IGN has a preview of next week’s Flash #5.
Written by FRANCIS MANAPUL and BRIAN BUCCELLATO; Art and cover by FRANCIS MANAPUL; Variant cover by GARY FRANK; 1:200 B&W Variant cover by FRANCIS MANAPUL
Central City in chaos! Iris West captive in Iron Heights prison! And as Flash tries to deal with all of it, he must also try to save the life of his old friend Manuel Lago from Mob Rule, DC Comics’ hottest new Super Villain!
DC Universe 32pg. Color $2.99 US
On Sale January 25, 2012
THE FLASH #8
Written by FRANCIS MANAPUL and BRIAN BUCCELLATO
Art by FRANCIS MANAPUL
Variant cover by KENNETH ROCAFORT
1:200 B&W Variant cover by FRANCIS MANAPUL
On sale APRIL 25 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T
The Flash gets pulled into the Speed Force that gives him his super-speed powers…and he learns he’s not alone in there! Introducing Turbine, a prisoner of the Speed Force who just wants out – even if it means trading places with The Flash!
DC’s April Justice League solicitations are up at The Source. Full solicitations including upcoming collections will be forthcoming.
Weekend linkblogging. First the Flashy stuff…
More comics stuff…
Last week we reported that Flash #4 ranked #8 for the month of December. ICV2 has released its December sales estimates, figuring that the comic sold 77,336 copies. Despite the slight climb in rank, that’s a 14.5% drop from previous issue. Not as big as the the drop from #2 to #3, but still big. And it’s a whopping 40% drop from #1. On the plus side, it’s still above any issue of vol.3 after the first, and above the 55K threshold I pulled out of thin air last year.
What does it mean?
To be honest, I have no idea. The New 52 was an unprecedented event, with all of DC’s books seeing a sales spike. The drop is big, sure, but the numbers are still high, and the ranking is phenomenal for the Flash. Is this just a reflection of the overall market re-adjusting after DC’s line-wide sales spike a few months ago? Is DC worried about The Flash dropping faster than other top-tier titles, or are they glad it’s not dropping as quickly as the lower tier? Obviously they’re not too concerned, because they haven’t changed the creative team — something DC hasn’t shied away from in the short time since the launch.
The more I report on sales figures, the less I understand the implications. And that’s assuming the numbers are consistent enough to analyze to begin with.
| Issue | Rank | Month | Units Sold | % Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Flash vol.4 | ||||
| Flash v.4 #1 | 4 | September 2011 | 129,260 | |
| Flash v.4 #2 | 5 | October 2011 | 114,137 | -11.7% |
| Flash v.4 #3 | 9 | November 2011 | 90,417 | -20.8% |
| Flash v.4 #4 | 8 | December 2011 | 77,336 | -14.5% |
A few key articles covering past sales (with lots of numbers):
*What these numbers measure: US-only sales, wholesale from Diamond to comics retailers. They don’t count sales through bookstores, they don’t count international sales, and they don’t count how many copies were actually bought and read…but they do measure the same thing every month, which means they can be used to spot trends.
DC has announced the second wave of the New 52, with more details at USA Today. They’ll be adding six new series in May, and dropping six after #8 to keep the total at 52. Update: CBR interviews Bob Harras about the focus of the new books.
First off, I don’t think keeping it at 52 is a great idea, because the first time they change their line-up to feature 51 books, or 52, or anything else, people will read way too much into it.
Anyway, the canceled books:
And the new books, after the cut. Read the rest of this entry »
It’s easy for us as fans to look at a character concept and decide that it’s too complicated for new readers. But that’s because we’re fans, and as fans, we like to include every detail instead of focusing on the most critical ones needed to bring someone up to speed. (And it’s not just comics fans, either. I once asked a family friend what Les Miserables was about, and she spent at least twenty minutes describing the plot of the three-hour stage version. And consider this tribute to “excrutiatingly detailed” movie plot summaries on Wikipedia.) I don’t know if it’s our attention to detail, or our love of storytelling, but it’s just so easy to pile things on that a new reader doesn’t really need to worry about until a story warrants it.
You can make a lot of these “complicated” origins awfully simple. Even Wally West.
And yes, even Bart Allen.
Read the original article to see how.
Previously available in hardcover, the first (and IMO better) half of Geoff Johns’ post-Rebirth run on The Flash is now available as a trade paperback.
Written by GEOFF JOHNS; Art by FRANCIS MANAPUL and SCOTT KOLINS; Cover by FRANCIS MANAPUL
The Fastest Man Alive must solve the murder of one of his greatest foes and protect his other foes from an elusive killer in this title collection THE FLASH #1–6 7 and THE FLASH SECRET FILES 2010!
Racing out of BLACKEST NIGHT, The Flash returns to his life in Central City – but when one of his Rogues Gallery of foes turns up murdered under mysterious circumstances, it’s up to The Fastest Man Alive to solve this bizarre crime and protect those who are targeted by the killer.
DC Universe 228pg. Color Softcover $14.99 US
An odd note: The hardcover also included The Flash #7, the Captain Boomerang one-shot. Usually DC tends to collect the same material in the hardcover and softcover releases, but it wouldn’t surprise me at all to see that the inevitable softcover of The Road to Flashpoint starts with #7 instead of #8.
It also wouldn’t surprise me if this is a copy-paste misprint, and this book does include #7, since the solicitation text for the hardcover also listed only Flash #1-6. Update: It’s a misprint, as Jason points out in the comments.
Yesterday afternoon the Skelanimals Facebook page announced that they would be joining forces with DC Comics to bring us Skelanimals based on our favorite DC super heroes. Now you can have your very own Flash Skelanimal:
A while back I examined my comic book buying patterns by deciding which books I would buy if I could only buy three comics. It’s one thing to name books you’re ready to drop, or to name your favorites. Looking at it in terms of what you’d keep if that was all you could get really forces you to evaluate. It’s also helpful for ranking if, after you pick your top three, you expand it to four, then five, then six, etc.
I asked the question again last year, and found that things had changed a bit (though that was partly because two of my top three comics had been canceled). With the new year, and with the first round of New 52 stories reaching their conclusions, I thought this was a good time to pick up the question again.
So if I could only buy three comics, they would be…
What DC books missed the cut?
Welcome to the latest installment in our annotations of the collected edition of The Trial of the Flash! We analyzed related stories leading up to the summer 2011 release of Showcase Presents: The Trial of the Flash. In addition, we interviewed author Cary Bates about the buildup and the Trial itself, plus showed you what wasn’t included in the collection.
Links to artwork and research are included throughout this post. For legal analysis of the story by Bob Ingersoll, go here. For this issue’s corresponding Tom vs. The Flash podcast, go here!
Welcome to SpeedForce.org, a blog focusing on DC Comics' super-hero, The Flash. It's a companion site to Flash: Those Who Ride the Lightning, a fan reference site for the Fastest Man Alive.
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