Speed Force

There’s not a whole lot of Flash-related news coming out of Chicago Comic-Con, partly because we’re still in the middle of Flash: Rebirth and partly because they dropped the big news two weeks ago in San Diego. But there were a few items mentioned at DC Nation.

First, Newsarama’s report mentions:

Red Robin will “absolutely” be dealing with the return of Superboy and Kid Flash in the near future.

I believe DC has previously mentioned that Tim and Bart will both be showing up (beyond the cameos in the first issue) of Conner Kent/Superboy’s stories in Adventure Comics. I wonder if Tim and Conner will be showing up in Red Robin at some point?

It’s interesting to note that, with Red Robin, Adventure Comics, and Kid Flash, the three original founders of Young Justice will all have their own series for the first time in eight years. Impulse and Superboy, both launched in the mid-1990s, were canceled in 2002. There’s a great scene from Young Justice around that time in which Bart and Kon are lamenting that “my comic got canceled” (supposedly referring to their favorite series to read), and commiserate until Robin walks into the room — and they proceed to glare at him. Does anyone remember what issue this was?

Anyway, back to DC Nation. CBR’s write-up adds another note.

Asked about the further ramifications about Barry Allen’s return as the Flash, “We are not retiring Wally West,” Sattler said to applause.

As reassuring as it is to know that DC does recognize that Wally still has fans, it’s more reassuring to know that the comment got applause. Of course, the best reassurance is still Geoff Johns’ remark that “Wally’s not only going to be fine, he’s going to kick ass.”

On the other hand, @weeklycrisis pointed out that “at DC, heroes either die off or live long enough to become the bad guy.” Ray of sunshine, there…

A couple of final notes from CBR’s article:

“Wednesday Comics” will be collected into trade according to strips rather than altogether, Sattler said.

I wonder if this means 15 separate books (which would actually be more volumes than the original 12-part series!) or whether it means they’ll be combining them by tone, style, character connections, etc.

“Aquaman Reborn” by Geoff Johns? “Ah, Aquaman,” Sattler sighed. No answer, but not in a “maybe” way–more exasperated.

Aquaman? Really? Not Vibe?

Chicago Comic-Con is running this weekend. Yes, Chicago Comic-Con, not Wizard World Chicago as it’s been called for most of this decade.

And that name change brings up all kinds of questions.

Back in 1997, Wizard bought the Chicago Comicon, at its time the #2 comic book convention in the country after Comic-Con International in San Diego. They renamed it Wizard World Chicago and started building a series of conventions across the country. At its height there were five shows in Chicago, Los Angeles, Texas, Philadelphia, and (briefly) Boston.

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Then in January 2009, Wizard dropped a bomb: citing the economy, Wizard World Texas and Wizard World Los Angeles were being canceled. People planning for WWTX at least got fair notice, but WWLA had been scheduled for March, just two months away. They insisted that WWLA was merely “postponed,” but made no indication of when the show might return.

That left two: Wizard World Philadelphia in June and Wizard World Chicago in August.

Rebuilding and Rebranding

Over the next few months, though, something odd happened: the convention series started growing again, as Wizard owner Gareb Shamus bought Big Apple Con, then bought Paradise Toronto Comicon. Neither show was rebranded as a Wizard World event, and Wizard quietly started referring to WWC as “Chicago Comic-Con.” And then they launched Anaheim Comic-Con.

So now there are again five conventions under the umbrella, but only one, Philadelphia, still has the Wizard World name. Chances are pretty good that they’ll rename it by next June…or possibly cancel it the way they dropped WWLA.

Whither the Wizards?

The obvious question is: why?

Well, Wizard World has acquired a bit of a bad reputation. Maybe they’re rebranding in hopes of escaping that.

Or maybe they want to give the shows a more local feel, rather than corporate.

Or maybe it’s something else. Judging by the announcements, it’s not Wizard Entertainment that’s been buying and launching these new shows — it’s Gareb Shamus. I wonder whether he might be planning to sell off Wizard and keep the conventions, or otherwise split the cons and the magazine into separate companies.

Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?

Update (August 11): After reading this article on “Comic-Con” vs. “Comic Con” vs. “Comicon,” I’ve gone back and tried to make sure I have the official spellings for each convention.

Some links and observations for the day.

Links

Comics Should Be Good looks at DC Super-Stars reprints from the 1970s — including a Flash book which re-drew a Golden Age story. Hmm, I have a new blog post idea: comparing the original and redrawn versions of “Deal Me From the Bottom” and “City of Shifting Sand” from All-Flash #22 (yes, they did this twice!)

If you dare, read TV Tropes on Super Speed. (Beware, this is TV Tropes, so you run the risk of a tab explosion if you read it!)

San Diego Thoughts

Twitter has been full of people talking about flying to San Diego today, or starting long drives. Living 2-3 hours away, it’s easy for me to forget that a lot of people need a full day of travel before and after the con. I mean, I’m planning to drive down after lunch. I could do the entire con taking only 2½ days off work, but for many people, it’s a full week.

I find it highly amusing that @WizardWorld has been heavily pushing Chicago Comic-Con on Twitter today…the day before Comic-Con International. Certainly it makes perfect sense to capitalize on people thinking about cons who might not be going to this one, but might go to yours. And heck, I started getting excited about the build-up to CCI during the week before Wizard World Philadelphia and HeroesCon. It just seems funny for some reason.

Expanded from some of my Twitter posts today.

Newsarama’s Vaneta Rogers spoke with Ethan van Sciver at Wizard World Chicago last week about his upcoming projects, including Green Lantern: Blackest Night with Geoff Johns and an untitled Wonder Woman project with Gail Simone. They also discussed the rumors of an upcoming Flash project with Geoff Johns.

The artist had just come from a DC panel where Dan DiDio seemed to always turn to him to answer any question about The Flash. We asked: Why is that?

“Because he’s a sadist, deep down. He even told me that. He said, “I just like to see you squirm.’ I honestly have no idea. He likes to get the rumors going,” Van Sciver said.

We talked about the rumor mill and how most fans think his upcoming “secret project” with Geoff Johns is either Aquaman or The Flash.

“Aquaman’s leading the pack?” Van Sciver said in obviously feigned surprise….

The mysterious van Sciver/Johns project — whether it’s Flash, Aquaman, or something else — will be announced in San Diego later this month.

More at Newsarama.

Ethan van Sciver is no stranger to the Flash, having worked with Geoff Johns on the 2001 graphic novel The Flash: Iron Heights (now collected in the second edition of Flash: Blood Will Run, released earlier this year). He also worked on Impulse with Todd Dezago, where he helped create Inertia, and did several covers for The Flash in 2004 and for The Flash: The Fastest Man Alive in 2007.

Saturday’s Wizard World Chicago panel, DCU: Crisis, added a few more tidbits of Flash news to the many hints from the DC Nation panel on Friday.

Newsarama’s report

Didio looked at Ethan Van Sciver, teasing about his involvement. EVS deadpanned, “Yeah, good stuff. I wish Geoff were here.” Didio followed up, “Which Flash would you talk about?” Van Sciver shot back, “Why not all of them?” Didio pretended to be incredulous “In the same book?” Van Sciver drove it home with, “Why not?”

Rumors of a Van Sciver/Johns Flash series were already floating around. But all Flashes? They might have to come up with a team name at this rate! (Blog @ Newsarama points out the reason Geoff Johns missed the panel: He was close friends with Michael Turner, and left the con for Los Angeles when he learned of the artist’s passing.)

CBR’s write-up adds:

DiDio didn’t want to comment on a rumor that Peyer and Williams would leave “The Flash” and a the series would be restarted with a new #1…

Well, we already know that Peyer and Williams are off the book. And it certainly looks like a relaunch of some sort is in the cards. But another #1?

Personally, I think if the series relaunches with Barry Allen, it would make more sense to pick up with #351 — right where his series left off. If Wally keeps the central spot, it should stay with his numbering. If it’s going to be a combined Flash book, I’d like to see them take a cue from Spider-Man and pick up where the numbering would be if the series had never been renumbered.

Let’s suppose that “This Was Your Life, Wally West” is a 4-parter, which would make it finish the same month as the end of Final Crisis. That would take the series to #247. So we’d have 350 issues of Jay’s and Barry’s series, plus 247 issues of Wally’s, plus 13 of Bart’s, bringing it to 610 issues total, with a relaunch picking up at #611. Or if you include All-Flash #1, Flash v.2 #0, and Flash v.2 #1,000,000, all of which fit into the normal monthly schedule, it would pick up with #614. Okay, so neither of those has the magic of a #500, but very few comic books have reached numbers this high.

CBR has been live-blogging the DC Nation panel at Wizard World Chicago, and reports these comments regarding the Flash. Update: Newsarama’s coverage is up, with a few more bits. I’ve tried to merge them together more-or-less in order.

“Barry Allen’s back,” a fan yelled. DiDio polled the audience to see what Flash they liked best. Jay Garrick and Bart Allen didn’t win, but Barry Allen and Wally West were both favorites.

“Flash came back and Martian Manhunter died, doesn’t that balance the scales?” [Dan] Didio said.

This is interesting phrasing, given how balance is such a central theme to Final Crisis.

- With Barry Allen back, does DC have a better plan for what to do with Barry than “what you had for Wally?”

Van Sciver: “Oh of course.”

DiDio: “Wally will be around. He’s part of the Titans team right now, and he’ll be part of that team for the foreseeable future.”

On the plus side, that again suggests that Wally West will live through Final Crisis despite Barry Allen’s return. On the minus side… who knows what they consider “foreseeable” at this point. (And they have misled us on future Flash plans before.) And it’s The Titans.

It would certainly fit with rumors that Wally may stay in the Titans while Barry rejoins the Justice League. Though it doesn’t preclude Wally staying in Justice League of America while Barry joins James Robinson’s Justice League cast with Hal, Ollie, Ray and company.

Will they bring back Bart Allen? “You have read the first issue of ‘Legion of Three Worlds,’ right?” Didio asked, and Johns hid his head in his hands.

“I haven’t read it,” [Bob] Wayne said. “It hasn’t come out.”

At that point, [Geoff] Johns put his head down and shook it, then leaned toward the microphone in front of him and said, “You’ll read it now.”

“No plans at this time,” Didio came back. “How did I cover, Geoff?”

Hmm, perhaps the carrot-dangling has officially passed from grandfather to grandson… (This part was mashed together from both write-ups.)

Seriously, fans have been speculating as to “who was in the lightning rod” since Justice League of America #10 wrapped up The Lightning Saga a year ago. It was made clear that the Wests’ return was unintentional, but strongly implied that the Legion did manage to bring someone back. Barry? Bart? Someone else? Barry’s return in Final Crisis seems to eliminate him as a possibility, so Bart’s a strong candidate. (Looks like I’ll be adding another miniseries to my pull list this summer.)

- Any more Elseworlds? DiDio: “As a matter of fact, we have a couple in production right now… We have one story coming out from Cary Bates.”

Aside from this being big news, since they’ve been avoiding the Elseworlds name, there’s a possible Flash connection…since Cary Bates wrote Barry’s series for the better part of 15 years. Could this be a similar project to the Teen Titans Lost Annual?

- Wally’s twins? DiDio: “Montessori School,” he joked. Van Sciver: “They’re going where Nightwing’s going.”

Okaaay… I’m going to guess these were both joke answers.

- After writing Rogues Revenge, does Geoff Johns have anything else with the Flash? Johns: “Ummm… I don’t know!”

Update: There’s more Flash news from Saturday’s DCU: Crisis panel.