Speed Force

An interesting revelation from the latest 20 Questions with Dan Didio at Newsarama. He’s previously claimed (though many fans remained unconvinced) that Bart Allen’s death in Flash: The Fastest Man Alive #13 was planned from the start, but we’ve got a new twist. Here’s part of his answer to question #15:

Bart was always going to go away, and I think the mistake was that we probably pulled Bart a little too soon, but quite honestly again, that was the problem of lining stories up with Countdown. The Bart story was due to be extended a little bit longer, but due to how things were lining up, he had to leave sooner.

That story’s not complete yet. We’re going to see more of what that story was about shortly – it was always the plan for Bart. He was going to be the Flash of the moment as we made our way back to Barry. [emphasis added]

Okay, not a big surprise that they shuffled things around to match with Countdown.* But am I reading that right? Is he saying that they planned to bring Barry Allen back as long ago as Infinite Crisis? Didio continues:

I think Mark Waid did an admirable job of stepping in and trying to find a different slant to Wally and the family, which we found out, was a more difficult story to tell than when we planned it. I think Mark did as best a job as possible – he put so much thought and effort into fleshing out that family, and I think we have a couple of rich characters in the children because of that.

This is the other thing that gets confusing, depending on who tells it: When was the plan made for Wally to return, and when was the plan made for Bart to be killed? Mark Waid’s interview in The Flash Companion suggests that he, at least was led to believe that Bart’s move up to lead Flash was intended to be indefinite, not a fill-in gig, though he predicted it wouldn’t catch on. And Didio’s remarks here about Waid “stepping in” suggest that they did bring him on unexpectedly — though that could simply be the result of moving up the timetable. (Which, now that I think about it, might explain artist Daniel Acuña’s sudden departure.)

I’ll agree with Didio on this: the West Twins are promising characters, even if most of the comics readership seems to want to throw them under a bus.

But at the end of the day, there’s a certain expectation of what a Flash story is, and what you want to see in a Flash comic book. While we expanded the Flash family, people really wanted to see the Flash.

And that seems to have been the main criticism of issues #231–243: Not enough of the Flash in The Flash.

But the goal for me, always, was to get back to Barry in the same way the goal was to get back to Hal in Green Lantern.

Whoa, hold on a second. Now he is saying that they were planning to bring Barry back from the beginning?

Well why didn’t they do that in the first place?

Seriously, Infinite Crisis would have been a perfect time to bring Barry back. Sure, a lot of us would have been pissed off that they were getting rid of Wally just because it was a Crisis and going back to Barry just so that they could bring back the guy who was the Flash when they were twelve — but you know what, we’re pissed off anyway. Plus we’ve got the frustration of three years of mismanaged Flash stories on top of that.

So, to sum up: DC considered Bart as a temp from the beginning. And DC never had any intention of bringing Wally back after they kicked Bart out, at least not as the primary Flash. It was all about Barry from the start.

*I find it amusing — in a banging-my-head-against-the-wall way — that people were so annoyed with the way some stories were stretched out during Countdown for the sake of lining books up, and people are annoyed now with Final Crisis because they’re not trying to line everything up.

The Flash appears in the latest issue of The Titans and in the collected edition of JLA/Avengers.

Titans #7

Written by Judd Winick; Art and Cover by Howard Porter

Match, the imperfect clone of Conner Kent, shows up at the Tower looking for a fight. But the Titans’ old teammate Jericho is still trapped inside him! To subdue Match and save Jericho, the Titans must find a way to force the two apart, and their solution has unexpected consequences for them all!

Notes: CBR has a preview of Titans #7 online.

JLA/Avengers (trade paperback)

Written by Kurt Busiek; Art and Cover by George Pérez

The once-in-a-lifetime crossover that brought two super-teams together and rocked the comics world is at last available in trade paperback! Own the entire 4-issue co-publishing event between DC and Marvel and written by Kurt Busiek (Trinity, Marvels) with stunning art by George Pérez (Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds, Avengers). This collection also features introductions by original Avengers writer/editor Stan Lee and Justice League of America editor Julius Schwartz.

Notes: All three (at the time) Flashes — Jay Garrick, Barry Allen, and Wally West — appear at various points in this story.

Possible Appearances

Wally West has been appearing off and on in Trinity. Either Jay Garrick or the Kingdom Come Flash could make an appearance in Justice Society of America Kingdom Come Special: Superman.

There hasn’t been much in the way of announcements out of Wizard World Texas, but one item from Aron Head’s Blog@Newsarama write-up stands out:

Matt Sturges will be writing the post-Final Crisis story Run!, which will feature a pivotal super-villain character from Final Crisis as the central character. [Senior Story Editor Ian] Sattler said the book will be surprising with three-water-cooler-moments in every issue.

Freddie Williams will handle the art.

With a title like Run! a speedster seems likely. And Zoom just lost his powers, not to mention his ability to walk. It could be about Hunter Zolomon trying to regain his ability to run…but then, Zoom hasn’t been that “pivotal” in Final Crisis itself, only in Rogues’ Revenge.

On the other hand, there’s all that speculation, fueled by the return of Barry Allen and the way he’s been contrasted with Libra since DC Universe #0, that Libra might be the long-dead Eobard Thawne, a.k.a. Professor Zoom, the Reverse-Flash.

Update: To make matters more confusing, ComicMix suggests that the mini is actually titled, Final Crisis: Run, and is “the last miniseries tie-in to their mega-event.” I guess that would make it like the “52 Aftermath” books. Personally, I suspect this might prove counterproductive, given that even though Final Crisis has had fewer tie-ins (post-Countdown, anyway) than most big comic-book events of its stature, people have been complaining about too many tie-ins for months.

Found in a movie theater lobby this weekend:

I’m pretty sure it’s a subtle (in the sense of not having any words on it that I could see, not in the sense of being difficult to miss) ad for the upcoming Disney CGI cartoon, Bolt, but I couldn’t pass up a picture of a giant golden lightning bolt frozen in the lobby. My wife joked that it needed the caption, “Zeus was here.”

Fellow Flash blog Crimson Lightning has returned to a regular update schedule, including the latest in its series reviewing each episode of the 1990 Flash TV Series: “Fast Forward.”

Newsarama’s Grumpy Old Fan contemplates what “the most definitive” version of a character means.

More Mortal Kombat vs DCU trailers, including video of Flash vs. Scorpion. Something must be funky about the player CBR uses, because this is the second time they’ve posted video clips on MKvDC that I couldn’t get to play. YMMV.

This Week in Geek interviews Brea Grant (via @breagrant)

And speeking of geeks, check out the 56 Geeks Project (via Once Upon a Geek)

Sorry it’s late — with following election results last night, I totally lost track of the fact that I hadn’t written this up. This week we have:

Justice Society of America #20

Written by Geoff Johns and Alex Ross; Pencil art and variant cover by Dale Eaglesham; Cover by Alex Ross

It’s the Justice Society of America vs. the Justice Society Infinity of Earth-2 with the fate of Power Girl at the center of it all! Meanwhile, Starman struggles with his returned sanity as he embarks on his true mission in our time period – one that will have vital consequences for the Crisis of the 31st century!

New Teen Titans Archives vol.4 (hardcover)

Written by Marv Wolfman; Art and Cover by George Pérez and Romeo Tanghal

The 1980s adventures continue in this final Archive edition, collecting NEW TEEN TITANS #21-27 and NEW TEEN TITANS ANNUAL #1! Don’t miss the Titans’ struggle against the hordes of Brother Blood, Starfire’s confrontation with her evil sister and more!

Teen Titans: Year One (trade paperback)

Written by Amy Wolfram; Art by Karl Kerschl and Serge LaPointe; Cover by Karl Kerschl

The early days of the Teen Titans are chronicled in this title collecting the 6-issue miniseries!

Sorry about the lack of covers — I’m in a rush.

Here’s a reminder, courtesy of the late Mike Wieringo and Jose Marzan Jr., to all U.S. readers: Remember to vote in today’s election!

(cover via GCD)

IGN is running an interview, the Geoff Johns Marathon, in which the writer talks about just about everything he’s working on, including Flash: Rebirth (via trmnlvlctyyy at Comic Bloc). Among other things, he writes:

Right now I’m looking at the Flash with Rebirth, and I want to see how I can make this mythology even bigger. It’s already huge. The Flash has an awesome base, so cracking it open even more has been an incredible challenge.

and

The Flash has always been my favorite character since I was a kid. And it’s fun to get back to writing Wally West. I wrote him for five years. To get back to him and then write Barry Allen. Like I said earlier, I get to take what I’ve learned over the last several years writing comics and apply it to the Flash. Because I started writing the Flash almost when I started writing comics, and now I get to look at everything I’ve done to this point and see how I can apply that onto my original work on the character. I want to continue to elevate my writing, and hopefully I’ll achieve that.

Newsarama interviews artist Scott Kolins on Faces of Evil: Grundy, which reunites him with Flash and Final Crisis: Rogues’ Revenge collaborator Geoff Johns.

Finally, MTV’s Splash Page wonders why Grant Morrison can’t talk about a Flash movie, given the number of NDAs he’s signed in connection with various film projects. [Edit: Since the original page has vanished, I'm attaching a quote from the Google cache so you can have a little context. Thanks, Rockin' Rich.]

“Yeah, that’s the kind of thing I can’t talk about,” Morrison said. “Yes, I have talked to them. I’m deeply involved in those discussions. I know what’s going down with all of that, and it’s actually really exciting. But beyond that, I can’t say anything. I wish I could tell you. I’m sure announcements will probably be made at some point, but I can’t say anything.”

Edit: This has been restructured and rewritten a bit to make the post come off a bit less personally, since that wasn’t the intention.

Groovy Superhero is running a series on The World’s Fastest Cancellation, looking at the way the series has been relaunched over and over since Geoff Johns 2005. (see also: Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5.) The Flash has had a remarkably consistent writing credit over the years, until Geoff Johns left the book in 2005 to do Infinite Crisis.

Wally Before Geoff

One thing the author of that series said got me thinking about the series’ creative history: In part one, he or she writes about the book after Geoff Johns left it:

The Flash…was relegated to the status he had endured throughout most of the ’90s: a “who needs work?” book, being tossed around from creator to creator

Tossed around from creator to creator? True of the last three years, but certainly not true of the 1990s. William Messner-Loebs wrote the book for four years from 1988–1992. Mark Waid* took over in 1992 and stayed on until 2000 (Brian Augustyn joining him officially halfway through after several years as editor and an uncredited co-writer), with a one-year break during which he wrote JLA: Year One and Grant Morrison and Mark Millar filled in. In fact, if you count the Morrison/Millar run as a main creative team, there’s a grand total of only five issues by fill-in writers** from #1 to #225 (the end of Geoff Johns’ run), covering 1987–2005.

Long-Term Consistency

If you go further back, Gardner Fox wrote most of the Golden Age books, with Robert Kanigher coming in near the end. John Broome wrote most of the Silver Age, with Fox and Kanigher. There was a transition period in the late 1960s, and then Cary Bates wrote nearly every issue from the early 1970s through 1985.

Three main writers from 1940-1970. One from 1970-1985. Five writers or writing teams from 1987-2005. (I’m lumping the Waid/Augustyn and Waid solo runs together. Same with the Morrison/Millar and Millar solo books.)

Now let’s look at the book after Geoff Johns left in 2005:
4 issues by Joey Cavalieri
8 by Danny Bilson & Paul De Meo
5 by Marc Guggenheim
7 by Mark Waid
6 by Tom Peyer
4 by Alan Burnett
2 one-shots

Six writing teams in three years, and a couple of one-offs.

Flash or Thrash?

Following Johns’ final issue, it’s clear they had already decided to axe the book, since all that remained was one stand-alone story that had been sitting on the shelf and the 4-part “Finish Line,” which was clearly intended (like the current “This Was Your Life, Wally West”) to wrap up the series.

Then DC proceeded to throw lead characters, creative teams, and creative directions at the wall haphazardly, hoping something would stick. How could anything gain traction with that much churn?

In my opinion, given that DC is already committed to relaunching the series with Flash: Rebirth, the best thing DC could do to build the book back up would be to keep Geoff Johns on after the miniseries, and give him at least a year to establish the series tone, direction, and at least one long-term arc. Then make sure that whoever follows him is sufficiently high-profile not to scare readers off, and won’t simply throw everything out and start over.

Notes

*By part 5, he explains that “Waid’s main contributions to the Flash mythos were to introduce Wall and Wife Linda’s twins.” Now, I would assume that he meant Waid’s contributions this time around, but given the remark in part 1 about the series being a dumping ground of random writers in the 1990s, I have to wonder whether the writer in question is simply not familiar with Waid’s eight-year run, or that it established the Wally/Linda relationship, introduced the Speed Force, built up a family of speedsters, spun off an Impulse/Max Mercury book, and really established the Flash as once again being a major player after 60-odd issues of the B-list.

**Those fill-ins would be:
#29: Len Strazewski (1989)
#151: Joe Casey (1999)
#160: Brian Augustyn solo, not sure you can properly call it a fill-in. (2000)
#161: Pat McGreal (2000)
#163: Pat McGreal (2000)

Some Flash costumes seen at conventions over the last couple of years.

First, two that I saw at San Diego Comic-Con last year (that’s me posing with the first):

(Originally posted at K-Squared Ramblings)

A bunch more costumes after the cut: (more…)