Wallace R. West was born approximately 23 years ago (DC time, mind you, not real time) in the small town of Blue Valley, Nebraska. The only child of Mary and Rudolph West, Wally had what could best be termed as a "difficult childhood". His father was a demanding man to live with, and as for his mother, she didn't seem to be capable of giving Wally the love he so desperately needed. For amusement, then later as an escape from his troubled life, Wally began to read about super-heroes. The one that interested him the most was the Silver Age Flash, Barry Allen (although no one at the time knew who he was. The Flash operated in Central City, the home of Wally's favorite aunt, Iris West, his father's sister. Iris was a newspaper reporter, and she kept her nephew busy with an endless stream of newspaper articles on the Flash. Reading these articles, young Wally dreamed of meeting the Flash and, in some small part of his mind, being just like his hero. This dream was encouraged by a visit from a mysterious stranger, a man who told him that his life would be magic, that it would be the greatest life anyone ever lived. Then, the summer he turned 10, Wally West realized his dreams-all of them. Wally spent that summer with his beloved Aunt Iris in Central City, home of the Flash. No sooner had he gotten off the bus than the adventure began. He found himself in the middle of a battle between the Flash and some bank robbers. During the fight, the Flash went down, and it looked like all was lost. Suddenly, in a "flash" of inspiration, Wally came to his hero's aid, buying the Flash enough time to revive and finish off the criminals. After a word of thanks from his hero, young Wally couldn't be any happier. Not even a boring dinner with his aunt's boyfriend, police scientist Barry Allen, could dampen his spirits. Just when Wally thought it couldn't get any better, it did, though it didn't happen at first. Barry had offered to take Wally for the afternoon to show him his home lab, and Wally was less than enthused by this notion. But, when Barry confided in Wally that he knew the Flash, and had arranged for the Scarlet Speedster to spend time with the boy, he saw Barry in a different light. When the Flash appeared, (with Barry conveniently absent, but Wally never noticed), he pumped his hero with all kinds of questions, especially about the origin of his powers. You see, the Flash, as Barry Allen, had been standing in front of a cupboard of chemicals, when lightning struck the cupboard. The electrified chemicals sprayed all over him, supercharging his metabolism and giving him the gift of super-speed. Upon hearing that, Wally mused that he would give anything if something like that would happen to him. The Flash then responded, "Forget it, Wally. The chances of that happening to anyone are a million-to-one!" Make that a million-to-two. At the exact moment the Flash said those words, a bolt of lightning came through the window of Barry's lab and struck the cupboard of chemicals that Wally was standing in front of. In an exact replay of how Barry got his powers, the chemicals sprayed all over the young boy, supercharging his metabolism and giving him the gift of super-speed. The Flash saw this as an opportunity to teach the boy morality, and gave Wally a costume. Thus Wally West, average 10-year-old, became Kid Flash, sidekick and protege to the Fastest Man Alive. That summer went by like a blur for Wally, as he participated in all sorts of memorable adventures with his hero and mentor. Then, tragedy struck. Wally suddenly became very ill. Taken by the Flash to Dr. Ira West, a Nobel Prize winner in physiology several times over (and Wally's own grandfather), he was diagnosed as having a rare condition. It turned out that while Barry's adult physiology was equipped to handle the changes in his metabolism, Wally's adolescent body was not. He was ordered not to use his speed in any way, or face death. So it was, with a heavy heart, that Wally returned to Blue Valley, an ordinary kid once more. Then, soon after his return, a remarkable event occurred in his life. A mysterious storm had appeared, and Wally, captivated by it and perhaps remembering his lost powers, accidentally dropped a dish he was holding. His father reprimanded him sharply, and in shame over the loss of his powers and his father's seeming lack of love for him, he ran away. Wally's father caught up with him on top of a tall tree-a very dangerous place to be, especially with the storm coming at them head-on at full strength. Mr. West tried to talk his son down, but while he did so, the wind blew the tree-and them-to the ground. Wally emerged, relatively unscathed, to find that his father was pinned under the massive tree trunk and that a tornado was headed straight for them. Knowing that to do so would quite possibly mean his death, Wally West did the only thing he could. He poured on the speed once again. The pain was overwhelming; he soon hit the "runner's wall", the point where a runner's energy level drops to almost nil. The trick is to "break the wall", to keep going long enough to catch a second wind and build that energy level back up. As Wally said later, caught between his pain and his love for his father, "I didn't just break the wall. I demolished it. I came up on that twister at half the speed of light and getting faster by the second." Wally was able to run in the opposite direction of the tornado, causing a counter-clockwise wind inside the normal clockwise one, cancelling the tornado out. After that experience, Wally went on to have many more adventures with the Flash, as well as becoming a charter member of the Teen Titans. Then, around 1985 (our time; it's not really known how old Wally was at the time... best estimates put him between 18 and 20) two things occurred that would change Wally's life forever. The first was the death of his beloved Aunt Iris at the hands of Professor Zoom, the Reverse-Flash of the 25th Century. Zoom met his fate at the hands of Barry Allen, the one and only time the Silver Age Flash has ever taken a life. The second event was even worse. Brought back to our time from the future by the Monitor, Barry Allen was taken prisoner during the Crisis on Infinite Earths. It was during this event that the Flash made the ultimate sacrifice to ensure that good would prevail. These events hurt Wally greatly, and he struggled for a time trying to figure out what to do with his life now that those who were most important to him were gone. He finally realized that he could do one thing: make sure that the name of the Flash would never be forgotten. So, as much as a result of keeping the memory of Barry Allen alive as to answer the need for another Scarlet Speedster, Wally West took over the mantle of the Flash, becoming the Modern Age version that we know today.