January 9, 2012
Welcome to the latest installment in our annotations of the collected edition of The Trial of the Flash! We analyzed related stories leading up to the summer 2011 release of Showcase Presents: The Trial of the Flash. In addition, we interviewed author Cary Bates about the buildup and the Trial itself, plus showed you what wasn’t included in the collection.
Links to artwork and research are included throughout this post. For legal analysis of the story by Bob Ingersoll, go here. For this issue’s corresponding Tom vs. The Flash podcast, go here!
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December 7, 2011
Welcome to the latest installment in our annotations of the collected edition of The Trial of the Flash! We’ve analyzed related stories leading up to the summer 2011 release of Showcase Presents: The Trial of the Flash. In addition, we’ve interviewed author Cary Bates about the buildup and the Trial itself, plus shown you what wasn’t included in the collection.
Links to artwork and research are included throughout this post. For legal analysis of the story, something I will not attempt, go here. For this issue’s corresponding Tom vs. The Flash podcast, go here!
Read the rest of this entry »
October 29, 2011
Welcome to the latest installment in our annotations of the collected edition of The Trial of the Flash! We’ve broken-down related stories leading up to the recent release of Showcase Presents: The Trial of the Flash. In addition, we interviewed author Cary Bates about the buildup and the Trial itself, plus showed you what wasn’t included in the collection. For annotations to previous issues, click here.
Links to artwork and research are included throughout this post. For legal analysis of the story, something I will not attempt, go here. For this issue’s corresponding Tom vs. The Flash podcast, go here!
Read the rest of this entry »
June 21, 2011
DC has released the covers for DC Retroactive: The 70s, the series of July one-shots featuring the return of classic writers to the interpretations of the characters that they wrote back in the day.
The cover for DC Retroactive: The Flash – The ’70s is by Benito Gallego, Sal Buscema, and Carrie Strachan. The book is being written by Cary Bates, who talked about it a bit in an interview with Speed Force last month.
It’s titled “Son of Grodd” and it explores the concept of fatherhood on two parallel tracks, one dealing with Grodd and the other with Barry….With this story, heretofore unspoken aspects of the Allen marriage will finally be explored in depth. At the same time, you’ll be seeing a new side of Grodd as we find out what kind of father he might have made back in the ’70’s.
There’s more in there, of course, so be sure to read the whole interview if you missed it the first time around.
UPDATE! Artist Benito Gallego dropped by to point out his original pencils for the cover!
May 20, 2011
Among today’s Flashpoint Friday articles at The Source are this map of the world of Flashpoint showing trouble spots, and an interview with Sean Ryan about his one-shot: Grodd of War.
It seems that in a world without a Flash, Grodd took control of Gorilla City and began expanding his empire, conquering the whole of Africa by the time Flashpoint begins. But everything’s come too easily, and he just isn’t satisfied without a challenge.
Other articles posted today include interviews about The World of Flashpoint and Frankenstein and the Creature Commandos. CBR has a good round-up of the day, including both DC’s releases and fan reactions.
May 6, 2011
Salutations Speed Readers,
Last Saturday McDonald’s started it’s second Batman: Brave and the Bold Happy Meal promotion! Just like the Young Justice Happy Meal promotion from a couple months ago this set will feature two Flash-related characters: Barry Allen’s version of The Flash and Gorilla Grodd, one of the Scarlet Speedster’s greatest villains. Unlike the Young Justice promotion I didn’t feel like dealing with McDonald’s at all. So I went the evilBay route. Unfortunately when I wanted them no one was selling just Grodd and Flash (Since they come in two different sets) so I just went ahead and purchased all eight of the sets. I’m only going to show the Flash-related ones right now but if enough of you want to see the rest I may post them at a future time. Check ‘em out:
The seller was kind enough to include the Happy Meal box along with the sets.
And a couple more pics of Barry and Grodd:
As you can see they didn’t really fill in the details. Flash’s wings on his cowl are just blotches of paint and although they included the lightning details on his forearms and belt they neglected to fill them in with paint. Grodd isn’t that big of a deal, he is just missing some minor details on the helmet which I wouldn’t realistically expect anyway. Also whereas the initial Brave and the Bold line and even the Young Justice line from a couple months ago were fairly large and featured some decent details where it counted, it looks like they opted for quantity over quality this time around and released 24 different toys. Kids get more bang for their buck with three smaller toys in one package instead of just the standard one.
Just for comparison:
Yep, pretty tiny. Still not bad figures, and it is always good to see some more mainstream Flash love.
Anyone else gotten their hands on these guys yet?
Thanks for reading,
-Devin “Flash” Johnson
April 23, 2011
DC posted more of its Flashpoint writers Q&A on Friday, including Citizen Cold writer/artist Scott Kolins and Grodd of War writer Sean Ryan.
Ryan says of Grodd of War:
Since my one-shot is about one of Flash’s greatest villains, Grodd, the conflict is what does Grodd do without his archenemy. He gets everything he’s ever wanted, but there’s no more challenges in his life. He’s got everything he wants, but he’s miserable.
When asked about his favorite Flashpoint character and a “surprise” character who “will have fans talking,” Kolins says:
I am having so much fun with Cold. Geoff and I have talked many times about how great it would be for Cold to have his own monthly series. Surprise character? Flash fans will be very interested in a mysterious masked character who plays a crucial part in the story.
As for personal stories, “It doesn’t get more personal than CITIZEN COLD. Can a hero with a bad secret fall in love?”
Check out part one, part two and part three from last week, including Scott Kolins’ Flashpoint Rogues, and go onto part four of the interview.
April 11, 2011
DC has started announcing the full writer/artist teams for the Retro-Active event announced at WonderCon. First up for The Flash: The 1970s.
DC RETROACTIVE: THE FLASH – THE ’70s
Artist Benito Gallego teams up with writer Cary Bates to tell the tale of an evil attack from one of The Flash’s greatest nemeses, Gorilla Grodd. With a plan so twisted and evil launched against him, Barry must not only work to preserve his legacy, but his relationship with his wife, Iris.
ONE-SHOT • On sale JULY 20 • 56 pg, FC, $4.99 US • RATED T
As explained in the Superman announcement, each book will feature a 20-page new story and a 26-page classic story by the same writer.
Update: I just noticed that this is scheduled for the same week as the Showcase Presents collection of Cary Bates’ bronze-age Flash epic, The Trial of the Flash. Now there’s timing!
Update 2: The wording of DC’s solicitation text is slightly different:
In a new tale from classic 1970s writer Cary Bates, Gorilla Grodd unleashes his most ruthless attack yet against his nemesis, The Flash – a plan for revenge so warped and diabolical, it dooms The Scarlet
Speedster to a slow and agonizing fate that will end his heroic career and cause an unspeakable rift between Barry and his wife, Iris!
Plus: Following the 26-page lead story is a classic tale originally published in the ’70s, also written by Cary Bates!
March 11, 2011
FLASHPOINT: GRODD OF WAR #1
Cover: Francis Manapul
Writer: Sean Ryan
Art: Ig Guara
“Africa belongs to him!”
Well, Grodd’s always wanted to take over the world. It sounds like in the Flashpoint timeline he’s been a bit more successful at it.
One of the one-shots announced at The Source.
Update (June 15): A lot of people are landing here today, since the book just came out. Here’s a more recent article including a link to a preview of the issue.
February 4, 2011
Hey Speed Readers, it is that time again. However, before I begin I would like to make one thing very clear; I don’t post these entries to brag or show off I simply post them to share. I know that there are other collectors like myself who may not have acquired a certain piece yet or are curious about how it looks out of the box and since I’ve never really been a mint on card collector, I’m happy to oblige them.
With that said I’m going to begin a new set of articles tentatively titled “Off The Shelf”. Basically it will be me finding an older piece or a group of related pieces from my collection and showcasing them since it is hard to do that under the banner of “Recent Acquisitions”. I know the title isn’t very original or memorable but I’m open to suggestions. I just keep the majority of my collectibles on a bookshelf so I thought the title made sense.
Speaking of “Recent Acquisitions” I recently acquired over 20 new collectibles and that means a lot of ground to cover. I’m going to split up the entries to spread out the content a bit and not have a million photos in one post, but this is just the beginning. I’m going to try and get something new up at least twice a week.
Now on to the fun stuff:
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