Speed Force

According to Diamond/Previews’ shipping updates, Flash #4 has been pushed back one week from July 28 to August 4. (Hat tip to Jay75 on Comic Bloc)

In the discussion on Comic Bloc, trmnlvlctyyy pointed out that Francis Manapul has been traveling a lot filming a TV show, which probably interferes with his time to work on the art.

On the other hand…how many comics is Geoff Johns writing these days? Add in the fact that Brightest Day is biweekly and has to be a priority, and he’s got that new job wrangling all of DC’s media adaptations, and you’ve got to wonder just where we should be pointing the finger.

Flash #3 is still scheduled to arrive in stores next Wednesday, as can be seen on Diamond’s upcoming releases list.

This photo by spatula108 got me thinking: I’ve seen several women dressed as the Flash at conventions, and two or three as Liberty Belle…but I can’t think of a single Jesse Quick cosplayer.

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A couple of weeks ago, CBR previewed Icons, an upcoming book featuring Jim Lee’s WildStorm and DC Comics art. It got me thinking: Has Jim Lee ever drawn the Flash?

I posed the question on Twitter and Facebook. @Pogophile and Joe Dy came up with the cover of the “Joker’s Last Laugh” issue of The Flash:

I did some searching around the Grand Comics Database when I looked up the Flash v.2 #179 cover, and didn’t find anything obvious. Several people suggested that the Flash may have appeared in Superman: For Tomorrow.

Then of course there are his designs for DC Universe Online.

It’s entirely possible that this is the only published Jim Lee art focusing on the Flash!

Big news: DC Comics has launched a digital comics program, starting with the iPad/iPhone and the Playstation network.

And by launched, I mean launched. As in, you can download the app and buy comics right now.

I’m really looking forward to the day when they expand this to more platforms (desktop PCs, Android and Windows–based tablets, etc) and start reaching into their back catalog. I’ve griped about the lack of Golden Age Flash reprints before, and the Bronze Age is also virtually invisible in reprints (though at least with comics from the 1970s and 1980s, you can usually find the back-issues at a reasonable price).

I haven’t had time to read all the interviews, but I’ll definitely be reading them tonight:

• Comics Alliance Interviews Jim Lee
• CBR interviews Jim Lee and John Rood
• Newsarama interviews Jim Lee and John Rood

With Jim Lee so heavily involved in this project, I can’t help but think of a moment at WonderCon this year. Saturday was the day of the iPad launch, and the Apple Store in San Francisco is just a few blocks from the convention center. Jim Lee was conspicuously missing from the DC Editorial panel. He showed up partway through the panel and stood in the Q&A line, where he planted a few questions…and then pulled out the brand-new iPad that he had stood in line for that morning!

Sadly, judging by ComiXology’s new releases, DC hasn’t brought Flash to the iPad just yet. But I’m sure it’s only a matter of time.

Update: Comics Alliance has another article I won’t have time to read just yet, on why this is a big deal.

Cross-posted at K-Squared Ramblings

Flash Week continues at Collected Editions with my guest review of Flash: The Human Race. The trade covers the second half of the year-long Grant Morrison/Mark Millar run: The Flash must run in a cosmic race or else the Earth will be destroyed, but even afterward, death comes for him in the form of the Black Flash. Finally, rounding out Grant Morrison’s Flash solo stories is a short from Secret Origins which retells the classic “Flash of Two Worlds” in modern Post-Crisis continuity.

• Read the review at Collected Editions.
• Order the book from Amazon.

The Hero Initiative has announced that long-time Flash Writer Mark Waid has joined its Board of Directors. Waid will take the place of director Guillermo del Toro on the Executive/Fundraising Board.

Among Flash fans, Waid is best known for writing the Wally West series through most of the 1990s. Some of his more notable contributions to the mythos include the speed force, centering the book on the Wally/Linda relationship, co-creating Impulse, more-or-less creating Max Mercury based on the golden-age Quicksilver, and generally building up the Flash Family of characters.

The Hero Initiative is dedicated to helping comics creators in need. You can read more about their mission at www.heroinitiative.org.

Flash Week continues at Collected Editions with my guest review of Flash: Emergency Stop. The trade covers the first half of the year-long Grant Morrison/Mark Millar run with art by Paul Ryan and covers four stories:

• Emergency Stop (Flash vs. the Suit)
• Through the Looking Glass (Flash vs. Mirror Master)
• Still Life in the Fast Lane (a focus on Jay Garrick)
• Three of a Kind: Part Three (a courtroom drama dealing with the aftermath of a Flash/Green Lantern/Green Arrow team-up)

Read the review at Collected Editions, or order the book at Amazon.

DC has posted a 5-page preview of next week’s The Flash #3.

It may be BRIGHTEST DAY, but when a mysterious group of so-called heroes turns up, another Rogue ends up dead. Plus, the mystery deepens as The Flash witnesses another murder — his own!

The preview picks up the Brightest Day angle and focuses on Captain Boomerang. “Digger” Harkness discovers that he’s a bit…different now that he’s back from the dead. It’s an interesting development, but if what’s seen here can be taken at face value, I’m not sure it’s necessary. It seems like a second attempt (after Owen’s super-speed) to give a villain who throws weaponized boomerangs an extra edge. It’s an odd choice for Geoff Johns, who managed to revitalize the rest of the Rogues simply by taking them seriously.

The Flash #3 arrives in stores next week, on June 30.

Update: I’ve added this issue to my gallery of Dead Flash Covers!

ICv2′s top 300 comics for May are up, and The Flash #2 is ranked #12 with an estimated 76,560 copies sold.

Here’s the round-up of how Flash vol.3 compares to other recent Flash relaunches.

That’s…steeper than I expected. Not as bad as the plunge from Flash: The Fastest Man Alive #1 to #2, but it’s bigger than the drop on between the first two issues of “The Wild Wests.” And it’s a lot steeper than the second-issue drop on Rebirth.

These are, of course, based on retailers’ orders, so it’s not a reflection of actual readers’ purchases, but how retailers anticipated those purchases. After the last several relaunches failed to catch on, perhaps we can forgive them for being skeptical.

The real test, as always, will be to see how orders for issue #4 and on hold up. With three months’ lead time, that’s the first issue on which stores will have placed orders after seeing how well the actual book sold.

Update: The Beat has posted a detailed analysis of DC’s May sales and seems to think these numbers are average.

The Collected Editions blog has just started Flash Week, a whole week of reviews of Flash trade paperbacks and hardcovers, leading up to a review of Flash: Rebirth. First up: a review of The Return of Barry Allen.

Along the way, I’ll be contributing a couple of guest reviews covering the Grant Morrison/Mark Millar collections, Emergency Stop and The Human Race.

Collected Editions is a great site for news about upcoming DC Comics (and sometimes other) collections as well as reviews. The site also maintains the DC Trade Paperback Timeline. Last year they put together a Top Flash Trade Paperbacks list.