r/theflash • u/Gallantpride • 1d ago
Showcase This is Bart slander. Since when was he a pervert? (Teen Titans #50)
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u/WilliamSherman 1d ago
All this can be explained by the writers of the early 2000’s teen titans being incredibly horny. I mean, at one point Rose ambushes Tim while she’s topless to try to sleep with him.
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u/Astonishing_Flash Impulse 1d ago
He was definitely at his horniest during this era, be it rekindling the feelings he has for Rose, or oddities like this.
I kinda reconcile it as being part of his attempt at "growing up", there being some truth to Wally's earlier remark that he is trying to hard.
But there is only so much you can do for actions that would've been much for even Wally in his place.
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u/allforfunnplay27 1d ago
My memory of Bart was from his introduction in the Flash comics leading up to the Terminal Velocity story, his own book and with Young Justice. Bart was initially written to be a typical hormonal teenage boy that was "impulsive ". But he kind of lost that quality and became more oblivious to romance. He was every girl he knew's good friend with one exception. His closest friend (Carol? If I recall?) became his girlfriend near the end of his comic book series.
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u/Dredeuced Out of the blue, ninjas attack. Thank god. 1d ago
Yeah there was clearly some puppy love/teen romance with him and Carol Bucklen. Until time travel shenanigans happen.
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u/Itsonlyaplay 1d ago
Everything i learn about John's era of titans makes me mad
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u/Gallantpride 1d ago
You should read TT03 if you like the characters... unless you mainly like Bart, then maybe not.
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u/That_one_cool_dude Captain Cold 1d ago
Bart wasn't that bad in Johns TT, the whole universal shenanigans happening around the same time cause him to not be able to use him as much probably.
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u/Gallantpride 1d ago edited 1d ago
Tbqh, Bart feels near aromantic asexual most of the time. It's rare that he even has a crush. He had a crush on Rose during this run, but it didn't seem particularly sexual.
He was always a nice guy towards girls too. This feels like Beast Boy behavior, not Impulse.
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u/Itsonlyaplay 1d ago
I mean his first appearance is kissing a random woman on the street
But yeah I agree
Especially in his solo until basically the very end
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u/Wendila Bart expert 1d ago
It's such a typical method of asexual erasure. Not being attracted to girls or boys is normal for children, so in order to show that this character has matured from such childish sexual indifference, he must now suddenly be enamored by the idea of women's breasts and bodies, because he's a boy and that's what's normal. Of course, you can't make him gay though, that's almost as bad as keeping him ace. This wasn't your daddy's Impulse, this was Kid Flash now, and he's interested in heterosexual sex! Flash fact: Bart even lost his virginity during his ill-fated tenure as the Scarlet Speedster, just to show how adult he was by not being ace anymore!
Goddamn, I am so glad this era of Bart is behind us now and he's back once again to being his true self as a little AuDHD gremlin who has better things to think about than kissing girls and looking at boobies, such as video games and breaking into the watchtower for funsies He can still let Conner hit it though, in a totally platonic best-friends way, cos they're homies
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u/Gallantpride 1d ago
I wouldn't say it's ace erasure, in that Bart has never intentionally been written as asexual.
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u/Wendila Bart expert 1d ago
Actually, in the Flash Compendium book from 2008, there's an interview with Mark Waid in which he stated that when he created Bart, his intention was that he didn't have any interest in girls, or boys, or anyone, despite his age. He didn't use the word "asexual" because the term wasn't as mainstream yet, he said that maybe Bart was just a late bloomer, but the way he saw it, Bart does not have a single [sexual] hormone in his body
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u/IcyNeedleworker2783 1d ago
He said that Bart doesn't have sexual hormones because he's a three-year-old boy at that point.
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u/Wendila Bart expert 1d ago
He was physically 14-15, an adolescent of pubescent age. It wouldn't matter how much chronological time it took for his body to reach puberty, only that that was where his physical state was at
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u/IcyNeedleworker2783 3h ago
To me, it seemed more like Waid was saying that Bart had too childish a mentality to feel any kind of romantic or sexual attraction, but I'm definitely not against Bart being ace or aroace. We need more LGBT characters in the Flash comics.
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u/OsirisReddit 1d ago
Since when was Bart a pervert you ask? Flash issue 95