Speed Force

Hey Speed Readers,

I know it’s been a while since we’ve updated you on all the Flash Collectible News swirling about and there has been quite a bit these past few weeks. We will begin with Mattel:

For those of you who missed it Mattel quietly announced the cancellation of their Young Justice 4 inch and 6 inch action figures at retail citing poor retailer support. They later went on to make an official announcement that the figures that are further along in tooling may receive releases on Mattycollector.com in the near future but they can’t be 100% about it.

Read the rest of this entry »

David Huang writes in about the soon-to-be-released DC animated feature, Justice League: Doom, based on the “Tower of Babel” storyline in JLA.

I recently attended the premier of Warner Brothers Entertainment’s Justice League: Doom at the Paley Center in NYC and just thought I’d share a few Flash facts about the animated feature… mild spoilers follow: Read the rest of this entry »

FLASH FACT: Central City’s greatest hero’s darkest secret will be exposed.

FLASHPOINT: CITIZEN COLD #3
Written by SCOTT KOLINS
Art and cover by SCOTT KOLINS
On sale AUGUST 10 * 3 of 3, 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US * RATED T

Thoughts: Flashpoint #1 suggests that Citizen Cold isn’t the perfect hero he claims to be, and in fact the police suspect him of murder.

Also, the Rogues on here, for those who might not be familiar with all of them, include Fallout and Tar Pit alongside more familiar faces like Trickster, Mirror Master and Weather Wizard.

DC has been posting questions and answers from the writers of the various Flashpoint tie-ins today, including this piece of art depicting Mirror Master, Fallout(?), Tar Pit, Trickster (Axel Walker), Weather Wizard, and Pied Piper.

It seems appropriate that someone would have a goatee.

Kolins says of his miniseries:

There’s bunch of stuff in my CITIZEN COLD 3-parter that’s has never been done for [Captain] Cold or the Rogues. Can you imagine Cold being the hero of Central City? What kind of hero would he be? Plus there’s the whole Iris angle – that’s new and soooo much fun.

Click through to the article for more Q&A and a larger image. And don’t miss the first article in the series, either. Update: Part three is up. They’ve got quite a bit of unfinished art and logo designs on the these articles.

Popular action figure collecting and customizing site, TheFwoosh.com is holding 3 giveaways for 3 different sets of Justice League Unlimited Convention Exclusive 3 packs. Two of which feature characters that have been central to the Flash at one point or another.

From The Fwoosh:

To help get things started, The Fwoosh is going to give you the first chance at owning these exclusive three-packs with not one, not two, but THREE giveaways, each with a prize of one of the three packs. We know you have been waiting a long time for a lot of these characters and now you have the chance of getting your paws on them ahead of the curve. Pretty neat, eh?

We have all of the official rules and entrance criteria listed for each giveaway below so please read all of the fine print carefully. The best part is that you can enter all three contests so don’t forget to follow all of the steps. We want to send a big thank you to Matty and crew for sending along these exclusive sets to make these great giveaways possible.

Now, hurry up and get your entries in, all of the details are listed after the jump!

Are you ready? Here we go!

Pretty cool huh? The three packs in question are:

1) Firestorm (who ran as a back up story in Barry’s series for 15 issues), Angle Man and Killer Frost (who was a boss in the GBA gameJustice League Heroes: The Flash).

2) Kyle Rayner, Evil Star and Goldface (who had a role as a villain during Barry’s series and returned in Geoff John’s run of The Flash as Keystone City’s Union Commissioner)

3) and last but certainly not least Barry Allen (previously released as a single), and classic Flash Rogues, Heatwave (available for the first time) and Mirror Master (previously released as a single and in a 3 pack along with Copperhead and Lex Luthor).

I have zero interest in the Firestorm pack (sorry Ronnie), and almost the same in the Kyle Rayner pack (I just want Goldface). The Flash 3 pack however is a no-brainer except that I already have Barry and Mirror Master. I might have to try and track down Heatwave and Goldface as singles in the secondary market. I just can’t believe that Mattel does something really awesome and then screws it up almost immediately after (for me at least) by making these convention exclusives. I’m also not thrilled about the fact that they MAY have some left over at the END OF THE YEAR for those who couldn’t make it the cons. I understand that they didn’t have to make these sets and that its cool that they are releasing them in some way, but man I can see these sets making some scalpers a lot of money.  Of course if I were to win one of these that would solve half of my problem.

If you plan on entering all three contests keep in mind that you need to have a valid Fwoosh account (sign up is free) and a Facebook account (sign up also free).

Entries are due by 11:59:59 pm CST Saturday, March 12th, 2011 so you’ve got about 2 days left. So get to it!

Good luck and thanks for reading,

-Devin “Flash” Johnson

The just-released-today cover for Flashpoint: Citizen Cold #1 features Central City’s new hero facing off against a group of gloved hands and weapons representing the Rogues. Long-time (and even short-time) Flash readers should recognize most of them.

From left to right:

• Weather Wizard, one of the classic Rogues Gallery.
• Tar Pit, introduced during Geoff Johns’ first run on The Flash. A small-time criminal who could project his mind into inanimate objects, then got stuck in a lump of tar.
• Fallout, also introduced during Geoff Johns’ first run. A tragic story of a man who was turned radioactive in a nuclear accident, and locked up because the radiation killed his family. Iron Heights actually hooked him up to the prison’s power grid.
• The Trickster. It could be either the classic one (I really miss James Jesse) or the new one, but given that Scott Kolins co-created the new one, I’m guessing it’s Axel.
• Mirror Master. Another classic Rogue, and another case where it could be either the original or the second criminal to use the name and costume. This one’s a tougher call.

In the main timeline, Geoff Johns has thoroughly established Captain Cold as the leader of the Rogues. It’ll be interesting to see how this dynamic changes in the altered timeline with Citizen Cold as their enemy.

Update: Heat Wave is missing from this cover…but not from Flashpoint!

Some links of note before this holiday weekend:

Flashy Links

Comics Should Be Good’s Year of Comic Book Moments features Flash v.2 #73, Wally and Linda’s first Christmas together and a surprise visit from the man in red.

Somehow I missed this when it was posted, but Mightygodking has an off-kilter profile of the Rainbow Raider.

Comic Coverage looks at the time Mirror Master managed to transform the Flash into a mirror.

Silver Age Comics looks at the way crime was treated as an addiction in many comics of the era, particularly The Flash — again focusing on the Mirror Master.

Update: Karl Kerschl has posted a progress shot of the Flash being inked for Wednesday Comics.

Whirlwind Tour

The Source previews what’s in store for Justice Society of America as Bill Willingham, Matt Sturges and Jesus Merino take over the book.

Darcey McLaughlin of the Miramichi Leader notes that death has lost all meaning in comic books.

Scott’s Classic Comics Corner (Comics Should Be Good) has an interesting post on measuring scarcity in comics collecting.

Karl Kerschl’s (Flash in Wednesday Comics) webcomic, The Abominable Charles Christopher, has reached its 100th episode.

Finally, if you’ll excuse the plug, please take a look at my eBay auctions if you haven’t recently. I’ve got several DVDs and CDs up right now, as well as a promotional Star Trek T-shirt from San Diego 2007.

Over at Speedster Site, West spots a Flash-related item in Gerry Conway’s Newsarama interview on his upcoming miniseries, The Last Days of Animal Man. The book takes place 15 years in the future and features two new villains, including:

The other character is a woman called Prismatik, and she is the illegitimate daughter of Evan McCulloch, the Mirror Master. So she has her own axe to grind, both as a person and against Buddy.

In this battle sequence from Flash v.1 #277 (September 1979), the Flash finds a way to stop the Mirror Master using nothing but a storeroom full of chocolate bars. And no, it’s not a Hostess ad, though it’s around the time those were appearing.

The image appears after the cut: Read the rest of this entry »