Speed Force

In case you’re wondering where my reviews of Flash #2 and Flash #3 are, this may shed some light…

1. Wednesday: It’s new comic day! I can’t wait to read this week’s comics! I’ll just have to make sure I finish my review tonight or tomorrow so it’s among the first batch people see.
2. Saturday: There are still some people who buy comics on the weekend, right? So a review is still timely.
3. Tuesday: Crap, new comics will be out tomorrow! I’d better make sure I post that review tonight!
4. Next Wednesday: Well, everyone’s going to be reading reviews of this week’s comics. So I guess I’ve got three weeks to review this one before the next one’s out.
5. Three Tuesdays Later: Crap, the new issue is out tomorrow and I still haven’t reviewed this one! I’d better get cracking!
6. Wednesday: Eh, forget it. No one wants to read a review of last month’s issue. But hey, it’s new comic day! I can’t wait to read this week’s comics! I’ll just have to make sure I finish my review tonight or tomorrow so it’s among the first batch people see….

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Threadless has a Flash-inspired shirt design up for voting. Score this design: “Faster than E-mail,” to help it get printed on Threadless!

I particularly like the use of the earpiece as the flag.

(Via the Fastest Fan Alive)

It’s been a while since we wrote about TeeFury, but they’ve got another Flash-themed shirt available for one day only.

The design by Wenceslao A Romero is only available until midnight EST, so if you want one, buy it today.

On a related note, while Mimobot has the current license for actual DC Comics-inspired flash drives, they’ve been sticking with the Batman and Green Lantern characters for now. You’d think someone over there would see the inherent appeal of a Flash flash drive.

Today, Netflix announced that they are separating the DVD and streaming businesses, and will be renaming the DVD-by-mail service as Qwikster, “because it refers to quick delivery.”

Qwikster…why does that sound familiar?

Ah, right…The Quickster, speedster alter-ego of Spongebob Squarepants and parody of the DC Comics’ Flash and Marvel Comics’ Quicksilver.

He looks a bit more like a VHS tape than a DVD or Blu-Ray disc, don’t you think?

One of many pieces of Flash news from Comic-Con that just didn’t sit right with me was the news that Barry Allen and Iris West were being retroactively split up for the New 52, and that Barry would be “playing the field.”

Really? This is the guy who, after Iris’ untimely death, when he finally forced himself to move out of the house where he lived with his late wife and try to get on with his life, promptly fell for the new girl next door. The idea of him dating someone else isn’t preposterous, but a player? That seems a little far-fe—

Oh, wait. Never mind.

(Seriously, though, this is one of the things that bugs me, because in my opinion, the Barry/Iris relationship should be central to the character(s). It might bother me less if DC wasn’t undoing the Lois/Clark marriage at the same time. I still haven’t decided whether to actually put together a post listing all the announced elements I do and don’t like and why.)

A sign I spotted last weekend. I couldn’t help thinking…is this where Barry Allen teaches you how to draw lines on your boots so you can run faster?

This morning, my Flash/SDCC Twitter search erupted in comments about the Flash speeding around San Diego on a Segway. It wasn’t long before someone posted a photo. Photographer @NandoVel writes:

Flash on a Segway. I don’t know if that means he’s Flash-ier or just lazy.

The goofy moments like this are always the ones that stand out most for me. I’m really looking forward to actually being on-site tomorrow.

Update: Here’s another shot, this one from @mattkindt.

In other SDCC news, Flash artist/writer Francis Manapul has posted his signing schedule for the con.

The webcomic Shortpacked! explains all the extra detail on the Flash’s new, post-relaunch boots. Makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?

Read the whole strip for Batman’s reaction.

Hmm, I wonder if the chin guard helps him breathe in space?

A local movie theater has been running special screenings of the extended-edition Lord of the Rings trilogy over the last few weeks (almost certainly in connection with this week’s Blu-Ray release). I just watched Green Lantern, another movie in which a ring figures prominently, at the same theater. And of course we’re knee-deep in Flashpoint. The stories collided in a mental three-car pile-up during an afternoon running errands, and I started thinking: What would The Lord of the Rings have been like as a modern “event” comic book like Final Crisis or Blackest Night?

• The Hobbit would have been subtitled, “Countdown to Lord of the Rings,” and continuity wouldn’t have lined up quite right with the main series.*
• The core story would have been six volumes, with the first three shipping on time, and increasing delays for volumes four, five and six.
• We would have seen side stories and flashbacks in specials or miniseries such as “Lord of the Rings: War in the North,” “Lord of the Rings: Arwen’s Story,” “Lord of the Rings: Faramir’s War” and “Lord of the Rings: Balin’s Last Stand.”
• The first issue of the main series would have been accompanied by plastic replicas of The One Ring. The first issue of each tie-in miniseries would have included one of the rings given to elves, dwarves, or men.
• To fill the gaps in the schedule, they would have added additional character specials like “Lord of the Rings: The Adventures of Tom Bombadil” and “Lord of the Rings: Radagast the Brown.”
• The main series would have ended with destroying the ring, and a group of follow-up miniseries would have detailed “Lord of the Rings Aftermath: The Scouring of the Shire”, “Lord of the Rings Aftermath: The Greening of Isengard” and “Lord of the Rings Aftermath: Quest for the Entwives”
• “Bow and Axe,” an adventure-comedy-buddy series starring Legolas and Gimli, would be the most successful of several ongoing spinoffs. “Settlers of Mordor,” on the other hand, would be canceled after just a few issues.

And then there are all the alternate-universe stories that would show up several years down the line, set in a world in which they failed to destroy the ring.

So…what do you think would have changed?

*Actually, this one really did happen. In the original edition of The Hobbit, Gollum gives Bilbo the ring as the prize for winning the riddle contest. By the time Tolkein got to The Lord of the Rings, that completely contradicted the ring’s effect on its bearers. He revised The Hobbit so that Bilbo finds the ring on his own, then wrote into LOTR that Bilbo had lied in the first edition to make himself look better.

Cobalt is an element obtained from the smelting of metallic ores such as cobaltite, copper, and nickel. The smelted form is a hard silvery metal with magnetic properties.

Cobalt-based blue pigments have been used since the Bronze Age (3000 BC) for glass, ceramics, jewellery, and paint. In modern times, the element is also used as part of a superalloy metal (which is a combination of metals) for diverse items like prosthetics, batteries, jet engines and turbines. A radioactive isotope of cobalt is commonly used in medical tests and to sterilize food and equipment.

Cobalt Blue is the name of a deep blue pigment used in ceramics, paint, glass, and even ophthalmology filters. It’s made from cobalt salts of alumina, and its popularity is in part due to its stability (meaning it doesn’t degrade or break down quickly). However, it’s toxic if ingested, much as I’d imagine Malcolm Thawne to be.

Cobalt Blue Tarantula

The Cobalt Blue tarantula is a spider species native to Myanmar and Thailand, notable for its iridescent blue legs, speed, and aggression. Somehow…this seems fitting. This site describes them as “a psychotic, high-strung burrowing species”, which makes them seem even less appealing.

There are many similarities between a blue tarantula and Malcolm Thawne: one is despised by most people and looks ridiculous. The other is a spider.