Speed Force

Some weekend linkblogging:

Art

Covered features artist James Duncan’s reinterpretation of Flash v.1 #108.

iFanboy’s Great Moments in Comics features a scan of the Flash’s costume begging Barry Allen not to leave it. “The Case of the Curious Costume,” which appeared in Flash v.1 #161 (1966) was a “bonus” story based on the cover from Flash v.1 #159. (Thanks to GCD for the scan!)

Crave Online’s Top 5 Covers for April starts the countdown with Flash: Rebirth #1 at position 5.

History

Over at Comics Should Be Good, Scott’s Classic Comics Corner has been trying to pin down the start of the Bronze Age of comics (a much fuzzier boundary than the start of the Silver Age), and finishes his series with several less serious suggestions. Among them: Flash #220 (1973), the return of Turtle Man, 17 years after he first appeared in…Showcase #4.

Critique

Profzoom has launched a series of Flash: Rebirth Annotations.

Pete’s Rambling Observations suggests that Wally’s kids are “Ewoks on steroids”

Read/RANT considers How Many Green Arrows (or Flashes) is Too Many?

The Weekly Crisis’ Moments of the Week include several “anti-moments” from Flash: Rebirth #2.

Interview

Newsarama interviews Geoff Johns about his 10-year run on JSA and Justice Society of America.

Okay, some catching up!

Comic Nexus’ Who’s Who in the DCU discusses the “Wally West conundrum”.

4thLetter! mulls the link between Santa Claus and the speed force.

Dan Didio discusses legacy vs. iconic characters (among lots of other stuff) in his latest 20 Questions column

Blog@Newsarama reviews Geoff Johns’ career to date.

DC’s solicitations for March come out later today. There won’t be any new Flash books (though The Flash Archives Vol.5 comes out that month), so it’ll be mainly team books that feature fast guys in red.

Edit: Also, today’s installment of What Were They Thinking shows one of those “classic” Flash/Green Lantern pairings — or rather, super-hero fights — complete with a giant-head Flash!

Cartoonist R.K. Milholland of Something Positive has been working on an occasional strip called Super Stupor since December, applying his usual twisted humor to the everyday lives of super-heroes and villains. At this year’s Comic-Con, he was selling a short Super Stupor comic book in which villains attack a super-hero convention.

Before the battle, the book has glimpses of the convention itself, including a “Heroic Deaths Q&A” session featuring Death himself as a panelist:

It seemed topical.

Super Stupor features adult language, adult content, and a very sick, twisted and offensive sense of humor. If any of that offends you, or is likely to get you in trouble, you probably shouldn’t look at it.

If you’re okay with that sort of thing, there’s an interesting commentary on the “Women in Refrigerators” cliche in the archive.

I’ve been trying to work out how I can best break down appearance lists with the repeated Flash relaunches. Assuming that Flash: Rebirth sticks, I can categorize them this way:

• Golden Age: Jay’s series, 1940–1951
• Silver/Bronze Age: Barry’s series, 1956–1986
• Legacy: Wally’s series, 1987–2006
• One Year Later: Bart’s series, Wally’s relaunch, and Flash: Rebirth, 2006-2009
• Post-Rebirth: Whatever we end up with starting next year.

I originally used the term “Modern Apperances” for 1987+, but with Infinite Crisis marking a major relaunch, I clearly needed to rename it. I picked “Crisis Era” on the idea that it was bounded by Crisis on Infinite Earths and Infinite Crisis. But with DC overusing the term “Crisis” lately, it doesn’t seem to fit that era anymore. I think “Legacy” has a better sound to it, and since DC did a lot of legacy characters in the 1990s (some with greater success than others), it fits.

As for the period from Infinite Crisis through Flash: Rebirth, I’m thinking “Musical Chairs Era” might be the most accurate, but I’m going to stick with “One Year Later” for now.