Speed Force

It’s a big Flash week, with both Flash #245 and Final Crisis: Rogues’ Revenge hitting the stores.

Final Crisis: Rogues’ Revenge #3

Written by Geoff Johns; Art and Covers by Scott Kolins

Captain Cold and the Rogues only want one thing – revenge. But with the Secret Society hitting the Rogues where it hurts, that revenge is being kept at an arm’s length. Not to mention, the subject of their revenge is now under Libra’s protection. It’s do or die time for the Rogues as this villainous mini-series concludes! Plus, what’s up with…Barry Allen?

40pg. | Color | $3.99 US

Note: This miniseries has been excellent. You can read my reviews of issue #1 and issue #2 here.

Flash #245

Written by Alan Burnett; Art by Paco Diaz and Drew Geraci; Cover by Brian Stelfreeze

Flash learns that nothing is safe anymore as Queen Bee causes an attack on his house and Linda. Guest-starring Black Lightning!

32pg. | Color | $2.99 US

Note: Rather than being a lame-duck arc, the first issue of this storyline was surprisingly good. With any luck, that will continue.

Team books and more after the cut. Read the rest of this entry »

Just a quick note: Newsarama has posted a 5-page preview of Final Crisis: Rogues’ Revenge #3. (It says 4, but the last one’s a double-page spread.)

The conclusion of the miniseries focusing on the Flash’s Rogues comes out next Wednesday.

ICv2 has posted August sales estimates, and the overall market is down for the seventh month in a row. Worse, Flash #243 dropped below 30,000 units for the first time in 5½ years, selling just 29,647 copies. That was Flash #196 (March 2003), half-way through Geoff Johns’ storied run on the book, just before the Blitz storyline and the slow rise from 30K to 50K by the end of Rogue War.

02/2008: Flash #237     —  37,719 (-  9.0%)
03/2008: Flash #238     —  35,606 (-  5.6%)
04/2008: Flash #239     —  33,741 (-  5.2%)
05/2008: Flash #240     —  31,944 (-  5.3%)
06/2008: Flash #241     —  30,810 (-  3.6%)
07/2008: Flash #242     —  30,325 (-  1.5%)
08/2008: Flash #243     —  29,647 (-  2.2%)

(Link via The Beat.)

Last month, it looked like sales were leveling out near 30,000 — right where most of Geoff Johns’ original run hovered. But they dropped more between July and August than they did between June and July. No doubt the announcement that Flash would be rebooted didn’t help, as readers decided to wait until the relaunch instead of reading a “lame duck” title.

Final Crisis: Rogues’ Revenge #2 fared better, but still dropped 12.9% from its first issue.

07/2008: Rogues Revenge #1     —  62,482
08/2008: Rogues Revenge #2     —  54,404 (- 12.9%)

The Beat’s analysis of July’s sales was underwhelmed with Rogues’ Revenge’s performance, opining:

The notion that not even Geoff Johns’ commercial Midas touch can reignite interest in The Flash, for that matter, suggests that what the franchise needs right now, above all, is some rest.

Only time will tell, but I expect that the next few months of Flash sales are going to be dismal, even if the quality of the Alan Burnett/Paco Diaz/Carlo Barberi arc turns out to be stellar.

Another incredible issue from Geoff Johns and Scott Kolins that really makes you root for the bad guys. Most of Final Crisis: Rogues’ Revenge #2 is taken up by a savage battle between the Rogues and a younger group of “New Rogues” who first appeared in Gotham Underground. The New Rogues have no idea what they’re getting into, and the book shows just how dangerous characters with names like Captain Cold, Heat Wave, and Weather Wizard can be.

Meanwhile, Zoom and Inertia get along about as well as you might expect. Which is to say: not very.

The timeline is starting to fall into place. The first issue takes place during Final Crisis #2, this one takes place during Final Crisis #3, and the whole of it takes place after the stories currently appearing in the monthly series. The Flash Family meeting in Final Crisis #3 actually continues in this issue, though either scene stands on its own.

Several story threads from early in Geoff Johns’ run on The Flash get followed up on here, including his retelling of Captain Cold’s origin. There’s also a nice explanation of why the Rogues kept going back to their tailor, Paul Gambi, which fits well with one of the stories from Grant Morrison’s brief run on the book back in 1998. (In that story, Gambi created “the ultimate super-costume.”)

I’m beginning to wonder just how much this story changed as it became tied into Final Crisis. As originally described, it sounded like the Flash was actually going to be involved. Instead, the whole thing is set when Wally is off on a mission, before Barry really comes back.

I did have a problem with the art. Normally I like Scott Kolins’ work, but it seemed a bit too heavy. I don’t remember thinking that with issue #1, but it may simply have not bothered me as much. I also thought the coloring was too muted, but both could be a function of printing.

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

DC ships the middle issue of the three-part Rogues’ Revenge by the fan-favorite Flash team of Geoff Johns and Scott Kolins. Also related: Teen Titans Year One, Justice Society of America, and two hardcovers collecting JLA and The Brave and the Bold.

Final Crisis: Rogues’ Revenge #2 (of 3)

Written by Geoff Johns; Art and covers by Scott Kolins

Life was easier when the Rogues had Barry Allen for a foe – or at least it was a bit more fun. Now, hunted by Libra and the Secret Society for refusing to worship the impending evil that is prophesized to claim Earth, Captain Cold and his crew find themselves attacked on several fronts . . . and that doesn’t sit well with the Rogues. Plus, a bizarre twist for Inertia!

Newsarama has a 5-page preview.

Team books and collections after the cut: Read the rest of this entry »

Newsarama has posted a 5-page preview of Final Crisis: Rogues’ Revenge #2, out in stores tomorrow.

Written by Geoff Johns; Art and covers by Scott Kolins.

Life was easier when the Rogues had Barry Allen for a foe — or at least it was a bit more fun. Now, hunted by Libra and the Secret Society for refusing to worship the impending evil that is prophesized to claim Earth, Cold and his crew find themselves attacked on several fronts…and that doesn’t sit well with the Rogues. Plus, a bizarre twist for Inertia!

This week’s DC Direct Channel newsletter has an incredibly long list of books that have been delayed for various reasons. Most of the list is made up of trades and hardcovers, which are all being pushed back one week “due to adjustments being made in DC’s manufacturing and production schedules.” It also includes most of the Final Crisis line-up.

Flash-related titles that have been postponed include:

Most of the delays in monthly titles are are offered with no explanation, though the reprints of Final Crisis: Requiem and Rogues’ Revenge #1 are blamed on “an error.” The books were supposed to ship last week, but instead they’re arriving in stores today.

In better news, the trade paperback Flash: Rogue War is going back to press for a second printing.

ICv2 has posted July sales estimates. The entire comics market is down, but the Flash numbers are better than expected. Flash #242 sold an estimated 30,325 copies. It’s still down from June, but only by 1.5% — and total comics sales have been declining over the last few months. This is the same data that The Beat uses for their sales commentary, so I can use the numbers from earlier posts.

02/2008: Flash #237     —  37,719 (-  9.0%)
03/2008: Flash #238     —  35,606 (-  5.6%)
04/2008: Flash #239     —  33,741 (-  5.2%)
05/2008: Flash #240     —  31,944 (-  5.3%)
06/2008: Flash #241     —  30,810 (-  3.6%)
07/2008: Flash #242     —  30,325 (-  1.5%)

Meanwhile, Final Crisis: Rogues’ Revenge #1 sold an estimated 62,482 copies — more than twice the numbers on the main Flash title, despite costing more ($3.99 vs. $2.99). Factors at work: Final Crisis, Geoff Johns, Scott Kolins, multiple covers.

I mentioned that the overall market was in decline. ICv2 cites a 3% drop in sales, but I can’t tell whether they mean 3% between June and July 2008, or 3% between July 2007 and July 2008. If the former, then Flash actually dropped less than the overall market. (The 1.5% drop for Flash is in units sold, and the 3% drop overall is for dollar amount — but the price on Flash didn’t change between June and July, so it works out the same.)

Not much in the way of new Flash material this week, but DC is issuing the reprint of Final Crisis: Rogues’ Revenge #1. The Flash also makes appearances in Trinity and Millennium.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Weekly Crisis recently invited 5 comics bloggers to write about why they buy the comics that they do, then turned it over to ask the readership the same question. This is an extended version of my response to that post.

For most of my comics-reading life, I’ve followed characters. I’d pick up The New Teen Titans and stick with it. I’d follow that to Flash (and that to Justice League Europe), Hawk and Dove, Deathstroke, Nightwing, etc.

Sometimes I would pick up a new book for the concept. I’d take a look at, say, Darkstars in the early 1990s, and think, “Hey, that sounds cool!” Or Planetary back in 1999, or Welcome to Tranquility last fall (yeah, in trades).

I’ve also tended to stick with the universe I know best — DC — and stand-alone titles. The Marvel books I’ve read tend to be either creator-owned (Groo the Wanderer when it was published at Epic), licensed (Transformers when I was younger), or off in their own little corner (Alias, The Twelve). Same with WildStorm — while I eventually tracked down some Stormwatch and Authority trades, mostly I read Planetary, which was off doing its own thing.

For a long time, I read most of the big events at DC. Partly it was because everyone was in them (and I was reading a lot more super-heroes back then), and partly it was because, if Big Changes were afoot, I wanted to see what happened. Though I drew the line at tie-in issues of series I didn’t read, unless they specifically crossed over with a book I was reading. (The one exception: DC One Million. I read almost all of those tie-ins because I wanted to see what DC did with the ideas.) Eventually I got tired of the endless crossovers of the 1990s, and stopped. Until Infinite Crisis, which looked interesting, but annoyed me even more in the end.

These days, I find myself following writers. Astonishing X-Men was far from my first comic, but it was my first X-Men comic — not counting the crossover with New Teen Titans back in the 1980s — and I picked it up because it was Joss Whedon. I’ll check out almost anything mystical written by Bill Willingham. Neil Gaiman’s name got me to pick up his Eternals miniseries, and you can bet I’ll pick up his Batman story next year. And I’m beginning to get to that point with Jay Faerber — Noble Causes, Firebirds and Dynamo 5 are hard to beat, and I resisted picking up Gemini, but finally gave in.

Like some of the respondents, I also have trouble letting go. I kept reading various incarnations of Titans for over a decade (everything from “Titans Hunt” to Infinite Crisis, minus the Jurgens series) even though I no longer really liked the book — just occasional stories. I kept hoping it would get better, but after being bitten over and over, I finally wised up and walked away.

I’ve gotten much better at only reading the stuff I actually like lately (Countdown to Final Crisis excepted; it was research material). I dropped Fell after a few issues because, as good as it was, it just disturbed the heck out of me. I gave Shadowpact and Jack of Fables a shot, but neither really grabbed me the way Fables did. I even came close to dropping Flash with the 2006 relaunch, though I decided to give it a chance. Once I picked it up, I stuck with it because the writers were clearly learning on the job (and you could see that they were learning from issue to issue), and then actually liked the next writer’s arc — not where it went, but how it was presented.

Looking at books I’ve started reading recently: Read the rest of this entry »