Long-time Speed Force readers may remember an April Fools’ prank I did with the Irredeemable Shag of Once Upon a Geek and Firestorm Fan, “revealing” that Geoff Johns and Ethan van Sciver’s next project after revamping the Flash would be Vibe: Rebirth.

Three years later, Vibe did indeed turn up in the background of DC’s Free Comic Book Day offering, and he’s been making appearances on the animated DC Nation.

Today, in a CBR interview with Geoff Johns & Jim Lee, there’s this bit of news that should make Scipio of The Absorbascon happy:

As for what underused character he’d like to explore next, the answer was simple.

“Vibe!” Johns replied with a laugh. “They told me you can’t make Booster Gold work, and we made it work; you can’t make Aquaman work, and we made it work. I want to find the B character who everyone says is a complete waste of time, and Vibe is — he’s recent, he’s Detroit League and I have a soft spot because I’m from Detroit, so he’s my next challenge.”

Yes, that’s right: Geoff Johns wants to revamp Vibe.

Now if he can just get Ethan van Sciver on board…

Vibe: Rebirth – For Real (sort of) is a post from Speed Force.

Of course, once a system like this is in place, we all know it’ll never be abused, right?

And that’s not even getting into the technical implications of the bills, which would put an extra burden on tech startups and actually undermine efforts by the US government itself to make the internet more secure.

████, the ████ ████ █████ ██████ the ████████ ██████ the US in the ████ of ████████ ██████ (█████ it ██████’t), isn’t ████ yet. In ████, it’s █████ to a ████ ████ ████.

(Cross-posted from K-Squared Ramblings)

Do you want the Internet to be Censored? is a post from Speed Force.

Technically it wasn’t a race, but for the record: We finished first!

More at my other blog.

Superman vs. the Flash, for Charity is a post from Speed Force.

A huge thank-you to Damon, Devin, Greg, Jesse and Lia for sponsoring me after my first post about the event. It’s coming up this Sunday in Santa Monica, California (near Los Angeles), and FAAN has other walks planned across the country.

You can help with any amount down to US $10. If you’d like to contribute, please donate at my fundraising page.

As I write this, I’m $250 away from the #10 spot on the top 10 list for the Los Angeles walk. Anyone want to help push me into the top 10?

Thank you!

When PBJ Can Kill — 2 Days Left to Raise Funds for Food Allergies is a post from Speed Force.

I’d like to thank Damon, Devin, Greg, and Jesse for sponsoring me. Your donations will make a huge difference, maybe not in my life, but certainly in the lives of people like me who have to deal with potentially lethal reactions to ordinary food day in and day out.

You can help with any amount down to US $10. If you’d like to contribute, please donate at my fundraising page.

And if you’d like to spread the word, that helps too. Please use this link: http://bit.ly/allergywalk

Thank you!

Please Sponsor Me in the Walk for Food Allergy Research & Education is a post from Speed Force.

I don’t talk about it much online, but I have food allergies. Some are severe, some moderate, and some mild, but the worst of them can send me to the emergency room (or worse) if I eat food with the wrong ingredients. It can be tricky at times, but I like to think I do a decent job of striking a balance between not getting myself killed and not hiding away in my house like a shut-in.

That means I carry emergency medication whenever I eat. I don’t go out for Thai food or visit restaurants that leave a basket of peanuts on the table to munch on while you wait. I check ingredients in the grocery store, and I ask the waiter about them when I order food. If I can’t eat one item on the menu, I look for another dish that I can.

Even so, sometimes something slips through, and when it’s a bad one, my throat closes up, making it hard to breathe. If I’m lucky, I take my medication and spend the next few hours anxiously waiting until it subsides, hoping that what I’ve taken was enough. If not, I have to inject myself with epinephrine and get someone to take me to the emergency room. Thankfully, it’s been years since I’ve had a reaction bad enough to send me to the hospital.

I’ve also got a ten-month-old son. I’d like to spare him from having to deal with all that, if I can. If I can’t, and he develops serious allergies like I have, I’d like to help smooth the path for him as he learns how to live with them — or, better yet, help find a cure.

So I’m participating in the FAAN Walk for Food Allergy to raise money for research and education, and I hope you’ll sponsor me.

Research Still Needed

Modern medicine understands how allergic reactions work, but we still don’t have a good handle on why some people have allergies and others don’t, or why some people react to one food and some react to another. And since the causes are so poorly understood, parenting advice is all over the map: Keep your house as clean as possible. No, keep it somewhat clean, but not too clean. Introduce risky foods early. Introduce them late.

So, raising money for research? Great idea!

Awareness and Education

If you’ve ever read the comments on an article about people with allergies — or worse, people with allergies who have the gall to leave the house and visit a restaurant once in a while — you know that there’s a lot of misinformation and just plain lack of consideration out there.

A lot of people don’t understand that food allergies can be serious. Some don’t even believe they’re real, just the actions of a bunch of hypochondriacs looking for attention. (It doesn’t help that there are people out there who do lie about having allergies because they’re afraid people won’t honor their preferences, which just convinces that group that they’re right.) Or they get hung up on whether a condition is an allergy, an intolerance, or some other condition.

And finally there are the people who get it…sort of. They understand that food allergies can be serious and life-threatening…then proclaim loudly that you have no business taking part in society, and should just stay at home all the time, and how dare you expect some sort of accommodation like making the cook use a separate spoon for the kung pao chicken and the beef with broccoli, you entitled jackass.

Yes, those people are out there. And very vocal. I’d like to change their minds.

Please Help

Please support my fundraising efforts with a donation. Your tax-deductible gift will make a difference in the lives of the estimated 12 million Americans with food allergies and their families. You can make your secure credit card donation by selecting the Support Me Button on my profile page for the walk.

Any amount helps me reach my fundraising goal. I greatly appreciate your support!

» Donate now!

Help Me Raise Funds for Food Allergy Research is a post from Speed Force.

Qwikster…why does that sound familiar?

Ah, right…The Quickster, speedster alter-ego of Spongebob Squarepants and parody of the DC Comics’ Flash and Marvel Comics’ Quicksilver.

He looks a bit more like a VHS tape than a DVD or Blu-Ray disc, don’t you think?

Netflix Becomes…the Quickster! is a post from Speed Force.

Halfway through DC’s New 52 debut month, here’s what I think of the comics I’ve tried so far.

Justice League #1

Looked at on its own, this wasn’t a Justice League story so much as it was a Batman/Green Lantern team-up. That’s OK for a team-up book, or the first chapter of a graphic novel, but not exactly ideal for a high-profile launch that’s billed as an introduction to the League (not to mention an introduction to the new setting for the DCU).

I’m going to call it now: just like Final Crisis, this first Justice League arc should have been presented from the beginning as a graphic novel, not as a serialized story. You only get one chance to make a first impression.

All that said, it really didn’t grab me at all, and I’m perfectly happy to step off the treadmill of the mainstream part of the DCU.

Stormwatch #1

In some ways this went to the opposite extreme of Justice League (or as opposite as it can be without telling a done-in-one story — which is still possible to do in modern comics). While it also presented the first chapter of a longer story, it made a point of introducing as much of the team as possible. On the downside, while Justice League at least spent a lot of time characterizing Batman and Green Lantern, Stormwatch touched only shallowly on everyone in the team (and no one’s really appealing yet). On the plus side, it clearly presented the story’s threat from the beginning, and it’s hard not to like the craziness of the moon turning evil.

I might give #2 a shot, but I haven’t decided for certain.

Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E. #1

My favorite of the bunch so far, this had the best balance of introducing the characters, concept, tone, and threat, all while telling the story. The Monster (who has taken his mad scientist creator’s name) gets the most attention here, as a sort of world-weary veteran who has seen two centuries’ worth of humanity’s mistakes and still wants to protect us in spite of ourselves. But we get to see glimmers of the Creature Commandos’ personalities as they go on their first mission together (and they’re not quite the same as their Flashpoint counterparts).

There are wild and crazy ideas aplenty in the setup, from Father Time regenerating (Doctor-Who-style) as a masked Japanese schoolgirl to the secret headquarters being miniaturized using Ray Palmer’s technology to the whole place being run by automatons that, their creator assures Frankenstein, can’t possibly rebel.

The issue also got me thinking about genre, and the difference between a horror story and a monster story. Cliff Chiang described Wonder Woman as a horror book because she’s fighting mythological monsters. Jeff Lemire described Frankenstein as a sci-fi action adventure book. What’s different, I think, is that the mad scientist angle looks like it’s going to be a major factor in this, in which case that may end up being what makes the book stand apart from Hellboy and B.P.R.D. (That, and the fact that the agents are inspired by classic movie monsters.)

Demon Knights #1

I liked this one, but I wanted to like it more than I actually did. I think in part it’s that I was fighting too many preconceptions, particularly regarding Madame Xanadu. As a fan of her Vertigo series, the characterization seemed a bit off, and when I think about it, that’s true of Etrigan, Vandal Savage, and Shining Knight as well…but it is a new continuity, and there are whole centuries of their lives that haven’t been covered.

Also, there’s a scene early on that introduces the Questing Queen and Mordru that is just plain creepy in a way that may have put me off of the rest of the book.

Basic setup: It’s the dark ages, a few hundred years after the fall of Camelot, and a conquering army attacks the town where the main characters have all stopped to have a quiet drink in the tavern. Of the leads, Etrigan and Madame Xanadu get the most attention, with sparse, mostly one-note introductions for Vandal Savage, Shining Knight, and new(?) characters Al Jabr and Exoristos. It was still better balanced than Stormwatch (also by Cornell).

A couple of things that stand out: I like the idea that DC’s various immortal characters would get to know each other over the years, and that when they meet, they reminisce about old times. The banter was good. And the queen’s “dragons” are sort of the prehistoric equivalent of sharks with fricking lasers.

Coming Up

I haven’t had a chance to read Resurrection Man yet, since the shop didn’t get enough copies to cover pre-orders. (I’m on the special order list already, so I’m waiting for that instead of buying it digitally). After that, it’s Justice League Dark and (big surprise, I know) The Flash.

Quick Hits on the New 52: Demon Knights, Stormwatch, Justice League and Frankenstein is a post from Speed Force.

This doesn’t apply to “A new post is up!” notifications – IMO those should always go up immediately. I’m thinking more along the lines of a minipost that can fit in a Facebook status, or links to other sites, or links back to older posts that have become relevant again. Stuff that’s not time-critical. [Edited to clarify.]

Also, assume the cross-post is properly tailored for each network, so you don’t have #hashtags on the Facebook post, the Twitter post doesn’t link to a Facebook status, links on Google+ and Facebook have previews, etc.

Thanks!

Quick Cross-Posting Question is a post from Speed Force.

For the past decade, Phil & Kaja Foglio have been spinning the mad science/gaslamp fantasy adventures of Agatha Heterodyne in the award-winning comic book-turned-webcomic Girl Genius. Now they’ve stepped into a new medium, adapting the first story into a prose novel: Agatha H. and the Airship City.

The Industrial Revolution has escalated into all-out warfare. It has been sixteen years since the Heterodyne Boys, benevolent adventurers and inventors, disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Today, Europe is ruled by the Sparks, dynasties of mad scientists ruling over – and terrorizing – the hapless population with their bizarre inventions and unchecked power, while the downtrodden dream of the Hetrodynes’ return. At Transylvania Polygnostic University, a pretty, young student named Agatha Clay seems to have nothing but bad luck. Incapable of building anything that actually works, but dedicated to her studies, Agatha seems destined for a lackluster career as a minor lab assistant. But when the University is overthrown by the ruthless tyrant Baron Klaus Wulfenbach, Agatha finds herself a prisoner aboard his massive airship Castle Wulfenbach – and it begins to look like she might carry a spark of Mad Science after all.

The comics are great fun, and I’m really looking forward to seeing how they’ve filled in the details in the novel version!

Cross-posted from K-Squared Ramblings.

(Mad) Scientific Fact: The Girl Genius Novel is Out! is a post from Speed Force.