What happened to Tarpit in Flash: Blackest Night? – Probably nothing, since (as Captain Boomerang Jr. pointed out) his physical body is actually somewhere else. On the other hand, Captain Cold did freeze Iron Heights.

When does the new Flash Forward come out? – New episodes start Thursday, March 18. ABC will also be running a recap of the first half of the season on Tuesday, March 16, after Lost.

What is the song when Flash goes speed force? – I’m not really sure what you mean by this (unless it’s “What music plays during the climax of the Justice League Unlimited episode, “Divided We Fall”), but allow me to recommend the Jim’s Big Ego song, “The Ballad of Barry Allen.” It’s certainly more appropriate than Queen’s Flash Gordon theme.

Is DC: The New Frontier a sequel to The Golden Age? – No, but it’s a similar concept — enough so that when James Robinson was asked whether he might do a sequel, he said that New Frontier basically covered it.

Which Flash controls the speed force? – Depends on what you mean by “control.” Barry Allen generates it by running, all Flashes use it as fuel, and Wally West is able to manipulate it to perform feats like lending or stealing speed.

How can you speed if you are following someone else? – If they’re driving faster than the speed limit, then it’s entirely possible for you to do the same thing.

Why don’t people like Barry Allen? – Because not everyone has the same tastes that you do. Just as some people prefer the serious tone of the 1990s Batman animated series, while others prefer the zany adventure of Batman: the Brave and the Bold, different people like different takes on the Flash.

What will happen to Wally West? – He’ll probably be a recurring guest star in The Flash, and will almost certainly show up in an issue or two of DC Universe: Legacies. DC has scaled back on the big plans they had for the Flash this year, dropping a set of backup stories that would have featured Wally in The Flash and a Kid Flash series that would have featured Bart. Other than that, we probably won’t see much of him until the next big Flash epic, unless James Robinson pulls a surprise and puts him back on Justice League. In which case we can probably expect to see Irey or Jai killed and Wally’s legs amputated. @#*&^! Cry for Justice.

Edit: One More! – Panels at WonderCon 2010 – They haven’t released a programming schedule yet, but last year it was posted about two weeks before the convention. So we should see something online by mid-March. Update: They’ll post the schedule one day at a time, starting on March 10.

Search-Term Q&A is a post from Speed Force.

Current Events

Why did Reverse Flash have a Brightest Day symbol?

We don’t know for sure yet, but the implication is that Brightest Day is related to characters who come back from the dead after or at the end of Blackest Night.

Is Jesse Quick back?

Well, she seems to be…but then she’s still appearing as Liberty Belle in Justice Society of America and the second features in JSA All-Stars, so it’s hard to tell. Maybe those take place earlier, maybe she goes back to the other costume, or maybe she’s just going to switch costumes depending on who she’s teaming up with that day.

Did Jay Garrick die in Smallville?

He only appeared in flashback, when Checkmate was rounding up the Justice Society and arresting its members on false charges. He was mentioned by other characters as if he was still alive. (Spoilers for Absolute Justice.)

Is DC working on an animated Flash movie?

If they are, they haven’t said anything about it. A Newsarama article more than a year ago included the Flash in a list of upcoming projects, but there’s been no mention of it since then.

Looking Back

What comes before Final Crisis: Rogues’ Revenge?

Rogues’ Revenge concludes a sort of trilogy, which you can follow in these collections:

1. Flash: The Fastest Man Alive – Full Throttle
2. JLA: Salvation Run
3. Final Crisis: Rogues’ Revenge

It also takes place after the end of Flash vol.2 and during the first three issues of Final Crisis.

What year did the Flash superhero gain lightning?

That depends on what the lightning in question is:

• The symbol dates back to Jay Garrick’s first appearance in 1940.
• Lightning in the Flash’s origin goes back to Barry Allen’s first appearance in 1956.
• Lightning effects used to convey speed were used occasionally in the early 1990s, became more prominent when Mike Wieringo worked on the book (1993-1994), and really became established during Terminal Velocity (1995).

Slightly Off-Topic

What is Dan Didio’s twitter name?

As far as I’m aware, Dan Didio isn’t on Twitter.

Who was the female speedster in Heroes?

The character’s name was Daphne Millbrook, and she was played by actress Brea Grant.

Flashforward novel how did it know the pope’s name?

It’s off-topic, but I get a lot of these since I posted a review of the novel.

Author Robert J. Sawyer explains in this video interview that he looked at the list of past popes’ names for those that had good reputations and might be “ready for a comeback.”

Answering Searchers’ Questions is a post from Speed Force.

Behind the Voice Actors has several pages comparing the Flash’s portrayals in animation and games ranging from the Filmation cartoons through Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe. (Thanks to Mike for the link.)

Once Upon a Geek apologizes to Geoff Johns and Ethan Van Sciver for doubting them on Wally West’s future.

Multiversity Comics spotlights Captain Cold.

The Press Democrat’s Four Colors blog sums up the Flash, starting with Barry Allen’s death in Crisis on Infinite Earths and looking at the speedster’s current status in Flash: Rebirth.

Other “Flashes”

It’s time to update that other Flash: the one on your computer! On Tuesday, Adobe release a security fix, so if you haven’t already updated it this week, head over to Adobe’s download page and grab the new version. Details here. Also: If you use Adobe AIR, it’s got an update too.

Robert J. Sawyer explains the FlashForward schedule, and exactly what has changed since the second half of the season was pushed to March.

Speed Reading: Science, Voices, Captain Cold & Other “Flashes” is a post from Speed Force.

Flashy

What Were They Thinking?! approves of Joan Garrick, even in her original Golden Age appearances.

High Five! Comics looks at Flash #206: 24 Hours of Immortality and Nurse Barry.

The Idol-Head of Diabolu has located a 1967 board game featuring the Flash (via Crimson Lightning).

The Flash-Back podcast reviews “Blitz.”

Wednesday Comics artist and co-writer Karl Kerschl announces a European tour along with Ramón Pérez and Cameron Stewart over the next month.

Artist Evan “Doc” Shaner presents his 5-member Justice League (well, 7). It’s rather unconventional, featuring the Viking Prince, Jonah Hex and Sergeant Rock…but he puts the Flash front and center (via @FrancisManapul).

Screen Rant casts the Flash, both Barry Allen and Wally West, with some…Horribly familiar choices.

I finally updated the profile of Bart Allen on Smallville.

Wide View

Indy Comic Book Week encourages writers and artists to self-publish books for the week of December 30, when Diamond won’t be shipping any comics, and offer them through their local comic stores.

My Modern Metropolis collects 25 re-imagined movie posters. They’re all great, but Flash fans should pay particular attention to the Incredibles poster.

Today’s flashback post at K-Squared Ramblings covers MovieTickets.com’s “World’s Fastest Man” ad campaign from a couple of years ago. A bit more current: I write about rereading Flashforward.

Speaking of other Flashes, Sociological Images wonders: Can Ming the Merciless be redeemed?

Speed Reading: Joan, Posters, Kerschl Tour & More is a post from Speed Force.

If you missed it, ABC is running it again Friday night. It should also be up on Hulu soon.

Flash Forward = Fantastic is a post from Speed Force.

The third installment of Views from the Speed Force is up. The spinoff from the Views from the Longbox podcast has been focusing on each issue of Flash: Rebirth, and this one tackles issue #3.

Fanboy Wife contemplates the Flash, alternate meanings of the name, the value of hard water and just what super-speed is good for.

Blog@Newsarama considers what might go into a second volume of Wednesday Comics.

Tomheroes has a collection of super-hero Hostess ads from the 1970s. I’ve mentioned these before, and profiled the lame villains who appeared in the Flash installments. This page doesn’t have the snarky commentary of Seanbaby’s Hostess Page, but some of the scans are somewhat higher quality.

The Weekly Crisis is giving away 4 trade paperbacks and hardcovers in a contest to celebrate two years online.

Over at K-Squared Ramblings I’ve written up the Flash Forward panel at Comic-Con. This show looks like it’s going to be awesome! Also: the Lost panel was full of win. I missed it, but my wife posted a detailed write-up.

Weekend Speed Reading: Wally, Flashforward, Hostess Ads and More is a post from Speed Force.

• Apparently the secret to uploading photos in this hotel is to wait until 6am when there’s no competition. #
• The fastest man alive…stuck in traffic. #
• Saw Michael Jackson. #
• Lots of *ahem* Flash photography today #
• Morning shaping up well. Got lassoed into DC costume photoshoot, got 3D photo w/wife (also in costume) & made it into Coraline room #
• Haven’t been to a con in costume since 2003, and then it was Riff from Sluggy Freelance. Not terribly recognizable. #
• But showing up as the Jay Garrick Flash? That stands out! #
• *sigh* someone just said “excuse me, Flash Gordon.” #
• In last hour or so have posed with Captain Hammer, Catwoman, Liberty Belle and Stargirl. Now in line for DC Nation. #
• Hah! Just ran into a JSA group w/ another Jay Garrick! #
• Insta-mob just formed around Olivia Munn (?) As she headed to the panelist entrance. #
• Another insta-mob as Robert Rodriguez left panel. #
• Just saw a Geonosis Padme with a little girl dressed as Princess Leia from A New Hope #

Panels: Coraline, Flash Forward, DC Nation

• Coraline making-of w/Selik, Gaiman, animators & cast.Selik wants to do stop-motion Sandman, Neil wishes him luck w/WB #
• Forgot there was actually a Flash connection w/ Flash Forward: Marc Guggenheim & David S Goyer. #
• They just showed the 1st 2 acts of the Flashforward pilot and it’s AWESOME! #
• Dominic Monaghan confirmed for Flashforward. And he’s here. #
• Liveblogging DC Nation

Evening

• Cleaned up after day in costume, back at hotel restaurant. Planning to return for “Worst Cartoons Ever” #
• Awesome! RT @Robot6 SDCC ’09 | Scott Pilgrim video game is on the way. #
• Missed shuttle by 10 sec, chased, locked out. Ran, walked, jogged 1+ miles & took a pedicab. Chain broke. Made it w/5min to spare #
• Worst Cartoons Ever: mix of poorly-done, or trippy crack, or seriously offensive WTF-were-they-thinking cartoons from the 50s&60s #

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Friday at Comic-Con (in Tweets) is a post from Speed Force.

Various sources are reporting that ABC has officially picked up 13 episodes of Flash Forward, based on the Robert J. Sawyer novel of the same name (which I reviewed at Speed Force last December).

The series is about the fallout from an event in which everyone in the world blacks out for 2 minutes and sees a vision of their own future. (In the book it’s 20 years, but in the TV show it’s 6 months…presumably to make it more urgent and so that the show can catch up to it.)

The cast features Joseph Fiennes, Sonya Walger, John Cho, Jack Davenport, Brian O’Byrne, Courtney B. Vance, Christine Woods, Zachary Knighton and Peyton List.

Where else can you see William Shakespeare, Hikaru Sulu, Penelope Widmore and James Norrington together?

Variety points out that with Lost returning in January, ABC may intend Flash Forward to fill the gap in fall, while Lost fans wait for its final season. (ABC has said from the start that they’re hoping Flash Forward will be the show to keep Lost‘s audience coming back after that show wraps.)

There’s actually a Flash connection — or rather, several. David Goyer (who wrote a now-scrapped script for the Flash movie) co-wrote and directed the pilot, and Marc Guggenheim (who wrote Flash: The Fastest Man Alive — “Full Throttle” [edit: fixed title]) will executive produce the series.

(via Robert J. Sawyer. Cross-posted at K-Squared Ramblings)

Flash Forward Comes to TV is a post from Speed Force.

Flashforward has been in the entertainment news quite a bit the last few weeks with casting for the TV series pilot (more about that later). Strangely enough for a story that’s all about time and the role of the observer, I started reading the novel the day before the first casting news hit.

The novel looks at what happens when, at the moment a scientific experiment begins, everyone on the planet blacks out for two minutes. For those two minutes, everyone sees through the eyes of their future selves, two decades down the line. The world is transformed: first by the millions of accidents caused as drivers, pilots and surgeons lost control of their vehicles and instruments, and second by the survivors’ knowledge of the future.

What follows is an exploration of the nature of time, destiny and free will. Is this a glimpse of the future as it will be, or as it may be? Did the experiment cause the event, or was it a coincidence? Is foreknowledge a blessing or a curse?

Dilemmas

Flashforward is at its best when it focuses on characters’ dilemmas. While it sounds like the TV series will feature a wider cast, the original novel centers on the personal lives of researchers at CERN, particularly the two scientists who designed the experiment: Lloyd Simcoe, a 45-year-old Canadian who is shocked to learn that his impending marriage is doomed to collapse, and Theo Procopides, a 27-year-old Greek who learns that he will be dead by the time the visions come to pass. Lloyd wrestles with his responsibility for the event and whether it’s worth going through with a marriage he knows won’t last. Theo is consumed with preemptively solving his own murder.

There’s a great bit in which a stand-in for the Amazing Randi declares on international television that the future isn’t set, and demonstrates it by smashing a souvenir that he had seen in his vision. The viewpoint character, annoyed at what he considers an obviously inconclusive display, calls up the museum that sold it and orders a new one sent to him. Another character ponders suicide, depressed by his bleak future, but considers: if he does succeed: he will prove beyond a doubt that the future can be changed…which would mean that he could live and still avoid his fate.

Occasionally it stumbles into telling, rather than showing, as when presenting the view of the next twenty years worked out by correlating thousands’ of people’s visions, or when presenting a debate at the United Nations. And it does take a strange turn at one point that reminded me of Robert Charles Wilson’s novel, Darwinia.

Most of the book, though, is an enjoyable look at the different ways that people, organizations, and even nations might react to learning their future.

The Future Isn’t What It Used to Be

This next bit has nothing to do with the quality of the book, only the timing of when I read it. It was published in 1999, but the bulk of the story takes place in April 2009. I read it in December 2008, just five months before its setting, which makes it interesting to compare Sawyer’s ten-year-old predictions to reality. Plus the Large Hadron Collider was in the news quite a bit when it went online just this past September.

He correctly predicted that the world wide web would be significant, but didn’t anticipate that newsgroups would be virtually gone; that countries without anti-spam laws would be havens for spammers, but didn’t anticipate that limited success at enforcement would lead to scofflaws everywhere else flooding 90% of email traffic. Characters submit a new website to hundreds of search engines, rather than focusing on the few top ones (Google was in its infancy back when this was written). Expected that Lasik surgery would make eyeglasses rare by 2009. Missed the mobile phone boom and convergence of PDAs, phones, cameras, etc. (I’m not sure I saw anyone with a cell phone until the narrative caught up with the Flashforward itself, but then the leads all work at a high-energy particle physics lab.) Interestingly, he got the name Pope Benedict XIV correct.

TV Series

Flashforward, or Flash Forward depending on where you look (though I’ve seen people call it Fast Forward as well — not to be confused with Fast-Forward, a.k.a. Buried Alien) is being adapted to a television series for ABC. The network hopes it will hang onto the audience from Lost as that show wraps up. They’re clearly adapting the concept rather than the plot, and according to Sawyer (who is involved in the development) they’ve planned out 5 seasons’ worth of story.

As for casting for the pilot: So far Courtney B. Vance and Jack Davenport, Sonya Walger and Christine Woods have been confirmed, and Joseph Fiennes and John Cho are in negotiations. The author’s blog has more.

Incidentally: While most people know Jack Davenport as Norrington from the Pirates of the Caribbean films, I’ll always think of him as Steve from Coupling. Sorry, Mr. Davenport.

Review: Flashforward is a post from Speed Force.

1. Speed Force entry at Wikipedia – no big surprise, wince Wikipedia often tends to show up in the top few results if there’s an article that matches the query.
2. Speedforceracing.com – a company that builds and tunes engines for customizing cars.
3. Speed Force entry at Flash: Those Who Ride the Lightning Glad to know it’s still near the top. It used to be #1, though…
4. Video results for the search. Google’s been trying to cross-reference their various searches, so ther are a couple of hits from a search on Youtube, which bring up one clip from Justice League and a humorous clip modified from Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.
5. This blog!
6. My review of last month’s issue
7. Logitech’s Speed Force Wireless(tm) – a racing wheel controller for the Nintendo Wii game console.
8. A physics discussion on The Speed of Force. Here’s where Google starts breaking away from the phrase and toward matching the words individually.
9. The Twitter user who got the name speedforce before I thought to look for it (which is why I went with the slightly clunkier SpeedForceOrg). Interestingly, he just posted about Robert J. Sawyer’s Flashforward, which I started reading on Monday, because the first casting info was announced on Tuesday.

Exact search results seem to vary a bit depending on where you are, and which Google site you use. I got slightly different results between my home and work systems, for instance. Searching Google UK dropped the RTL article to position 7, and the car site to position 6, while Google Canada pulled my profile page to the #2 spot. Both picked up a “Magic: the Gathering” thread.

A few months ago, it took effort to get this site to show up in a search at all without resorting to something blog-specific. Now it’s on the first page of results for the title. Nice!

Googling the Speed Force is a post from Speed Force.