One of the things I wanted to do this weekend was finish going through the brief Adventure Comics run of The Flash (more about that tomorrow). In the process I decided I just had to write up the sheer weirdness that is Urtumi the Image Eater.
I also started tracking the variant covers from the new ongoing Flash series.
Well, I’d hoped to get more done this weekend, but other stuff has kept me busy…and now the Lost finale awaits!
I’ve always been annoyed by the phrase “mental telepathy.” It’s just redundant, like “big giant” or “fast speedster.” Is there any such thing as non-mental telepathy?
So it was nice to see someone taken to task in this panel from a Flash story in Adventure Comics #459…all the way back in 1978!
The characters pictured are two of Barry Allen’s high school classmates at their fifteen-year reunion. The woman, Rachel has just picked up that one of their classmates is the Flash.
Hijinks ensue.
Comics Should Be Good has posted the results of their reader poll for the Greatest Wally West stories ever told. It’s technically a top ten list, but they included eleven stories because the #10 winner was essentially a prologue for one of the other winners.
It’s interesting to break down the results by writer:
In a way it’s surprising that Geoff Johns, DC’s current superstar writer, isn’t more heavily represented, but it also makes sense. Mark Waid’s run on The Flash was very much about Wally West and his journey through young adulthood (Messner-Loebs’ run even more so!), while Geoff Johns’ run tilted a bit more toward the Rogues.
Head over to Comics Should Be Good for the full list!
This Is True is a weekly newsletter rounding up weird news from around the world, summarized with witty comments by Randy Cassingham. It’s usually funny, sometimes sad, sometimes infuriating — but it always makes you think.
I’ve been a subscriber for years, and highly recommend it. One of the things I like about it is that he makes more effort to verify the stories than the typical “odd news” wire service that simply repeats something printed in a distant newspaper without realizing that it’s the local equivalent of the National Enquirer or Weekly World News.
Anyway, I could keep talking it up, or I could show you an example story using the True-a-Day service:
Cassingham also links to interesting news items on Twitter and on Facebook, though not the same articles as in the newsletter.
Coming next week DC Direct’s vinyl designer action figure series, UNI-FORMZ will be releasing their fourth wave featuring The Fastest Man Alive. The Flash’s Classic Look featuring the iconic red and yellow costume with Barry’s straight across belt will be joined by two variants; Professor Zoom (Eobard Thawne) and the Black Flash. These variants will be produced in far lower quantities than the classic Flash look:
Solicits after the jump
Fellow Flash blog Crimson Lightning has been putting the sinister sorcerer Abra Kadabra at center stage for the last few weeks, including a Rogue Spotlight, classic covers, video from Brave and the Bold, and even thematic sound effects…and what maniacal villain would be complete without “Ha ha ha!”
So head over to Crimson Lightning and let the magic begin!
I had an odd thought while reading The Flash #2* last week. Francis Manapul draws Barry and Iris in a way that makes them look fairly young, and I remembered someone’s remark that the cowl on Wally West’s new costume makes him look older than Barry, even though Wally used to be Barry’s younger sidekick.
Then it hit me: No, Wally isn’t older than Barry Allen (even with time travel) but when you factor in his earlier Kid Flash career, he actually has more experience than Barry at this point!
Wally West became Kid Flash very early in Barry Allen’s Flash career — only six issues into his solo series! Flash vol.1 started with #105, picking up from where the Golden Age Flash Comics left off, and Wally was struck by lightning in Flash #110, back in 1959. He didn’t retire as Kid Flash until very late in Barry’s career, in New Teen Titans #39 — just one year before Barry vanished in 1985.**
So Wally West has been running around for most of Barry’s career plus his own!
During his JLA run, Grant Morrison is one of the few writers I can remember really building on the fact that the original Titans grew up as super-heroes. I don’t recall it being a plot point, but Morrison mentioned it in an interview, or possibly one of the Secret Files books, and it clearly factored into his characterization of Wally West. He might not have been as old as Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, but he’d been working with a team longer than they had, and he was a consummate professional.
Wally wasn’t the rookie on the team by any stretch. That honor went to Green Lantern Kyle Rayner.
Of course, neither Wally nor Barry can hold a candle to Jay Garrick, who has been speeding since 1940!
*Yes, I do still plan on reviewing it. It was just a busy week, and for some reason, it’s been hard to sit down and write it.
**These are of course the real-world publishing dates. The fictional DC Universe would use a vague “X years ago” timeline that always seems to change, but usually compresses everything from the dawn of the Silver Age onward into a 10-15–year period.
Comics Alliance has posted a Periodic Table of Super-Powers, detailing not just powers but origins as well.
Click through to the original article, where they link to a full-sized table that you can actually read.
Let’s see if we can come up with the “chemical” formula for the Flashes:
Jay Garrick:
SpInTScCh
Speed, Intangibility, Time Travel; Scientist struck by Chemicals
Barry Allen:
SpInTDcScCh
Speed, Intangibility, Time Travel, Detective; Scientist struck by Chemicals
Wally West:
SpInTChSkLg
Speed, Intangibility (sometimes), Time Travel; Chemicals, former Sidekick, Legacy hero
Bart Allen:
SpInTXTlLg
Speed, Intangibility, Time Travel; Mutant (closest I could come up with to inherited powers), Time-lost, Legacy hero.
Arguably you could include H=healing (super-metabolism) & Is=invisibility (they can move too fast to be seen), or Sn=super-senses (seeing things more quickly, or moving so fast that radiation is red– or blue-shifted into the visible spectrum), etc.
Who wants to try the Rogues?
Writer Cary Bates is responsible for the entire Bronze Age of the Flash, but has been missing from the DC Universe since the early 1990s. This August he returns with Superman: The Last Family of Krypton, a 3-issue Elseworlds miniseries (remember those?) about what might have happened if Jor-El and Lara had escaped Krypton along with their infant son Kal-El, and the whole family had arrived on Earth. Renato Arlem handles the art, with covers by Felipe Massafera.
This Elseworlds project, one of very few in recent years, has been in the works almost as long as Bates’ first foray into comics after a decades-long absence, the 2008 Marvel miniseries True Believers. Dan Didio mentioned it at Wizard World Chicago that same year!
DC’s August Solicitiations are out, and as usual they include advance news on upcoming collections as well. The Flash Chronicles Volume 2, informally announced back in February, now has an official release date of September 29.
Written by JOHN BROOME • Art by CARMINE INFANTINO, JOE GIELLA, FRANK GIACOIA & MURPHY ANDERSON
Cover by CARMINE INFANTINO & MURPHY ANDERSON
In this second volume, Barry Allen’s rogues gallery expands with the addition of Gorilla Grodd, the Mirror Master and the Weather Wizard, plus the debuts of Kid Flash and the Elongated Man! Collecting THE FLASH #107-112.
On sale SEPTEMBER 29 • 160 pg, FC, $14.99 US
According to the solicitation, this is not the final cover.
Back to August, in addition to Flash #5 and the usual Justice League (now with Jesse Quick), Justice Society (Jay Garrick) and Teen Titans (Bart Allen) books, DC Universe: Legacies catches up to the original Teen Titans (Wally West).
