Daddy Make Me a Superhero

Kid Flash - Young Justice

I previously established my son’s love for the idea of The Flash in this post as one of pure simplicity: small children love to run around as fast as they can for its own sake. So a super powered speedster? Easy sell.

An even easier sell was The Flash’s young protege Kid Flash (who I previously posted a drawing of here), as I’ve already discussed his love of/connection with kid sidekicks. He first learned of the existence of young Wally West when he appeared on a McHappy Meal toy (illustrating the importance of licensing in growing your audience), which led us to start watching the Young Justice TV show. It quickly became my three-year-old’s favourite show, and truthfully, one I really enjoyed watching as well. And of The Team, Kid Flash quickly joined Robin as his favourite character in the DC universe.

So it was no surprise when KF shot to the top of the list of characters he wanted me to add to his wall of construction paper creations. The only drawback is that the character design of the Young Justice TV series, while gorgeous, is a lot more complicated than the streamlined art of the Timm-verse or Batman: The Brave and the Bold, which usually served as the models for my scissor art. Which meant I had my work cut out for me. Get it? Cut out?

…

Let’s move on.

The big challenge involved the padding in the legs and shoulders, which are the same colours as the part of the costume they are featured on. Since the ethos of this project is to minimize the use of any medium other than coloured paper (i.e., not use pens to fill in detail), I didn’t want to just draw the padding in. So I cut the shape of the padding of the thigh, calf, knees, shoulders in black, then pasted the colour (or colours in the parts with shading) onto the black to create the sense of outline.

And since that took so much work, I cheated a bit more with the fingers, gloves, hair, and boots and just went ahead and inked them in. Either way, it looks pretty sweet.

As for the character himself, I’m also a fan of the Young Justice version of Wally West. In the first season of the show, he was a refreshing injection of energy for a genre that too often likes to focus on how hard it is to be super-powered. Look, I get it. I grew up on Chris Claremont X-Men, so I know all about the draw of melodrama and angst. But now that one of my primary connections with this world is through sharing it with my toddler, I’m drawn to things that keep it fun.

And Wally West is fun. He enjoys being a hero. He’s an id-driven teenage boy who likes to hang out with his bros and is constantly, laughably hitting on the ladies of the show. He goes home to his mom and dad, who know about his superhero life and support him, and affably tells them about his day and his adventures. And like all teenage boys, but especially ones that are supernaturally active, he is always eating. Which, I must say, has been very helpful for us to get a distracted little boy to focus at meal times. “Kid Flash eats all his food”. “If you want to be fast and strong like Kid Flash, you need your fuel”.

So thanks Wally.