So what is The Flash Companion?

It’s a book published in 2008 detailing the behind-the-scenes history of The Flash from Jay Garrick’s first appearance in 1940 through the death of Bart Allen and return of Wally West, including the 1990 TV series.

Most of it is about the artists and writers who have worked on the character. Articles on Gardner Fox, Sheldon Mayer, and Julius Schwartz. Interviews with legends like Carmine Infantino, who reveals the origin of the Rogues, and Harry Lampert. Cary Bates on going serial in the seventies. Mike Baron’s fast living with Wally West. Mark Waid on creating Impulse, his reaction to Bart Allen’s death, and his tribute to the late Mike Wieringo.

“Flash facts” about critical turning points. Pages and plots from the stories that went unpublished when Flash Comics was canceled. The Flash who DC almost introduced after Crisis on Infinite Earths. The actor who turned down the role of Barry Allen.

Artwork and photos. Lost covers. A Rogue’s Gallery.

The book was written by Keith Dallas, who recruited a number of Flash fans (including myself) from the Comic Bloc forums to contribute additional material.

I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in the history of the Flash, or in the writers and artists who have created and guided the character for the past 70 years.

(Full disclosure, since I contributed a few articles: No, I don’t get any money for it, unless you buy it through my Amazon link in the sidebar — but then, you’d miss out on the discount price at TwoMorrows.)

The Flash Companion is on Sale. Here’s Why You Want It is a post from Speed Force.

The book is full of interviews with artists and writers, articles about the various eras of the character’s history, and more. I actually contributed a couple of Rogue Profiles to the book.

Check out past entries about the book for more info and some excerpts. It’s absolutely worth picking up.

The sale applies to purchases made on TwoMorrows’ website through October 31, 2009.

TwoMorrows Companion Sale is a post from Speed Force.

First, some more year-end lists:

The Flash Companion makes the #2 spot on Scoop’s Best of 2008: Publications About Comics, Characters, or Collectibles! (via Keith Dallas)

The Comic Treadmill’s 11th Day of Christmas features the team’s favorite Flash covers.

Grumpy Old Fan (now at Robot 6, along with the rest of the old Blog@Newsarama crew) lists Ten from the old year, ten for the new — items he watched at DC in 2008 or will be watching in 2009. Not surprisingly, Geoff Johns features prominently in both.

Now, on to more general stuff

Crimson Lightning has results of the Favorite Rogue poll. January’s sidebar poll: Who is your favorite regular writer from The Flash (v.2)?

4 Color Commentary profiles John Broome, who helped usher in the Silver Age Flash.

Lying in the Gutters’ Rich Johnston catches up to the fanbase by pondering whether Wally’s upcoming costume change comes along with an identity change, though message-board accounts indicate that EVS said at WWTX that Wally will always be the Flash, “just like John Stewart will always be Green Lantern.” (On the minus side, I remember when John Stewart wasn’t Green Lantern, and they kept trying to find other roles for him, such as joining the Darkstars…)

Comics In Crisis recommends the DC audio books by GraphicAudio, saying “these really are high quality and pretty faithful to the comic characters.” He particularly cites the adaptation of Flash: Stop Motion as “one of the best Flash stories I’ve ‘read’ in a long time.”

Speed Reading: Favorites is a post from Speed Force.

The Main Series

As 2008 opened, the Flash was just wrapping up the six-part story “The Wild Wests,” the relaunch featuring Wally West as head of the Flash family and introducing his super-powered twins, Iris and Jai. To put it mildly, it was not received well by fans, and former fan favorite writer Mark Waid quickly left the book.

After a one-shot by Keith Champagne, Tom Peyer picked up the regular writing chores and Freddie Williams II stayed on for the 6-part “Fast Money,” which resolved the twins’ super-speed aging problem and gave us a glimpse of an adult Iris West II.

The series wrapped up with the year, as Alan Burnett, Paco Diaz, and Carlo Barberi brought us “This Was Your Life, Wally West.” The four-part story arc looked back at Wally West’s career as Kid Flash, then the Flash, and his relationship with his wife Linda and their children.

Rogues’ Revenge

The Rogues’ Gallery were off-limits to start with, as they were off-planet for Salvation Run. Early in the year, DC released the news of Flash: Rogues’ Revenge, a miniseries that would spotlight them after they returned to Earth, going after Inertia for tricking them into killing the Flash. Geoff Johns and Scott Kolins would return to the speedster mythos for six issues.

By the time the series was launched, it had become Final Crisis: Rogues’ Revenge, and instead of six regular-sized issues it was three oversized issues.

Barry Allen Returns

In April 2008, DC Universe #0 hit the stands. The book, which set up plot threads for a number of upcoming storylines, strongly implied the return of Barry Allen to life. Articles in the mainstream press made it explicit: Barry Allen was back, and he was back for good. (Actually, they tended to just call him “The Flash,” and made it sound like DC hadn’t been printing a Flash series for the last 23 years.)

Barry made his official return in Final Crisis #2 in June, in a final splash page showing him in motion, shouting to his fellow Flashes the single word: “Run!”

Just one month later, at Comic-Con International in San Diego, DC announced the upcoming miniseries, Flash: Rebirth, by the Green Lantern: Rebirth team of Geoff Johns and Ethan Van Sciver. The series is currently scheduled to start in April 2009. See also: what we know so far about Flash: Rebirth.

Around the DCU

Jay Garrick continued to appear regularly in Justice Society of America. He also teamed up with Batman in The Brave and the Bold #13, as they battled a nearly-forgotten villain from the late Silver Age: the Samuroids.

Wally West started appearing in the newly-launched Titans series. After a conspicuous absence in Justice League of America, he shared the spotlight with Wonder Woman for issue #20, as they went up against Queen Bee — the same villain who would headline the final story arc in this volume of The Flash.

Wally also made several appearances in Brave and the Bold. While his spotlight issue was released in 2007, he appeared as one of the original Teen Titans in a flashback story in issue #10, and in the present day in #12. Speaking of flashbacks, Teen Titans: Year One looked back at the formation and early days of DC’s main teen super-team.

And then there’s the 12-part Tangent: Superman’s Reign, which started in March. Wally West shared the first cover with the Tangent Universe’s Flash, Lia Nelson, and both Flashes have continued to play a role in the story.

Just about everyone has shown up in Trinity at one point or another, and of course in Final Crisis. Outside the DCU, the Flash has appeared in Super Friends and Kid Flash in Tiny Titans.

Collections

2008 started with a second edition of Blood Will Run, the first story arc Geoff Johns wrote as the regular Flash writer (with Wonderland he’d been hired just for the one arc), which added the graphic novel, Iron Heights.

The second volume of Showcase Presents:The Flash arrived in June, reprinting more of Barry Allen’s Silver-Age adventures in a cheap, black-and-white collection.

August saw the release of The Wild Wests, the first monthly Flash story arc to be collected in hardcover. (Previously, The Life Story of the Flash and Greatest Flash Stories Ever Told had been printed in hardcover, and aside from that only the Flash Archives series had received that treatment.)

TV/Animation

In February, Barry Allen appeared in the direct-to-DVD animated film, Justice League: The New Frontier (reviewed on my other blog), based on Darwyn Cooke’s DC: The New Frontier. The movie debuted at WonderCon in San Francisco the weekend before its release.

In March, the Flash appeared in the two-part series finale of The Batman, “Lost Heroes,” alongside the Justice League. Season 5 was released on DVD in July, and reviewed here earlier this week.

Teen Titans Season 5, which featured Kid Flash in several episodes, was also released on DVD in July.

The DVD set DC Superheroes: The Filmation Adventures was released in August, featuring (among others) the Flash and Teen Titans segments from the 1967 Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure. They’re certainly a different take on the heroes.

Meanwhile, a number of DC-based cartoons and TV series including Superfriends, the live-action Flash TV series the Filmation cartoons and others have been made available as digital downloads from such services as iTunes, Amazon Video on Demand, and XBox Live.

Video Games

This summer, word came out that the Flash would appear in Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe. The game was released to mixed reviews in November.

Back at Comic-Con in July, Sony previewed the upcoming massively-multiplayer online game, DC Universe Online. At least two Flashes (Jay Garrick and either Wally West or Barry Allen) appear in the game, which is being scripted by Geoff Johns and will likely ship in late 2009 or early 2010.

Flash Companion

In July, just in time for Comic-Con, TwoMorrows released The Flash Companion. The 224-page book covers the full behind-the-scenes history of the Scarlet Speedster, from his origins in the 1940s to the present day. The biggest part of the book is dedicated to interviews with and articles about the writers, artists and editors who have brought the character to life for the past seven decades.

In addition to the interviews, there’s previously unpublished artwork, articles about unusual facts — like the time one editor ordered two covers for the same issue, or the unused Flash — and of course, Rogue Profiles.

I’m still excited about this one because I contributed several of the character profiles — specifically, the ones for Abra Kadabra, Professor Zoom, and Zoom.

So what’s coming up for the Flash in 2009? That’s the subject for another post, and I’ll have it ready for you…next year!

Thanks to the Grand Comics Database for several of the covers.

Looking Back: The Flash in 2008 is a post from Speed Force.

From the interview with Danny Bilson and Paul De Meo:

BILSON: You know what? The network offered the role to Jack Coleman, who used to be on Dynasty, and he wouldn’t do it because he wouldn’t wear the suit. That’s what I remember.

So what might Coleman have been like as Barry?

Here’s Barry Allen from his first appearance in Showcase #4, alongside a picture of Jack Coleman from Dynasty a couple of years before The Flash went on the air, and another picture of him as today’s audience would recognize him.

Well, he certainly would have looked the part!

Also, John Wesley Shipp was Bilson & De Meo’s second choice for the role. Their first was Richard Burgi, who went on to lead the duo’s later show, The Sentinel. CBS went with Shipp because, in the network head’s words (according to De Meo), “I can see that guy on a lunchbox.”

Image sources: Barry Allen scanned from The Greatest Flash Stories Ever Told, art by Carmine Infantino and Joe Kubert. Dynasty photo via Heroes The Series. Heroes photo via BuddyTV.

Heroes’ HRG: Almost the Flash is a post from Speed Force.

During Crisis on Infinite Earths, DC made the decision to kill Barry Allen before they had figured out how to replace him. Many ideas were suggested, and the one that got the farthest was a proposal by Len Wein and Marv Wolfman for a new character with no link to Barry except the name.

A brief note in Amazing Heroes Preview Special #2 (1986) described the proposal:

• Mackenzie “Mac” Ryan was a lab tech at STAR Labs, linked to established character Jenet Klyburn.
• He was a single father with a daughter between 8 and 12 years old.
• Instead of super-speed, he had the ability to manipulate energy fields (light, sound, etc.)

Ultimately, DC decided to promote Wally West instead. Oddly enough, Mackenzie Ryan actually gets a brief mention in canon, during a phone conversation with Klyburn in The New Teen Titans #19 (written by Marv Wolfman), which gave his daughter’s name as Jamie.

Further reading:

The Flash Companion has an article about “The Unused Flash.” Comic Book Urban Legends Revealed #126 points out similarities between Mackenzie Ryan’s powers and those of the Tangent Flash. Titans Tower collects interview fragments about trying to set up the new Flash.

Mackenzie Ryan: The Flash Who Never Was is a post from Speed Force.

It’s about 2/3 of the way through the column, the section labeled “Flashburning Bridges.”

Flash Companion Linkage: Waid on Bart as Flash is a post from Speed Force.

Here’s one more excerpt to round out the quartet of Scarlet Speedsters. As with the others, it’s posted here with permission of the book’s main author, Keith Dallas.

Mark Waid: Running on Impulse (excerpt)

By John Wells

WELLS: Why call him “Impulse,” rather than “Kid Flash”?

WAID: Because it was a perfect name. We didn’t want to call him “Kid Flash” because it sounded a little corny, and I still think it sounds a little corny. “Impulse” is the perfect confluence of a character’s name, his powers, and his personality, all in one word. And once we had the name — and I can’t swear it wasn’t Kurt Busiek’s suggestion — it completely summed up the character. Thought to deed in one motion without all those pesky synapses getting in the way.

WELLS: [laughs] It really did. Whose idea was that hair?

WAID: I think it was Humberto’s. Pure Humberto [Ramos]. Mike Wieringo had done the initial costume design, without the mask, but boy, Humberto went to town with the look, with the giant hair and the gigantic feet.

WELLS: Now kind of earlier on, you’d had the Tornado Twins revived in 1991′s Legion of Super-Heroes #18 and immediately had them executed by the Dominators.

WAID: [chuckles] “You” meaning “the Legion editors and writers after you left staff.” Don’t look at me, man.

WELLS: And later on, their DNA created a female speedster called Rush. And meantime, Don Allen was said to have been survived by his wife, Carmen Johnson and their two-year old son, Barry II. So what came first? You said you had the teen speedster idea for the Justice League story []earlier in the interview], was that before or after?

WAID: A little after, so that would have been the “Barry II” that we were talking about at the time, I suppose. But at that point, we were going to reboot the Legion with Zero Hour, so I knew that all bets were off in terms of Rush and those characters. It also freed up the name “Impulse,” which I believe was the codename of —

WELLS: Kent Shakespeare.

WAID: Kent Shakespeare, yeah.

WELLS: Iris brought Bart back to the 20th Century in the hope that Wally could cure her grandson, but she also wanted Wally to rein in Bart and train him in the use of his powers. Why was that not going to work?

WAID: It was so not going to work because Bart and Wally just hated each other. Wally saw in Impulse all of his own negative characteristics, so it put his teeth on edge.

WELLS: On the other hand, Max [Mercury] and Bart did work out pretty well, even though they didn’t think it was going to. How did you see that relationship?

WAID: We went into the Impulse series not sure who the mentor figure was going to be. And for a long time, I think we were talking about it being Jay, but Jay has his wife, Joan, and I don’t know what they could have brought to the series that wouldn’ t have been Ma and Pa Kent. Making Bart’s mentor Max, somebody who was so dry and so much the opposite of Bart, was too much comic potential to let go.

WELLS: Now early on, Impulse had been set up as Wally’s heir apparent when we thought Wally might die in “Terminal Velocity.” But then DC threw you a curve by announcing that there was going to be an Impulse comic to debut after Flash #100. So what kind of damage control did you have to do?

WAID: Talk about mixed blessings. “Yay! Good news. We got a new series. Wait — what?” We found out Impulse was getting his own series about the same time the rest of the world did. Go figure. And it initially threw us off our “Terminal Velocity” game because Impulse was deliberately there as a red herring to make you think that he was going to pick up Wally’s suit and be the next Flash. But the way advance solicits work, people would have known that Impulse #1 was going to be published the month after Flash #100 and gee, I wonder who’s going to step into the main role. I bet it’s not the kid who’s going to get his own comic. [John chuckles] So that’s why we dragged Jesse Quick and Max and some of the other speedsters into that story, “Terminal Velocity,” just to help set up a few more red herrings.

The bigger question, the bigger problem, was what do we do with that Impulse book? What do we do with it that’s not Kid Flash? What do we do with it that’s not the exact same adventures that Flash has, but about a kid with bigger feet? So the roll of the dice we took thematically, Brian and I, was our determination to make it not a super-hero book but a sitcom disguised as a super-hero book. And, God, you would have thought from the way the people at DC reacted that we were talking about publishing porn. [John chuckles again] One of the vice presidents who’s no longer there was literally running up and down the hall at the time, waving advance copies of the first issue around and yelling, “What the hell is this crap? Why are we even publishing this? What is this awful, awful comic book?” because he didn’t get it. A lot of people didn’t get it, and conventional wisdom up there was that the book wouldn’t last past issue six. But Brian and I would always rather swing for the fences than go for the safe, solid double. And a super-hero comic with Impulse would have been a safe, solid double, but we swung for the fences and, boy, it paid off for us.

The full interview runs six pages and is accompanied by sketches and illustrations from the comics.

The Flash Companion is now available from TwoMorrows, Amazon, and local comic stores.

• Order through Amazon
• Order through TwoMorrows

Flash Companion Preview: Mark Waid on Impulse is a post from Speed Force.

John Morrow told a funny story about how, last night, Mark Waid showed up at the booth and wanted to buy a copy. They pointed out that he didn’t need to, they were sending him a comp copy, and he said, no, you don’t understand, I need to read this in my hotel room, tonight! They gave him his free copy then and there.

After the panel I finally got to meet Keith Dallas, Bill Walko, and someone else whose name already escapes me (sorry!) [Edit:] Jim Kingman. Keith is doing a signing at the TwoMorrows booth until 5:00.

Flash Companion at Comic-Con is a post from Speed Force.

The Flash Companion will be available at the TwoMorrows booth at Comic-Con International this week, and should arrive in stores either next week or the week after. Orders through Amazon are shipping now.

Mike Baron: Wally West’s Fast Living (excerpt)

By Keith Dallas

DALLAS: It seemed pretty obvious that during your run on Flash you were avoiding the classic Flash Rogues. No Captain Cold, no Captain Boomerang, no Mirror Master. Instead you introduced some completely new villains… with the exception of Vandal Savage. What particular reason did you have for starting this Flash re-launch with Savage as the villain?

BARON: I can’t exactly recall, but for starters, he’s a great villain. It may also have been that I wanted to have some continuity in that first issue between Barry Allen and Wally West.

I would like to do a lot more with Kilg%re. That’s my main character that I created for Flash. He and the Chunk.

DALLAS: What was it about Kilg%re that you liked?

BARON: He encapsulates a number of science fiction ideas that lend themselves to exciting story-telling. Dark Horse took a stab at it with a movie called Virus, which is very similar in idea to Kilg%re. It wasn’t the greatest movie in the world. It starred Jamie Lee Curtis.

DALLAS: I remember that movie.

Now what was it about Chunk that you liked?

BARON: He was kind of a projection of me. The ultimate nerd.

DALLAS: [laughs] It didn’t take you long to show that Chunk wasn’t a true villain.

BARON: No, he was just an outsider who wanted to belong.

DALLAS: Is that a sentiment that you felt perhaps the readers could connect to?

BARON: Oh, yeah!

DALLAS: The other two villains you introduced during your run on Flash were Speed Demon — the steroid monster gone crazy — and Blue Trinity — the Russian Soviet speedsters.

Now in 1987 and 1988 the Berlin wall hadn’t fallen yet, but there was definitely a sense that the “Cold War” was winding down. Even though the Barry Allen stories were published during the Cold War, they didn’t really comment on or touch upon Cold War issues.

With Blue Trinity, were you attempting to make a statement about the “Last Days of the Cold War”?

BARON: I was not trying to be “relevant.” My primary purpose is always to entertain. I was just trying inspiration from the last days of the Soviet Union. At the time the Soviets had a lot of desperate scientific experiments going on to see if they could make some kind of technological breakthrough, either in weaponry or medicine, to save the Soviet Union.

Of course it didn’t happen.

DALLAS: So how different was it writing Flash as opposed to writing Punisher or Nexus or Badger? Did you have a different approach?

BARON: No. Like I said, I am always looking for a very strong idea on which to build a story around. If the idea comes to me from contemporary news, that’s fine. If it comes to me from history, fine. If it comes from out of the blue, fine. It just has to be a strong idea.

I’m not sure all of my Flash ideas were strong, but some of them were.

The full interview runs five pages and is accompanied by photos and illustrations from the comics.

As mentioned above, The Flash Companion is available at the TwoMorrows booth at Comic-Con, and should be available in stores sometime in the next two weeks. Amazon is shipping them already.

• Order through Amazon
• Order through TwoMorrows

Flash Companion Preview: Mike Baron Interview is a post from Speed Force.