April 25, 2011
Thanks to everyone who participated in the second week of our “Where Was Wally West?” contest here at Speed Force!
We posted a panel from a classic Flash comic, featuring Wally West in an alternate reality, the past or a “possible future”. Correct answers were put into a raffle, and a winner was drawn at random. To refresh your memory, here is the latest subject:
From the Speed Force itself comes the enigmatic Box of Speed! Its contents: unknown! Its answers: both mystical and binding!
…and the winner is…
Congrats to Steve! This week’s answer was Flash, vol.2, #68: “Beat the Clock,” panel by Greg LaRocque (Flash legend, upcoming Flash: RetroActive artist, friend of the site) & Jose Marzan, Jr., story by Mark Waid. In that story, Wally took on the Central Clockworks that governed society in Abra Kadabra’s home era. Steve wins a copy of The Return of Barry Allen trade paperback!
Check back here on Wednesday for the next installment in WWWW!
DC has announced that Greg LaRocque will be joining writer William Messner-Loebs for DC Retroactive: The Flash 1980s in August. This is the second of three *ahem* flashback one-shots bringing back classic creative teams to tell “lost tales” set during their original 1970s, 1980s and 1990s runs. Each issue features a new 26-page lead story and a reprint from the writer’s original run.
DC RETROACTIVE: THE FLASH – THE ’80s #1
The ’80s were a decade that forever changed the Scarlet Speedster. Now telling a new story from that era will be the creative team of artist Greg LaRouque and writer William Messner-Loebs.
ONE-SHOT • On sale AUGUST 3 • 56 pg, FC, $4.99 US • RATED T
Yes! I was hoping they’d get Greg LaRocque back for this! Starting in 1988, LaRocque drew the Flash for Messner-Loebs’ entire 4-year run on the Wally West series, and several years of Mark Waid’s, finishing with the classic, The Return of Barry Allen.
The July 1970s Flash special by Cary Bates was announced earlier this month, and we can expect more details on Brian Augustyn’s 1990s special in a few weeks.
Meanwhile, check out The Source to read about the other 1980s specials focusing on Superman, Wonder Woman, etc.
Flash (and other speedster) linkblogging…
General comics stuff…
April 23, 2011
DC posted more of its Flashpoint writers Q&A on Friday, including Citizen Cold writer/artist Scott Kolins and Grodd of War writer Sean Ryan.
Ryan says of Grodd of War:
Since my one-shot is about one of Flash’s greatest villains, Grodd, the conflict is what does Grodd do without his archenemy. He gets everything he’s ever wanted, but there’s no more challenges in his life. He’s got everything he wants, but he’s miserable.
When asked about his favorite Flashpoint character and a “surprise” character who “will have fans talking,” Kolins says:
I am having so much fun with Cold. Geoff and I have talked many times about how great it would be for Cold to have his own monthly series. Surprise character? Flash fans will be very interested in a mysterious masked character who plays a crucial part in the story.
As for personal stories, “It doesn’t get more personal than CITIZEN COLD. Can a hero with a bad secret fall in love?”
Check out part one, part two and part three from last week, including Scott Kolins’ Flashpoint Rogues, and go onto part four of the interview.
April 21, 2011
Newsarama has a 5-page preview of Velocity #4, the conclusion to the miniseries focusing on Top Cow’s premiere speedster. It may come as a bit of a surprise to those who have been reading the book, but it doesn’t quite spoil the cliffhanger from the previous issue.
Velocity #4
story: Ron Marz
art & cover: Kenneth Rocafort
The Pilot Season Winner is Back!
The clock counts down to zero as the taut, pulse pounding series races to its conclusion. Carin Taylor, the hero known as Velocity, has been infected with a deadly techno-virus. Thus far she has been successful in saving most of her teammates from the same virus, but now the exertion is taking its toil and the fastest girl in the world may not be able to win this race. The issue concludes the creative collaboration of writer Ron Marz (Witchblade, Angelus) and artist Kenneth Rocafort (Cyberforce/Hunter-Killer).
Full Color 32 pages $3.99 limited series
According to Diamond, Velocity #4 ships next week.
We’re back with the latest entry in our series of Flash breakdowns. This week’s focus is issue #274, the last chapter on the way to the momentous issue #275! Links to additional artwork and research are included throughout this post.
UP TO SPEED: Last week, Flash attempted to unravel the mysterious appearance of a psychic female fan, while dealing with an internal drug smuggling operation at the Central City Police Department in his civilian guise. Iris continued to reach for Barry’s attention, but lost out to a massive prison riot spurred by the controversial Nephron Project!
Read the rest of this entry »
April 20, 2011
It is convention season, and Flash fans across the country have been asking the same question: “Where is Wally West?”
While we do not know where Wally is now, where he will be, or how long it will be until he is anywhere, we certainly know where he was! With that knowledge, we introduce our new ongoing contest feature, “Where Was Wally West?”
On Wednesdays, we will post a panel or sequence from a classic comic featuring Wally West visiting an alternate reality, the past or a “possible future”. Every fan who can tell us the issue, writer, artist(s) and a reasonable description of the locale/era, by Friday, will be entered into a raffle for a cool Flash prize! Just send your responses to this email address, and we’ll announce the winner next week!
So check out the image below and ask yourself, WWWW?
This week’s prize is a copy of the Return of Barry Allen trade paperback by Mark Waid and Greg LaRocque!
Following up on the retailer perspective, here’s what DC wants the reader perspective to be:
I’ve always been kind of ambivalent about this sort of thing. On one hand, it’s nice to have a complete list. On the other, calling it a checklist does sort of imply that you should be getting everything. And while I’m sure the publishers would be thrilled if we all did that, it’s just not feasible for most of us. And I’m sure most DC Comics fans don’t want to read all of these books, just like they don’t want to read every comic that DC publishes.
I’ll give Geoff Johns props for stating up front that it’s a central story with a lot of side stories, and that you only need to read the main miniseries to get a complete story. That’s much better than, for instance, The OMAC Project, where the most important event in the book — the one that continues to have repercussions to this day — happened between two issues of the miniseries, in another comic book.
But it’s still a struggle between the creative team saying, “Read what you want, and I hope you’ll want to read a lot of it,” and the marketing department saying, “Read it all!”
At least it’s not presented as an actual checklist (as these often are), or worse: an ordered list that implies that you have to read the books –all of them — in a particular order to understand what’s going on.
April 19, 2011
Earlier this month Mattel announced through their Facebook page that they would only be releasing two of the eight JLU 3-packs initially announced, and that based on the performance of those two sets they may release the others down the line.
To that end, some users from the Action Figure Insider Forums banded together in an attempt to try and get these last six 3-packs released.
First they started a Save The JLU Facebook Page and then a Twitter page, which Mattel themselves actually now follow. You can show your support by also liking the JLU page and following them on Twitter.
Several fans have even began making promotional materials for the cause. The first two were made by a user named Christhorne and the last one by a user named uberfriend:
Great work by both of these guys! I wish them lots of luck in their campaign (especially since I need that Vandal Savage in my collection). I’m going to be buying two sets of the Golden Age set from Matty and I encourage all that want to see the rest of these releases to do the same. I just hope I don’t have any issues with their site or they sell out before I get a chance to jump on them. I think the fact that these are actually desirable characters (not Parademons) will do a lot for the sales. Even though Jay had never been on the show, I was still holding my breath for him after the release of Barry. I have no real use for Alan or Carter and I definitely don’t need two of them. Maybe we’ll be giving one of the packs away as a contest prize in the near future. You never know…
Speaking of which, congrats to the Winner of this week’s “Where Was Wally?” Contest and thanks to everyone who sent in answers! The next contest begins tomorrow, so dust off those back issues and get to work finding out “Where Was Wally?”.
Thanks for reading,
-Devin “Flash” Johnson
