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.

Hey Speed Readers,

About a month ago DC Entertainment (formerly known as DC Comics) announced that they would they be rechristening their collectible products line, previously known as DC Direct, with a new brand dubbed DC Collectibles. Not only that but they pledged to make it easier for those without a Local Comic Shop (like I) to purchase their entire products line via their own e-commerce online shop known as ShopDCEntertainment.com. The site is finally live!

The new site will not only allow you to browse and purchase the entire DC Collectibles product line but it will also let you know what comic shops nearby carry want you want if you would still prefer to support brick and mortar comic book shops (Speed Force knows they need it). The line was previously only available in comic shops or through dealers online, who often found it necessary to add a bit of a mark-up to certain products due to their relative exclusivity and in the name of the almighty dollar. This news levels the playing field by a huge margin for fans like myself who have been hosed a few times over the years when it comes to DC Direct products. As I’ve mentioned before my local comic shop closed back in 2007 or 2008 and I haven’t had one close to me in quite a while. Due to that I’ve switched to shopping online about 97 percent of the time. Unfortunately I’ve had to pay not only some outrageous base prices but also crazy shipping prices as well. With the new system in place customers in the continental U.S. will only be paying at the most a 5 dollar flat free for ground shipping and 10 dollars for 2-day shipping if you desire it instead. On top of that any orders over 50 dollars will be eligible for free shipping. The prices for Canadian and International shipping aren’t super awesome but what I’ve seen they aren’t super terrible either.

Not only are the shipping prices a million times better but it seems as if we are going to have access to a bevy of other non-DC Collectibles product. Inputting “Flash” in the search function brings up about 30 different Flash-related items with a number of them on sale, including the terrific 1990-91 TV series on DVD for the low, low price of $10.99 usd marked down from $47.99! You can also find t-shirts, action figure sets from Mattel, statues and jewelry.

Of course the biggest deal for Flash collectors will be the DC Entertainment Shop’s exclusive Flashpoint Box Set featuring the incredibly hard to find (comparatively), and expensive Flashpoint Barry Allen released earlier this year. The set also includes  Wonder Woman and Batman from Flashpoint Series 1 along with an exclusive Emperor Aquaman (which fans are actually calling out as a gyp since it is merely a repaint and doesn’t really resemble the Flashpoint Aquaman from the story, much) and a exclusive $500 poker chip from Wayne Casinos (don’t ask):

Funny thing, I was curious about just what differences we would see in pricing from ShopDCEntertainment compared to oh I don’t know evilBay and wow; I found more than a couple dealers who were selling the set for almost twice the price of the MSRP! Fortunately ShopDCEntertainment has the set at $59.99 usd with free shipping on top of that; take that scalpers!

One more awesome thing about the new shop; In the past like many others I have experienced a few quality control issues with a few figures that I’ve purchased. I haven’t experienced anything too terrible on a consistent basis but I’ve heard horror stories about limbs snapping right out of the package, warped parts, and stuck joints. Unfortunately unless you were dealing with a really cool seller you were stuck with the figure and had to purchase a replacement through your own means and even if you were able to negotiate a deal to get a replacement you would usually have to pay to ship the other figure back. Now ShopDCEntertainment gives us a chance to shop without worries; they offer returns on all items within 30 days and in the case of a defective, damaged or incorrect item you won’t even have to pay for shipping. Great news for collectors!

I’m still mulling over whether I’m going to pick the exclusive set up or not. I already have the Flashpoint Flash figure and it wasn’t even that awesome the first time around. I guess it would be cool to commemorate the first Flash-centric company-wide crossover and the death of everything I knew and loved so who knows? I just think it is a little pricey for a figure that I already have and three I have no use for.

Do any of you guys plan on picking up the Flashpoint Exclusive Set? What do you all think of the new, revamped site and brand so far? Please let us know in the comments below.

Thanks for reading,

-Devin ‘Flash’ Johnson

ShopDCEntertainment.com Finally Live! Plus Exclusive Flashpoint Box Set Available is a post from Speed Force.

As Devin reported last week, the Flash, Captain Cold and Gorilla Grodd will appear in Lego Batman 2. Today, CBR published new video and still images from the game, including a brief look at the Scarlet Speedster in action!

New LEGO Batman 2 Video Features Flash & More is a post from Speed Force.

Written by Francis Manapul & Brian Buccellato
Art by Francis Manapul & Brian Buccellato

Continuing the debut of Gorilla Grodd in DC Comics –- The New 52! The Flash travels to Gorilla City for the first time! Who are the “Runners” –- and what do they mean for The Flash and the Speed Force?

IO9 has a preview of the issue.

This Week: Flash #9 is a post from Speed Force.

Speed Force has gotten a little more Social. So to speak. We’ve been sending new posts to Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Tumblr for a while, but until now the conversations out on those social networks have been completely separate.

Now, you can comment here using your Facebook or Twitter ID, and have the option of sharing your comments there as well.

Better yet, if you reply to a story on our Facebook page, your comment will appear here too…and replies to your comment here will get copied over to Facebook.

One big conversation instead of three separate ones. (Tumblr’s a different sort of beast, and Google+ is on the radar, but not supported yet.)

Think of it as the worlds of Facebook, Twitter and Speed Force comments merging together, only without Pandora or the Anti-Monitor!

As with any big change, there’s the chance that something could go wrong. If you run into something that isn’t working, please let me know, either by commenting here, mentioning @SpeedForceOrg in a tweet, or emailing speedforce - at - pobox - dot - com

Better Continuity with Facebook and Twitter is a post from Speed Force.

Manapul kicks things off by explaining the crescendo of the series thus far:

Francis Manapul: I think there’s a theme that the book is really about overwhelming the Flash. In the first arc, we created this villain who could really be in multiple places at once, so in that sense, the Flash is overwhelmed physically and also overwhelmed emotionally because of the fact that he’s [fighting] an old friend, a guy that he grew up with. It’s kind of an overwhelming time for Barry Allen, having discovered that the weight of the world is on his shoulders. On top of that, the Rogues are slowly starting to get back together; we’re slowly showing what kind of a threat they would be to Barry Allen.

For highlights, including choices made during the redesign of the Rogues and the team’s answer to the Wally West question, follow the jump!

On the change of pace from the “Mob Rule” story:

Manapul: The first arc we really felt it was really rich in subtext, whereas with the current Rogues [story], we’re taking more of a direct approach. I’ll admit it — we read how people react to the issues, and we noticed there was a lot of stuff in the first arc that kind of flew over a lot of people’s heads. So with the Rogues, we’re taking a direct approach on how we’re handling them emotionally and how they reflect Barry Allen. And also, having done a five-issue arc, we thought it was necessary for us to create tighter, shorter stories, to help move things along! [Laughs]

On the much-discussed Rogue redesigns:

Manapul: Captain Cold was really the one that took the most back and forth in terms of where we wanted him to be. The rest of the Rogues were really quite easy. A lot of it stemmed from trying to keep things from the past but also making the way that they look part of the story. They look like they do for certain reasons. Of course, with characters like Heat Wave, he looks drastically different. A lot of those changes to their physical attributes stem from the story, so as we get further along, that they look is going to make a lot more sense.

… I don’t feel like we’re reinventing them, except for Turbine and Gorilla Grodd. A lot of readers say they want change, but really, they don’t. They want the characters to stay the same, so the way the Rogues have been written in the past is always writing them exactly the same. Emotionally, they didn’t progress, but they changed everything around them so they would have this illusion of change. The opportunity Brian and I have with the New 52 is, “Where did the last story of the Rogues leave off? Lets take that story and move forward emotionally in a way we wouldn’t have been able to pre-52.”

On the relationship between Captain Cold and Heat Wave, as it stands now:

Manapul: I think issue #11 has one of my favorite scenes of interactions between the Flash and Captain Cold — spoilers! — and Heat Wave. It’s a lot of fun! The issue is going to feel a little like a modern Western. The joke is Barry Allen walks into a bar — and Captain Cold and Heat Wave also walk into a bar. There’s going to be some great interaction between Barry Allen and Leonard Snart, and it’ll be really interesting to see Heat Wave interact with Captain Cold. With regard to the singular event that Lisa Snart mentioned, no one has been more negatively affected by it than Heat Wave. That’s where his emotion lies and why he very much would like to get rid of Captain Cold.

On the theme of the Law of Congestion, a driving force from the first issue of the series:

Buccellato: It’s something that’s really reflective — if you go back to issue #1, we talk about it, and it wasn’t just some passing conversation. There’s a reason why we chose to have Dr. Elias talk about that specific thing. So if people would go back and look upon that issue and then reflect on the issues that have come out afterwards, they can, hopefully, see that there’s more at play than what’s on the page.

Manapul: I think the stories we’ve been putting out have been a continuous study of that theory. In a way, what we did in issue #2 by visually overwhelming — we weren’t just overwhelming Barry Allen, we were overwhelming the readers. If you’re following the concept of the Law of Congestion, right now, a lot of highways are being built. The Law of Congestion says, in order to fix it, destroy all of them.

On Wally West:

Manapul: The thing is, it’s coming from a pure fan perspective. I grew up with Wally West, but it’s one those things that, within the context of the story and the world we’re building, he doesn’t really fit. Really, just focusing on Barry Allen has allowed us to do a more streamlined story and give a very good character study on Barry. Especially since, when you think about it, a lot of people of this generation don’t know Barry Allen that well. I sort of feel it really ties everything together. Here are Brian and I on this journey, writing our first ongoing comic book, and we’re reintroducing Barry Allen and his journey in terms of self-discovery — and it’s the same things the readers are going through. They’re on a journey of discovering who Barry Allen is. Introducing Wally West might murky up the water. It’s not our decision, but I think it’s better that we just focus on Barry Allen. At the end of the day, our mission statement is to make Barry Allen as cool as possible. So we’re putting all our effort into doing that.

For much more, head over to CBR for the full interview!

Media Blitz! Flash Team Talks Rogue Makeovers, Wally West and the Law of Congestion (via CBR) is a post from Speed Force.

Flashy Links

• Fastest Fan Alive: Contest Results
• Random Flash round-up from That F'ing Monkey Random Flash Round Up and Flash Cereal from That F’ing Monkey
• Superhero Origins: The Flash at WatchMojo
• Q&A: What do The Flash’s earpiece emblems do? – StackExchange
• Be sure to check out Fastest Fan Alive and The Rogues Kick Ass for collectibles & Rogues posts.

Writer/Artist Catch-Up

• Mark Waid’s free digital comic “Insufferable” is up to three installments at Thrillbent.
• Bleeding Cool interviews Brian Augustyn, Mark Waid’s editor and later co-writer on The Flash.
• CBR TV: Jay Faerber On "Near Death," Creator-Owned Comics plus Ringer and that infamous Titans run.
• The Very End of Empire – PopMatters interviews “The Shade’s” James Robinson
• Geoff Johns & Jim Lee spotlight guests at NYCC
• Brian Buccellato’s Foster Anthology, a one-shot collection of short stories set in the same world as his creator-owned horror/crime comic, met its funding goal and then some.

More comics

• Marvel’s “Avengers” Success: What Can DC Comics Learn From It? – MTV
• Five Years Later: The Oral History of Countdown to Final Crisis – Funnybook Babylon pieces together the background of the series from old interviews. (via The Beat)
• Hotels for San Diego / Comic-Con have opened up again now that the deadline has passed for cancellation with full refund. (via The Beat)

Speed Reading is a post from Speed Force.

After six solid months in the top 10, The Flash dropped down to the #11 spot in March and #14 in April in the rankings based on units sold. Not coincidentally, March featured the launch of Marvel’s Avengers vs. X-Men event, and a number of related Marvel books pushed aside the better sellers of DC’s New 52. (The Flash was still DC’s #8 book.)

Estimates at ICv2 have the series selling 64,975 issues in March and 63,702 issues in April.

On the downside, the book is selling half what it sold last September. On the plus side, it’s still ahead of the 53K mark it had reached at this point in the previous volume. Better yet, those month-to-month drops are getting smaller, suggesting that it may find its level soon. I’ve suggested before that if it levels out above 55K (where volume 3 settled), the Flash relaunch is probably a success. Though it may be cutting things a bit close.

Update: Christopher Schmitt brings up digital numbers, which I forgot to look for. CBR has been running monthly interviews with Bob Wayne & John Cunningham in which they discuss the month’s sales, including DC’s own digital rankings (but not actual numbers, which most companies are still keeping quiet about). I’ve mentioned before that The Flash doesn’t rank as well digitally, where it hasn’t even made it into DC’s top 10 yet (here’s March). DC released their April Top 20,** and Flash came in at #18 digitally, compared to #8 in print if you look only at DC’s output.

Numbers

A few key articles covering past sales (with lots of numbers):

• Flash Sales 1996-2002
• Flash Sales 2001-2008
• Flash: Rebirth & Blackest Night Sales
• Flash vol.3 Sales

*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.

**It’s not clear how comparable the rankings are, since Diamond’s rankings are for sales over the whole month, and DC’s digital chart here is described as “Best Selling Single issue in a week.” Though since The Flash comes out the fourth week of the month, there probably isn’t much difference.

Flash Sales in March & April is a post from Speed Force.

Hey Speed Readers,

I’d been away from the net for a few days so I hadn’t heard that the first picture of The Flash in Lego Batman 2: DC Superheroes had been released by Game Informer Magazine. This is the first visual confirmation of the Scarlet Speedster we’ve had since USA Today revealed his presence in the game a couple of months ago. The only picture so far is in the magazine that I don’t own but luckily the internet is full of all kinds of cool cats posting scans and vids:

Picture courtesy of Youtube user, SuperheroesLego

Awesome, Awesome, Awesome! I just replayed Justice League Heroes earlier this week and man, have I been hankering for some fresh super speed action.  We can only speculate about what alternate costumes they have in mind for our flashy friend but if there are indeed alternative attires I’m hoping for something interesting. Remember Dark Flash and Jay Garrick from Justice League Heroes? We definitely need something akin to those skins.

Jay Garrick from Justice League Heroes

Dark Flash (Walter West) from Justice League Heroes

But that isn’t all; while scouring the net for info on The Flash appearance in Lego Batman 2 I found an ad from EB Games Australia:

So apparently as a preorder incentive, Australian EB Games (or Gamestop to us) customers will be receiving 5 bonus villains which will include two Flash villains: Captain Cold and Gorilla Grodd! YES, YES, YES! I’m counting on US customers also receiving these characters in one form or another. We do know for a fact that it won’t be via preorder as the only bonuses I’ve been able to track down for preordering are a limited edition Lego Lex Luthor from Gamestop and a bonus hero pack featuring Nightwing, Shazam (Captain Marvel), Katana, Damian Wayne (the latest Robin), and Zatanna from Amazon. If anyone has any additional information about the villain pack please let us know.

With the ability to play as over 50 DC Comics characters in a open world environment, customizable characters for creating unique variations and characters that may not have been included, as well as two player offline and online co-op play I have a feeling this just may be the ultimate DC Comics video game.

Lego Batman 2: DC Superheroes will be in stores June 19th for all current generation consoles and handhelds: Playstation 3, Xbox 360, Wii, DS, 3DS, PS Vita and PCs.

Anyone plan on preordering this game? Let us know in the comments below.

Thanks for reading,

-Devin ‘Flash’ Johnson

The Flash in Lego Batman 2: DC Superheroes (Plus Two Flash villains) is a post from Speed Force.

IO9 has a preview of Flash #9 online.

THE FLASH #9

Continuing the debut of Gorilla Grodd in DC Comics –- The New 52! The Flash travels to Gorilla City for the first time! Who are the “Runners” –- and what do they mean for The Flash and the Speed Force?

Written by: Brian Buccellato, Francis Manapul
Pencilled by: Francis Manapul
Inked by: Francis Manapul
Cover Color by: Brian Buccellato
Lettered by: DC Lettering
Colored by: Brian Buccellato, Francis Manapul

Flash #9 arrives in stores next week.

Flash #9 Preview Available is a post from Speed Force.