December 23, 2008
This Wednesday marks the final issue of The Flash…for the third time in as many years. DC’s been making a real habit of canceling and relaunching.
The Scarlet Speedster will return in April 2009 with the 6-issue miniseries Flash: Rebirth by Geoff Johns and Ethan Van Sciver.
The Flash #247
Written by Alan Burnett
Art by Carlo Barberi & Drew Geraci
Cover by Brian Stelfreeze
“This Was Your Life, Wally West” concludes! As Flash stands alone without his powers or family to support him, only one question remains – is this end of the Fastest Man Alive?
On sale December 24 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US
Other Stuff
The Flash may also appear in this week’s Trinity.
Also: Next week’s comics arrive on Friday instead of Wednesday. I guess they’re delayed one day due to Christmas, which pushes them onto New Year’s Day itself, which then pushes them to January 2.
December 22, 2008
This has nothing to do with The Flash except the title, but I’ve been a fan of Robert J. Sawyer’s novels for several years and figured this site’s audience might still appreciate the review.
Flashforward
has been in the entertainment news quite a bit the last few weeks with casting for the TV series pilot (more about that later). Strangely enough for a story that’s all about time and the role of the observer, I started reading the novel the day before the first casting news hit.
The novel looks at what happens when, at the moment a scientific experiment begins, everyone on the planet blacks out for two minutes. For those two minutes, everyone sees through the eyes of their future selves, two decades down the line. The world is transformed: first by the millions of accidents caused as drivers, pilots and surgeons lost control of their vehicles and instruments, and second by the survivors’ knowledge of the future.
What follows is an exploration of the nature of time, destiny and free will. Is this a glimpse of the future as it will be, or as it may be? Did the experiment cause the event, or was it a coincidence? Is foreknowledge a blessing or a curse?
Dilemmas
Flashforward is at its best when it focuses on characters’ dilemmas. While it sounds like the TV series will feature a wider cast, the original novel centers on the personal lives of researchers at CERN, particularly the two scientists who designed the experiment: Lloyd Simcoe, a 45-year-old Canadian who is shocked to learn that his impending marriage is doomed to collapse, and Theo Procopides, a 27-year-old Greek who learns that he will be dead by the time the visions come to pass. Lloyd wrestles with his responsibility for the event and whether it’s worth going through with a marriage he knows won’t last. Theo is consumed with preemptively solving his own murder.
Read the rest of this entry »
December 21, 2008
General Twittering
Heroes: Villains finale
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December 19, 2008
Crimson Lightning reviews the Flash TV Episode, “Twin Streaks.”
Ethan Van Sciver’s Your Time is Now Mine column continues.
Matt Sturges talks to CBR about the post-Final Crisis miniseries he’s doing with Freddie Williams II, Run!, which, as it turns out, isn’t connected to the Flash at all.
Comics Should Be Good has started posting the results of the Top 100 Comic Battles poll. #100 is Superboy-Prime vs. the Teen Titans from Infinite Crisis, a battle which ended only when the Flashes got together and pushed him into the speed force…at significant cost to the Flash franchise.
December 18, 2008
ICV2′s November sales estimates are out, and The Flash is still dropping. (via The Beat). It’s getting downright depressing to post this slide month after month.
02/2008: Flash #237 — 37,719 (- 9.0%)
03/2008: Flash #238 — 35,606 (- 5.6%)
04/2008: Flash #239 — 33,741 (- 5.2%)
05/2008: Flash #240 — 31,944 (- 5.3%)
06/2008: Flash #241 — 30,810 (- 3.6%)
07/2008: Flash #242 — 30,325 (- 1.5%)
08/2008: Flash #243 — 29,647 (- 2.2%)
09/2008: Flash #244 — 29,180 (- 1.6%)
10/2008: Flash #245 — 28,085 (- 3.8%)
11/2008: Flash #246 — 26,746 (- 4.7%)
This month’s sales figure, on it’s own, would still be respectable, not far off from what the series was doing when Geoff Johns picked up the book in 2000. But factor in the steep drop, the fact that 3 years ago it was selling 50,000/month (Flash #225), and the fact that the last two relaunches spiked sales to 120,000 (Flash: TFMA #1) and 79,000 (All-Flash), and it’s clear that something has gone disastrously wrong. The Flash clearly can support a higher audience, but just hasn’t connected. (Of course, being a lame-duck series can’t help.)
Flash:Rebirth is pretty much guaranteed to produce another sales spike. The real question is: can DC hold onto the new readers this time?
December 17, 2008
This week’s Flash action is mostly uncertain or in reprints. Tangent: Superman’s Reign and Trinity have both regularly featured Wally West. Showcase Presents: The Brave and the Bold: The Batman Team-Ups Vol.3 appears to have a Barry Allen team-up. And there’ll be at least one man in a red suit racing around the world in the DCU Holiday Special 2008… Read the rest of this entry »
December 16, 2008
The newsletter DC Comics Direct Channel #914 identifies the contents of the upcoming Flash Presents: Mercury Falling and Flash: The Human Race trade paperbacks.
May 2009: Flash Presents: Mercury Falling (Todd Dezago, Ethan Van Sciver) will collect Impulse #62-67. That covers the 5-issue story arc itself as well as the one-issue epilogue guest-starring the Justice League, Justice Society and Young Justice.
June 2009: Flash: The Human Race (Grant Morrison, Mark Millar, Paul Ryan, Pop Mhan) will collect Flash v.2 #136-141 and a story from Secret Origins #50. The Flash issues cover both “The Human Race” and “The Black Flash.”
The Secret Origins story is undoubtedly the retelling of the classic “Flash of Two Worlds,” (Flash v.1 #123) in which Grant Morrison figured out how to incorporate the parallel-world story into a single-world setting. Unless I’ve forgotten something, this volume and Flash: Emergency Stop will cover all of Grant Morrison’s Flash solo work.
It also lists the Final Crisis hardcover coming out in June, along with the Final Crisis Companion trade paperback, which includes all the FC one-shots (including Superman: Beyond, which started as a one-shot that just got too long.) No word yet on when Final Crisis: Rogues’ Revenge will be collected, but there are supposed to be more summer 2009 announcements later this week.
It’s the eternal question among fans. Who’s faster, Flash or Superman? (Answer: Flash, just barely.) Who would win in a fight, Wolverine or Batman? And of course, which Flash is faster? Wally West? Barry Allen? Jay Garrick? Bart Allen?
The truth is that which Flash is fastest changes over time, but there’s an easy pattern to follow: unless he’s been deliberately de-powered, whoever headlines the current series is the fastest Flash. After all, why focus on the second-fastest man alive?
When Jay Garrick was the one and only Flash around, he was, of course, the fastest man on Earth. When Barry Allen burst onto the scene, Jay was a little older, and had slowed down. So Barry was faster. When Wally West first took over as the Flash, he’d been pushed down to near the speed of sound…but as he kept going, breaking through his psychological blocks and eventually learning about the speed force, he reached that #1 rank. Then during Bart Allen’s brief tenure as the Flash, he absorbed the speed force and became not just the fastest man alive, but the fastest man who had ever lived.
All signs point to Barry Allen being the star of the Flash series that’s sure to spin out of Flash: Rebirth. No doubt once the dust settles, he’ll once again be the Fastest Man Alive — and even faster than his fellow Scarlet Speedsters.
Until the next relaunch, of course…
December 15, 2008
A couple of recent posts on my other blog that might appeal to this audience:
Thoughts on Heroes Volume 3: Villains. I’ve really liked the storyline with Hiro, Ando, Daphne and Matt (and got a kick out of the speedster saying, “Back in a flash!”), but other parts of the show have just bugged me lately.
San Diego Weekend, mainly for the bit in the middle about the Omni Hotel and the San Diego Convention Center.
With Flash: Rebirth launching in April 2009, there won’t be an issue of The Flash in March, so Flash fans will have to rely on team books and collections for our speedster fix. Read the rest of this entry »
