Speed Force

The results are in! Comics Should Be Good has posted the top ten greatest Barry Allen stories ever told, as chosen by the blog’s readers.

The breakdown is interesting:

• 6 Silver-Age stories
• 2 Bronze-Age stories (one of which is the Death of Iris Allen storyline which Greg has heavily annotated here)
• Crisis on Infinite Earths #8
• 1 Secret Origins tale

Both the Flash’s origin tale and his death make the list…and the Secret Origins story retells both (and links them together)!

The writer breakdown is also interesting, especially when compared with the more focused results of the Wally West poll last year:

• 3 John Broome
• 2 Gardner Fox
• 2 Cary Bates
• 1 Robert Kanigher
• 1 Marv Wolfman
• 1 Robert Loren Fleming

Also neat: “Flash of Two Worlds” made both this list and the greatest Gardner Fox stories list a few weeks ago!

Cheetor of Two Worlds, originally uploaded by Gizmo_Tracer.

I found this photo while searching for more “Flash of Two Worlds” homages. There’s a whole series of comic book cover homages using Transformers toys.

Gizmo_Tracer describes the composition like this:

Cheetor as The Flash just seems obvious, and the ‘Flash of Two Worlds’ cover has always struck me as a real classic, thus, here we are.

Ralbalboa sent in this scan of a cover from an early Sonic the Hedgehog comic book:

(Click to enlarge)

It’s Sonic the Hedgehog #9, cover-dated April, probably from 1994 (GCD says the series started in 1993). And as regular readers here will no doubt notice, it’s a reference to the classic Flash of Two Worlds cover from Flash vol.1 #123 (1961). Read the rest of this entry »

DC’s The Source spotlights seven August Covers, including the cover for Flash: Rebirth#5.

It’s the latest homage to the classic “Flash of Two Worlds” cover from Flash v.1 #123, the first meeting of Barry Allen and Jay Garrick — only this time it’s Barry Allen vs. the Black Flash, and the poor hapless construction worker has been crushed by the falling beam.

There are actually two visual references to this famous cover in Flash: Rebirth #1 as well — a parade float, and then a side view in Jay Garrick’s reminiscences.

Also of interest is the cover to Final Crisis Aftermath: Escape, in which it looks like Nemesis is running on the Cosmic Treadmill.