The Trickster
19 years ago - Axel Walker is born.
7 years ago - 12-year-old Axel first begins his practice of aggressive vandalism and hooliganism.
5 years ago - 14-year-old Axel figures out the trail of clues left by James Jesse. he finds the Trickster Lair & becomes the new Trickster, challenging the Flash.
3 years ago - 16-year-old Axel is recruited by Clifford Devoe into the New Rogues. They battle the Flash but he is quick to change sides to the original Rogues.
Sometimes the thing that actually makes a character work is to look outside of their appearance in comics. Axel Walker's Trickster was a weird little spin off of an even weirder character, but between the two of them there's actually been a few variations across a few different media that you can actually construct a pretty solid take on this legacy character.
The Trickster's Comic HistoryAxel Walker was created by DC juggernaut Geoff Johns in 2002 during his run on the Flash, part of his larger efforts to create new, varied versions of the Flash's classic rogues gallery. the Trickster was a pretty goofy classic villain, just a guy who used weird inventions as a sort of practical joker turned criminal. The innovation of Axel was to take that concept and give it to a young teenage hooligan, taking all that chaotic energy and giving it a framework of youthful arrogance and disregard of safety that made it feel lethally dangerous. It worked pretty well, but eventually they brought back the original character and this one was written off.
In the meantime, the early 90's live action Flash series featured a pre-Joker Mark Hamill as a brightly colored, psychotic version of the Trickster, a performance that clearly informed his eventual role as everyone's favorite version of the Joker. The current CW live-action Flash series has made a few small nods to the old series (like casting the original Flash, John Westley Shipp, as Barry's father Henry), and they made the brilliant choice to make Mark Hamill's original version of the Trickster cannon, so they could create their own version of Axel Walker as the modern villain. Axel could be the protégé of the classic villain, and they would be able to bring in a fan favorite actor. |
Our Trickster StoryThe clever innovation made on the CW series actually makes both versions of the Trickster more viable characters. There was nothing particularly wrong with Axel Walker as a new villain for Wally West, he even fits in really well in Clifford Devoe's New Rogues. The only problem was that he was a legacy villain and the old version of the Trickster was such a weirdo. Using the Mark Hamill version of the character actually totally works, and as a result we have two really cool characters to build into out timeline.
In the meantime, Axel is a young, very aggressively dangerous character. The Rogues might be slowly changing their MO away from being enemies of the Flash and becoming something closer to being allies, but Axel is clearly an exception. He's never going to be a reformed character, and if the Rogues wind up not being a dangerous enough outfit for him, he might just strike out on his own. Of course, he's so young that he has a lot of room to evolve, perhaps getting his hands on all sorts of dangerous technology for new devices. This is a character that could very easily evolve into a real threat for new, younger generation of heroes. |