficult time. But what we’re going to see in this next arc is him trying to figure things out. He’s going to take agency in his own life and try to find some passion to explore.

There’s a wrinkle in there that fans of the classic Wally West character will really like. What his interest is and how it manifests. But also, it should make him a character that any young kid growing up can see and be inspired by. That’s what you aspire to as a creator is to create an inspiration not just for the fans who have been there for 20, 30, 40 years, but for fans who are just discovering the character.

The next issue of The Flash, #43, is arriving in stores and online August 26 from DC Comics. The origin of Professor Zoom’s team of villains — featured in The Flash Annual #4 — is on sale now.