Speed Force

Some weekend linkblogging…

Comics and…Other Imaginary Tales looks back at DC Two Thousand, a two-part story from the turn of the millennium in which the modern Justice League of America goes back in time to 1941 and meets the Justice Society. The Golden Age heroes aren’t entirely sure the JLA’s future is worth saving, though.

Collected Editions reviews Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds.

Comic Book Movie fan-casts Flash: Rebirth.

Chris Samnee sketches Kid Flash.

What Were They Thinking? has another example of why they called the Golden-Age Flash a comic “strip.”

Over at Comic Bloc there’s a comedic discussion of What else Zoom did to Barry (spoilers for Flash: Rebirth #5).

Finally, if you’ll excuse the plug, there are only a few hours left in my Farscape DVD auctions on eBay. If you’d like to pick up a season set, now’s your chance!

Newsarama’s Vaneta Rogers has interviewed Geoff Johns about Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds, character returns, and what’s next. (Note: Major spoilers for Legion of Three Worlds #4.)

Most of the article focuses on the Legion and the upcoming Adventure Comics, but there is a little bit about Bart Allen:

What role does Bart Allen play in the DCU now that he’s back as Kid Flash?

GJ: Well, you’ll see that in Flash: Rebirth and beyond that. Kid Flash and Superboy both play pretty big roles in the DCU coming up. They’re both in Blackest Night. They’re going to be front and center in the DCU over the next year. As will the Legion.

That makes sense: Aside from indications that Blackest Night will involve the entire contents of the DC Encyclopedia, the story is about the dead rising from their graves — and here are two characters who have just returned from death, though admittedly they’re a bit more lively than the Black Lanterns appear to be. Though given the way Conner returned, there’s still a body lying around in the present day. I can imagine it being animated as a Black Lantern and the heroes having to put it back where it was so that he can be resurrected in the 31st Century.

But I’m beginning to wonder, between this and other interviews, just how many characters can be “front and center” of the DCU!

Catching up on linkblogging before Flash: Rebirth #2 hits the shelves…

Ruminations

4thLetter!’s Esther Inglis-Arkell considers the resurrection trend in comics, and likes it — “Because I like characters to be alive.” Photon Torpedoes, however, seems more resigned to the idea.

The Comic Treadmill considers what should go into an All-Star Flash series.

BSI Comics contemplates the fallout Blackest Night will have on DC’s many character variations.

Robot 6′s Grumpy Old Fan wonders if it was really necessary to kill off Bart Allen and a certain other character just to bring them back to great fanfare in Legion of Three Worlds.

Off-topic, I’ve got a post on using Twitter with a blog over at K-Squared Ramblings.

Reviews

Last month I missed this review of Flash: Rebirth #1 at Secret Wars on Infinite Earths.

Major Spoilers reviews Legion of Three Worlds #4, giving it 2 of 5 stars.

Yes, it’s actually here! This issue is a lot more story-focused than the last few, which I remember being more about showing the war between the Superman and the three Legions of Super-Heroes on one side and Superboy Prime and the Legion of Super-Villains on the other.

First: the art. It’s George Frelling Pérez. Do I really need to say anything more? Didn’t think so. The book looks fantastic.

The big events:

1. Following through on last issue’s resurrection of Bart Allen. We get a touching reunion between Bart and his cousin Jenni Ognats (XS of the reboot Legion), and Geoff Johns once again shows that he’s found Bart’s voice at last. (Quoting Disney’s Aladdin in the 31st century: absolutely perfect.) We also get some mumbo-jumbo about why Bart returned as a teenager instead of an adult, which doesn’t really make any sense (or fit with what we saw during 52 and Flash: The Fastest Man Alive, but then it’s not as if that’s been particularly consistent to begin with.)

2. Another hero returns from the dead, revealing that the Legionnaires in The Lightning Saga had at least two objectives to their time travel mission.

3. A major character’s true identity is revealed again, and it’s not the same identity as last time. (Shades of Monarch, there.)

Overall, I found it a better read than the earlier issues of the series, because it was much less scattered. I do get a sense that Geoff Johns is treating the “other” legions as expendable, making it possible to kill off “major characters” and still keep the “originals” around.

A couple of spoilery notes behind the cut: Read the rest of this entry »

Geoff Johns promises that Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds #4 will be out “soon” (DC’s schedule currently shows May 13), and has posted a few panels of Kid Flash (Bart Allen) and XS (Jenni Ognats).

The original on his site is in TIFF format (and a lot bigger), so it may not show up in your web browser.

Titans Tower Monitor Room has a whole series of sketches from New York Comic Con including a classic Kid Flash by Alex Saviuk, a Flash by Greg LaRocque, and a set of classic Teen Titans by Karl Kerschl.

Comic Bloc’s Iron Sun 254 has a theory on the nature of the Speed Force.

Crimson Lightning has the results of the Favorite Flash Vol.2 Writer poll: Mark Waid wins handily, with Geoff Johns a close second. The next poll (on the sidebar of any page at Crimson Lightning): who’s your favorite Flash leading lady?

The Jim Aparo Fan Club profiles Flash #311, his only Flash cover.

Comicbook.com lists Barry and Iris Allen among their 10 great comic-book couples.

Reilly2040 reviews Legion of Three Worlds #3, focusing on the Flash elements.

Fan Cinema Today reviews The Flash: Crossover the fan film released a few weeks ago from Influence Films.

One more: The Cool Kids Table’s Ben Morse writes about why he likes Wally West.

Newsarama interviewed Geoff Johns about Flash: Rebirth at New York Comic-Con. I won’t be able to watch this with sound until I get home tonight, so I don’t know if there’s really anything new in here.

Update: They also have an interview with George Pérez about Legion of Three Worlds.

This will be less of a full review and more of a first reaction to the issue.

I’m sure some people won’t believe this, but I actually felt more lost reading the first half of this book than I did reading Final Crisis itself. It’s been months since the last issue came out, and I’ve never been very familiar with the three incarnations of the Legion of Super-Heroes. The only time I read them on a monthly basis was the “Five Years Later” period that started around 1989 or so — and it’s not represented in this story! I have read the occasional issue of other series, particularly the “Reboot” Legion with its connections to Impulse. After a while I just went with it.

That settled out later in the issue, especially as it began to focus on XS and the various lightning-powered Legionnaires as they learned about the legacy of Barry Allen’s brief sojourn in the 30th Century. Geoff Johns attempted to clear up some of the questions of whether Bart Allen was from an alternate universe, and while I think the answer ended up being more complicated than was necessary (since they had already established that sometimes time travelers will end up in an alternate universe), I suspect it’s in the service of setting up threads that will tie into either Flash: Rebirth or the inevitable Flash ongoing that spins out of it.

And speaking as a Flash fan, the conclusion of this issue was fantastic.

Spoilers after the cut: Read the rest of this entry »

In this week’s 20 Questions w/ Dan Didio, DC’s Executive Editor is asked about the status of Bart Allen (Impulse/Kid Flash/Flash) and Conner Kent (Superboy). His answer:

I think there’s always value in a Kid Flash and a Superboy.

A classic sidestep. But then they may both be back very soon.

As far as Conner goes, there’s speculation that he is the Kryptonian Nightwing who just appeared in “New Krypton” (bolstered by DiDio’s remark earlier in the column that he “is a character that we’ve known in the DCU for a little while, but he’s new to the Nightwing costume as well.”)

And Bart? There’s still the question of the Lightning Rod from the Justice League/Justice Society of America crossover, “The Lightning Saga.” It was supposed to resurrect someone, and All-Flash #1 showed that it activated at virtually the exact moment of his death. We’re supposed to find out who was resurrected in Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds #3…two months from now. (It was originally supposed to be out in October, but it’s been pushed back to January 14, 2009. I wouldn’t count on it making that date.)

DC’s website lists several more Final Crisis–related delays.

• Final Crisis #5 has been pushed back two more weeks to December 10.
• Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds #3 has been pushed another month to January 14. This one is particularly annoying since it’s supposed to finally answer the question of who the Legion resurrected in “The Lightning Saga” back in June 2007.
• Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds #4 — originally due in late December — has been rescheduled for February 25.

Unless the final issue Final Crisis itself gets pushed back even further (as rumored by this week’s Lying in the Gutters), it looks like Legion of Three Worlds will keep going several months beyond the main series.