Monthly Archives: May 2009

Quick Thoughts: Twitter Through 2009-05-31

  • Dear CBLDF: Thank you for the invitation to your party…but next time, please mention what CITY your event is in. (I’m guessing NYC)
  • Rumor column Lying in the Gutters ends, @richjohnston launches BleedingCool.com
  • Retweeting @ComicBookLegacy: Optimus Prime invades Luxor Casino
  • Alan Burnett’s First Flight pitch: “Green Lantern as Training Day”
  • Wow…SDCC is completely sold out almost 2 months before the event.
  • Sounds like DC is leaning toward a new Flash #1
  • Apparently the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (defending freedom of speech for comic creators, retailers, and readers) is on Twitter @cbldf
  • Need to figure out what to do for my 500th blog post. Meanwhile, it’s lunch, comic store, post office and gas station. Possible in 1 hour?
  • Not 100% certain it’s an official account for the con, but @LongBeach_CC (Oct 2-4) lists Geoff Johns as a guest.
  • Finally read The Stars My Destination. Surprised that super-speed shows up at one point.

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Speed Reading: Rebirth Recap, Cool Moment, TwoMorrows Sale, and More

First panel of Noah Van Sciver's Flash: Rebirth RecapSome light weekend linkblogging:

Wizard has a couple of comic-strip recaps of the first two issues of Flash: Rebirth by Ethan Van Sciver’s brother, Noah Van Sciver.

Comics Should Be Good continues a week of Flash-themed Cool Comic Moments with Flash vs. Züm from Grant Morrison’s JLA: New World Order. (Züm of the Hyperclan would probably be forgotten if it weren’t for this moment.)

TwoMorrows, publishers of The Flash Companion, is having a 50%-off sale on their website. The Flash Companion itself isn’t one of the discounted items, but you can pick up some other Companion volumes (Including Justice League Companion and The Titans Companion vol.2), some Modern Masters books, collections of Alter Ego, Brick Journal, etc.

Flash: Celebrating #500

Flash v.2 #150

Or rather, what would have been Flash #500 if the series had never been renumbered. Flash Comics starring Jay Garrick ran 104 issues, and The Flash starring Barry Allen picked up that same numbering with #105 in 1959 and ran through #350. The relaunch in 1987 with Wally West started over with Flash #1. If DC had started Wally’s series with #351, instead of Flash vol.2 #150 this book would have been Flash #500.*

So why post this cover?

Because this is my 500th post on Speed Force!

To celebrate, and inspired by Major Spoilers’ Ten Superhero Party Drinks, my wonderful wife came up with a Flash drink — two versions, one alcoholic and one not.

Flash drink

Recipe: Flash Drink

  • 4 oz Izze Pomegranate soda (or other red soda that goes well with cranberry)
  • 2 oz cranberry juice cocktail
  • 2 oz vodka (for non-alcoholic version, replace this with more cranberry juice)
  • 1 Lemon
  1. Peel zest from entire lemon in one long spiral with vegetable peeler.
  2. Cut jagged bits into lemon peel to give it a zig-zag or lightning bolt look.
  3. Cut lemon peel strip in half crosswise (use one half for each of two drinks).
  4. Mix all liquid ingredients cold and pour into glass.
  5. Place lemon peel decoratively in glass.

Ideally, you should have something else you can use the rest of the lemon for.

Enjoy!

*Yes, there was a Flash v.2 #0 in between issues #94 and #95, but all DC books that month were numbered #0, so it doesn’t figure into the sequence any more than annuals do.

Speed Reading: Cool Moments, Jumping On, Coloring and Mor(rison)

Comics Should Be Good highlights more Cool Comic Book Moments from Mark Waid’s Flash story, Terminal Velocity. They’ve got two items from Flash #99: Wally’s sacrifice and Bart stepping up (which doesn’t go quite as well as he expects) — and one of two moments from Flash #100: Wally’s…return? One more coming up tomorrow. Update: the conclusion is up!

Comics in Crisis thinks that now is a perfect time for new readers to jump into the Flash.

Wally’s World: If I Ran DC Comics (Part 1)

iFanboy compares comic book coloring techniques from the 1980s and today, using pages from Secret Wars and The Flash: Rebirth as examples.

Lying in the Gutters, in its final column, cites conflicting rumors on the future of Justice League of America, with either a Grant Morrison/Jim Lee team-up or Geoff Johns. Earlier rumors had Geoff Johns and Jim Lee.

When Worlds Collide has put together a list of the Best and Worst of Grant Morrison, with a Top 10 and Bottom 5. I’ve only read about 1/3 of the combined list. Update: Comics Should Be Good fires back with another Top 10 Grant Morrison list.

Also interesting: my Google Alert for “flash comics” came up with this list of things about the (American) comic book industry that should be common knowledge, but aren’t.

Silver Age Milestone Sells for $180K

Showcase #4Heritage Auctions reported today that a copy of Showcase #4 graded at CGC NM+ 9.6 sold for almost $180,000 at auction, making it “the single most-expensive Silver Age book in history.” In an earlier post, Heritage Auctions stated that this was the best-preserved copy of the issue known.

At the time the book was published, superheroes — and comics in general — had fallen out of favor. Showcase #4 introduced the world to a revamped Flash. Jay Garrick and his Mercury-inspired costume were gone, replaced by the more modern Barry Allen. The success of the Flash led to an ongoing series, as well as space-age reboots of Green Lantern, the Atom, Hawkman and others, ushering in a new superhero boom.

In fact, the issue is often cited as the start of the Silver Age of comics. (Other contenders are the first appearances of the Martian Manhunter and Captain Comet.)

Barry Allen: Metatemporal Detective

Another interview with Geoff Johns, this time at Scripps News.

The stuff I really want to focus on is with Barry Allen as a crime-solver. But his crimes are on the crazy ’60s-physics level. A murder could span across dimensions or ancient cities or crazy places that are real cities. Or he could find a body where the crime is unsolvable through normal means, and kinda taking that “CSI” approach but putting it on a greater scale of wonder and scope and the DC Universe itself….He solves crimes that are unbelievably bizarre and unexplainable. And they take him to different places and strange foes and bizarre criminals.

The interviewer compares it to CSI: 52.

This sounds like the kind of book I’d be interested in even without the Flash. And when Geoff Johns eventually leaves, Grant Morrison would be the perfect choice to follow him — I like the way he wrote Barry in Final Crisis, and he showed in his 9-issue run back in the 1990s (reprinted in The Flash: Emergency Stop and next month’s Flash: The Human Race) that he can write crazy sci-fi adventure starring the Flash.

Read the rest of the interview.

(Title shamelessly taken from Michael Moorcock’s short story collection, The Metatemporal Detective.)