United Underworld’s incredible gender-swapped Justice League, featuring Psykitten Pow’s Flash. Photo by John Austin.

It turns out that the Flash was the inspiration for the group theme:

“A couple of us like to do female versions of preexisting male characters. One of our friends, Psykitten Pow, she had a female Flash,” says Tallest Silver, who organized the group and who dresses as Batma’am. “One night, we were all hanging out and I said how funny it would be if we had a whole Justice League with swapped sexes.”

Photograph by Chuck Cook Photography.

The group previously appeared at WonderCon, and Psykitten appeared as the Flash last year.

Flash on a Segway. Again, Chuck Cook Photography. People were posting about this guy all over Twitter on Thursday and Saturday, and when a couple of influential people posted about him, they were retweeted so much I had to change my search terms to find anything else about the Flash at SDCC!

Jay Garrick. Photo by David Ngo.

Steampunk Flash, designed and built by Dustin Fletcher of Penny Dreadful and God Save The Queen Fashions. Photo by Jim3535. Keep an eye out — I’ve got a follow-up post planned for this one!

Captain Cold and the Flash (photo by me). These were the only two people who showed up to the planned Flash costume gathering and photoshoot.

DC group including the Golden Age Flash and the Golden Age Reverse Flash. And She-Ra. Photo by lady_wolf_star.

Flash and Power Girl by lady_wolf_star.

Crime Syndicate Jesse Quick and Power Ring, photo by Roddenberry.

I’m going to call this Green Lantern/Captain America/Flash trio the Las Vegas Showgirl superhero team (sequins and skin). Not enough feathers, though. Photograph by Jason Ozaeta.

There were at least two Cheetaras present.

Cheetara, photograph by uncle_shoggoth.

Cheetara, photograph by Nathan Rupert.

Flash Costumes at Comic-Con (2011) is a post from Speed Force.

Racing

Stephen Lesnik caught the beginning of a Superman/Flash Race:

But wait, something’s missing. What else does every Superman/Flash race need?

That’s right: Deadpool! (OK, maybe not.)

Four Flashes prepare to race in this photo by Janna Bergstrom:

Solo

Chase Wirth spotted this Flash running around the floor:

Groups

Here are the Flash & Power Girl as spotted by The No.2 Fan.

Firestorm and the Flash hang out in this photo by foodbyfax.

Or what about Justice League International as spotted by Jenn Skinner:

wiliqueen: Classic Heroes

Hyperion327:
Flash, GL & Bizarro

Rogues

Funny

Here’s Thundercats‘ speedster Cheetara, updated slightly for the Internet age, as photographed by T. Bosky of Game Couch.

And let’s wrap this up with proof that the Flash is a Central City guy at heart. Here he is serving coffee, in another shot by Janna Bergstrom. You’ll notice he’s moving too fast to be seen clearly…

So, that wraps up this installment!

Question for readers: Do you prefer this style of gallery, with the large images, or the one with the smaller images that I’ve been using in the past for posts like the San Diego costume round-up? I’m torn, myself: On one hand, you can see a lot more with the large images, but the small images look…neater, I guess. And of course they load a lot faster. Which do you like better?

Flash Costumes at Dragon*Con 2010 – Part 2 (Image-Intensive!) is a post from Speed Force.

Here’s a gallery of photos from Flickr.

Golden Age

I don’t think I’d ever seen a Golden Age Flash costume at a convention until I saw some photos from HeroesCon and Wizard World Philadelphia in June. There seemed to be one Jay Garrick at each. So I figured I’d probably be the only one at San Diego. Imagine my surprise when I ran into not one other, but two!

The photo on the left shows me and a cosplayer who was part of a Justice Society of America group I spotted in line for the DC Nation panel on Friday. I asked the person behind me to save my place in line, walked along the line to where they were, and we did the obligatory “Nice costume!” exchange, then ended up posing for a bunch of photos. We did at least two poss, this one and one just standing and crossing our arms like the Alex Ross poster. Someone got an interesting shot with a blur effect, also.

I ran into the guy on the right on Saturday, when I wasn’t in costume. He actually used an original World War I helmet, polished it up, and made wings for it…then the first day in town the wings broke, so he needed to come up with a substitute fast. He ended up gluing popsicle sticks together and spray painting them gold.

Update: Speaking of the helmet, here’s how my helmet was made. Update 2: and here’s how we made the boots and shirt.

Variations

I didn’t manage to see any of these three in person during the con. But they’re really cool variations.

The two things that usually impress me the most with character costumes are:

• Authenticity – costumes that match the source very well, especially if the person wearing it is a good fit for the character. (That especially helps with costumes from movies and TV shows. If you resemble an actor, seriously look at their roles for ideas!)
• Creative variation – costumes that take a concept and put a deliberate spin on them. The Steampunk Flash from the League of Justice-Minded Citizens, for instance. Or either of the female Flash costumes here.

The Flash is well-suited for variations, because there have been so many of them in canon. You’ve got the basics: Jay Garrick’s Golden Age costume, the Barry Allen/Wally West Flash costume, and the Kid Flash costume (each with its own variations). Then you’ve got Professor Zoom, Johnny Quick, a half-dozen Jesse Quick costumes, Impulse, Max Mercury, Walter West, Iris West II, John Fox’s three costumes…and that’s not counting all the possible future Flashes from “Chain Lightning.”

So it’s not a problem to take the basic red-and-yellow lightning motif and build on it. People will still know who you are, especially if you keep the white circle around the lightning bolt.

Well, except for the dimwits who mistake you for Flash Gordon.

Update August 28: The woman on the left appears to be wearing an off-the-rack costume rather than a custom variation.

Cold and the Kid

I almost missed Captain Cold here. It was late Saturday afternoon, and I was on the phone with my wife trying to work out dinner plans. I saw him through the window, said, “Hang on, I need to get a picture of Captain Cold” and ducked outside into Sails Pavilion.

Kid Flash was there on Sunday. Sterling Gates, who had been announced the day before as the writer of an upcoming Kid Flash series, posted, “I just met Kid Flash! He’s here!” I kept looking for him the rest of the day, but had no luck. Fortunately, Comic Con has a lot of people with cameras!

Bonus: Cheetara!

She may not be a Flash character, but here are two women dressed as Cheetara from Thundercats. Hey, she is a speedster, after all!

Who Else?

I saw at least one, possibly two guys in off-the-rack Flash Halloween costumes during the weekend, and one kid who was probably about 6 or 7.

So…did you see any of these people at the con? Did you see another Flash that I’ve missed?

Flash Costume Sightings at Comic-Con 2009 is a post from Speed Force.