Speed Force

DC has posted May’s Brightest Day solicitations, including The Flash #2:

The Flash #2

On sale MAY 12 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US
Written by GEOFF JOHNS
Art and cover by FRANCIS MANAPUL
1:10 variant cover by RYAN SOOK

BRIGHTEST DAY shines its light on the continuing saga of Barry Allen – The Fastest Man Alive! The Flash continues his investigation into the “Dastardly Death of the Rogues” as the case takes a dramatic turn and Barry corners a suspect…and can’t believe who it is!

Judging by all the snow in May, either Captain Cold or Weather Wizard is probably involved. Or Central City has been transported to the southern hemisphere.

On one hand, I hope they stop with the variant covers soon. On the other hand, I certainly wouldn’t mind seeing Ryan Sook’s take on the Flash.

Also, it looks like Jay Garrick is guest-starring in Justice League of America.

Update: Artist Francis Manapul has posted a scan of the original art for the cover.

I finally finished listening to last week’s Word Balloon Podcast with Ethan Van Sciver this morning. During the 90-minute interview, he talks about Flash: Rebirth, the personal issues that caused the delays, redesigning Wally West’s costume, bringing back Impulse, the balance of power between writers and artists, and Cyberfrog.

Some points that Flash readers will find interesting:

Last spring, Ethan Van Sciver started experiencing chest pains and was told that if he didn’t do something about his health, he was going to have a heart attack. So he embarked on a complete lifestyle change, which threw off his work schedule, slowing down Flash: Rebirth. The final issue, originally scheduled for September 30 of last year, will be out in two weeks on February 24.

It was his idea to make Iris “Irey” West II the new Impulse. He wanted the character back, and deliberately made Iris and Jai younger than they had been previously because of that (and because he didn’t like them as tweens). He also made an effort to draw Bart Allen as Kid Flash looking a bit more like he appeared as Impulse: round face, big feet, slightly exaggerated features. On a related note: Geoff Johns has plans for Jai.

He had a really hard time redesigning Wally West’s costume. The way he put it was that it’s easy to design a speedster costume, but it’s hard to design a Flash costume. Whereas with Sinestro Corps War and Blackest Night he basically had free reign with new designs, this time he kept getting notes and had several designs rejected. The final version was quite literally a composite of other Flash costumes: EVS wanted the straight cowl from the TV series & Dark Flash, to make it look like a knight’s helmet (in line with his Barry = King Arthur and Wally = Lancelot metaphor), Geoff Johns came up with using the animated-style emblem, etc. To this day, Van Sciver isn’t happy with the way it turned out.

There’s a lot more in there — it is an hour and a half long — and it’s worth listening to if you have the time. There’s also a discussion at Comic Bloc that’s gotten into the writer/artist balance.

Related note: Daniel Way interviews EVS in connection with Cherry Capital Con.

Matty Collector is selling a set of Justice Guild figures, featuring the Justice Society stand-ins Green Guardsman (Green Lantern), The Streak (Flash), Black Siren (Black Canary) and Tom Turbine from the Justice League animated episode, “Legends” (via JSA Round Table).

Newsarama has pictures of DC Direct’s JLA Classified Series 3, featuring such classics as Professor Zoom (more or less; the design is sort of a hybrid between Eobard Thawne and Hunter Zolomon), Superman Red (not to be confused with Superman Blue), the Atom, and Hal Jordan (special extra-grumpy edition).

Techland has a first look at the DC Chronicles: The Flash statue. This series is “created to capture the original depictions of DC Comics’ most renowned heroes” according to the DC Direct website. So far they’ve announced Golden Age Superman, Golden Age Batman, Golden Age Wonder Woman, and Golden Age Aquaman. Naturally, the next statue is Silver Age Flash.

It’s a great statue of Barry Allen, but shouldn’t a line designed around the original versions of DC’s characters feature, well, the original version of the character?

The Source has released a list of DC collected books for fall 2010, including the second volume of The Flash Chronicles.

THE FLASH CHRONICLES VOL. 2 TP
Writer: John Broome
Artists: Carmine Infantino, Joe Giella, Murphy Anderson and others
Collects: THE FLASH #107-112
$14.99 US, 160 pg

DC has three series of books reprinting the Silver Age Flash starting from the beginning:

• Showcase Presents: The Flash – big, cheap black-and-white collections on newsprint, typically 500-600 pages for $20.
• The Flash Archives – hardcover, high-quality reprints on good paper, typically around 200 pages for around $50 (though you can usually find them for $30-35 online).
• The Flash Chronicles – typical trade paperback, around 160 pages for $15.

The Archives are up to 5 volumes and reprint issues through #141 (1963). Showcase Presents… is up to 3 volumes, reprinting through #161 (1966). This new volume will bring the Chronicles up to about halfway through The Flash Archives vol.2.

La La Land Records will release a 2-CD soundtrack from the 1990 Flash TV series at 3PM EST (noon PST) today. The show’s music was composed by Shirley Walker (who, in addition to her extensive film career, also did music for the 1990s Batman and Superman animated series).

Until now, the only music available from the show was the title theme composed by Danny Elfman, on Music for a Darkened Theatre, Vol. 2

The 2-disc set is a limited run of 3,000 and features music from the following episodes:

• Pilot
• Captain Cold
• The Trickster
• Watching the Detectives
• Ghost in the Machine
• Done with Mirrors
• Fast Forward
• Trial of the Trickster

You can read more, including a full track list, in this thread at Film Score Monthly.

Update: The album page is up with a full track list and free sample tracks (and the cover art, which I’ve copied here). Crimson Lightning talks about how the music enhanced the show.

(Thanks to Jeff Murphy for the info!)

Titans #22

On sale February 10 · 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US
Written by J.T. Krul
Art by Angel Unzueta & Wayne Faucher
Cover by Angel Unzueta

DC fans won’t want to miss this finale of the two-part “Fractured” story! As the remaining three members of the team are evicted from their New York City headquarters by General Lane, they wonder if there’s anywhere on Earth they can still call home. The answer will surprise you! This issue closes this chapter in the life of the classic Titans team and ushers in an exciting new era in JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA and March’s TITANS ANNUAL that’ll blow your mind!

JSA All-Stars #3

Written by Matthew Sturges – Co-feature written by Jen Van Meter; Art by Freddie Williams II

Co-feature art by Travis Moore and Dan Green Cover by Freddie Williams II
In “Constellations” part 2, the All-Stars are on the trail of the villains who’ve kidnapped one of their own while internal turmoil creates drama in the ranks! And after what went down in the JSA ANNUAL this month, it looks like Magog won’t be on the team much longer!

In the co-feature, Liberty Belle and Hourman trek to Venice alongside Icicle and Tigress in an amazing race to learn the secret of the ancient Staff of Legends!

Super Friends #24

On sale February 10 · 32 pg, FC, $2.50 US
Written by Sholly Fisch
Art and cover by J. Bone

It’s a super-science conference like none other when all the Mad Scientists gather together on Oolong Island to share their latest inventions — and to plot against the Super Friends!

All-Star Superman Vol.2 TP

Written by Grant Morrison
Art and cove by Frank Quitely

The New York Times bestseller from the team of writer Grant Morrison and artist Frank Quitely (BATMAN & ROBIN) is now in trade paperback!

In this follow-up to the award-winning ALL-STAR SUPERMAN VOL. 1, the Man of Steel goes toe-to-toe with Bizarro, his imperfect duplicate, and the new Zibaro, also from the Bizarro planet. Plus, more exciting adventures that take Superman across the universe and back in these tales from ALL-STAR SUPERMAN #7-12.

On sale February 10 · 160 pg, FC, $12.99 US

Note: During the Bizarro story, Superman meets Bizarro-Flash.

Some updates to Speed Force and Flash: Those Who Ride the Lightning:

Profiles

Wally West‘s entry now features his new costume. I’d been hoping to find a more complete image, but the debut splash page remains the most detailed view of the costume I’ve seen, even if he is missing an arm and a foot.

I’ve also updated the images of Barry Allen and Wally West on the main page and indexes. Next up: finding an appropriate image of Barry to update his profile.

Captain Boomerang, Sr. gets an update on his Bronze Age family status as I try to work my way through old emails (in this case from Omar Karindu, reminding me of a story in which we meet “Digger” Harkness’ father). I took the opportunity to do some minor rewrites as well.

The Rag Doll is mostly focused on the original Golden Age villain, but I’ve updated the profile with some new information on the next generation of Merkels from Secret Six (again, catching up on old email).

Growing Team

Finally, I’d like to welcome another new contributor to Speed Force: Devin “The Flash” Johnson, who will fill the gap in the site’s collectibles coverage!

Wow, this is just the week for DC speedsters over at WizKids, isn’t it? Today they unveiled two new figures from the Brave and the Bold expansion set: Kid Zoom and Inertia.

Yes, two different identities of Bart Allen’s dark twin, Thaddeus Thawne. And because Thad took on the Kid Zoom identity after training under Hunter Zolomon, the two figures actually have different powers. Head over to the article for more photos, plus the cards and dials.

(Thanks to Devin “The Flash” Johnson for the link!)

HeroClix is working on a Blackest Night starter set featuring the heroes and villains deputized in Blackest Night #6, and has been releasing photos and descriptions over at the WizKids Games blog. Today’s entry isn’t up yet…but ICv2 has the Blue Lantern Barry Allen figure.

I think this is the clearest depiction I’ve seen of Barry Allen’s Blue Lantern costume. The BN:Flash #3 cover comes close, but parts of the design are still obscured by lightning.

Click over to ICv2 for the description, card and dial.

The two-hour Absolute Justice airs tonight on the CW at 8:00 PM / 7:00 Central.