Under the mantle of Kid Flash, Wally was depicted as a teenage sidekick to his uncle-by-marriage, Barry Allen, and a founding member of the Teen Titans.

In his debut as the Flash, Wally wears a distinct red and gold costume which, like his uncle, he traditionally stores compressed inside a ring.

Generally portrayed as a white man with red hair and green eyes, Wally was reinterpreted biracial for DC's 2011 New 52 relaunch.

In addition to his appearances within the Flash title, the character was a founding member of the newly created Teen Titans, where he became friends with Dick Grayson, then known as Robin, later known as Nightwing.

[1] Sometime later, Wally contracted a mysterious illness that affected his entire bodily system; the more he used his speed powers, the faster his body deteriorated.

This could have been caused by one of two things, Wally was a boy when the electrified chemicals altered his body, which was still developing and maturing (as opposed to Barry Allen, who was already an adult when his accident occurred) or when he was struck with a weapon during his time with the Teen Titans.

During the Identity Crisis crossover, Wally and Kyle Rayner learned Dr. Light's mindwipe by the original Justice League and the cause of the villain's transformation from a dangerous serial rapist to an ineffectual buffoon.

The series found the character struggling with trying to raise his two super-powered twins, plagued by accelerated growth and their inexperience in the heroic game, a task made more difficult by Wally's unemployment, his inability to keep a steady job, and the mistrust of the League for his decision to bring two children into the fold.

During the Blackest Night, Wally West assists Barry Allen in spreading the word to every hero on Earth about the rise of the Black Lantern Corps.

The fallout of the recent Darkseid War allowed Wally to try and reach out to his former friends in the hopes of either returning or warning them of the truth.

After realizing that not even Linda could remember him, Wally sank into desolation and chose to appear before his uncle, Barry, one last time to thank him for the life he had given him.

[15][16] Wally goes to the Titans, and through both physical contact to Nightwing, Donna Troy, Arsenal, Tempest and Lilith Clay with the Speed Force reminding them of their memories with him, creating a new history.

[18] During a confrontation with Abra Kadabra, Wally is forced to push himself so fast that he is sent into the Speed Force while trying to save her and the other Titans from being killed by Kadabra,[19] but in a conversation with a manifestation of his memories of Linda, Wally is encouraged not to give up on the idea that he can make a new relationship with her in this timeline, subsequently using his memories of the Titans as a new 'lightning-rod' to return to Earth.

The resulting explosion sent both heroes back to Barry's hometown of Central City and into the clutches of a gloating Zoom who quickly revealed that his true intention in reminding Wally about the existence of his children was to trick Wally into breaking the Force Barrier - a cosmic barricade that concealed energies that could be tapped into by the right people in much the same way that the Speed Force empowers speedsters.

During the "Heroes in Crisis" story arc, Wally was initially believed to be one of the massacre's highest-profile victims at the superhero rehabilitation facility known as Sanctuary, but is later revealed to be not only alive but actually the real culprit of the murders.

These tortured memories are what led him to Sanctuary in the first place, but he found no comfort there, instead, he relates how he still felt alone because he didn't see the same kind of pain in its other residents, and the program's anonymity only compounded his feelings of isolation.

Taking advantage of that happy coincidence, Wally used his powers to deliver a superspeed sleight of hand at Harley and Booster's expense.

Wally then relocated all the bodies of the others he had slain, staging the murders to place himself above suspicion, and set up Harley and Booster as the prime suspects instead.

They show up just as Wally is about to kill five-days-older-Wally, and five-days Wally reveals that after he accidentally killed everyone in Sanctuary, he didn't travel back in time to “unmake” his mistake because that's what Barry did during Flashpoint, instead he sent the confession files to Lois Lane to try to “make up for what happened,” telling the world what he'd done at Sanctuary, and encouraging people to get help before they made the same mistakes he did.

Later this whole story was recollected in The Flash Annual #1 (2021), stating that Wally West was not responsible for these deaths, and it was revealed that the Speed Force caused it while trying to expel Savitar.

In Doomsday Clock, Lex Luthor mentioned to Lois Lane that someone has been undermining creation, like what Doctor Manhattan did with Wally West and the Justice Society of America.

After saving several universes from being consumed by dark-matter, Wally finds the Mobius Chair that once belonged to Metron and makes a deal with Fuginaut to return his children Jai and Iris, who were trapped in the Dark Multiverse, to his wife Linda Park.

In the arc's conclusion, in The Flash Annual 2021, Wally is thrown back to the moment of his greatest torment: the explosion at Sanctuary which killed his friends.

With help from Mister Terrific, Barry Allen, Green Arrow, and the past Roy Harper shortly before he died at Sanctuary, Wally is able to bring Savitar back with him to the present.

[26] Wally's primary superpower is his ability to control the speed at which his body vibrates and to move and think at Super-Speed, which he uses primarily to run at extreme superhuman velocities.

This connection to the Speed Force grants him unique abilities that other speedsters lack, such as lending and taking speed (which manifests in different ways, ranging from becoming speedsters themselves to bolstering others metabolisms and healing abilities, allowing them to recover from injuries in a fraction of the normal time), as well as absorbing kinetic energy in a less direct manner; he once absorbed the kinetic energy of the entire planet Earth while standing at the North Pole when his teammates were forced to move the planet to prevent possible earthquakes.

It is not known how Wally is able to circumvent the damage moving at such great speeds would normally have on the environment, but it has been hypothesized that his protective aura allows him to "sidestep" such environmental consequences.

There was a comic series titled The Human Race in which Wally ran faster than instant teleportation, Reaching Trans-Time Velocity.

He has extensive knowledge and experience with Time-Travel and the Multiverse, and was also considered by Michael Holt, aka Mister Terrific, to be one of the smartest people he knew, and was given a job as a mechanic/engineer at TerrificTech.

[37] Wally's father, Rudolph West[38] (a Manhunter agent), was presumed deceased following an explosion in Cuba during the Invasion series.