Thought you’d all get a kick out of this story from the Food Allergy Walk this weekend: My son and I both wore Flash T-shirts. (He “walked” the event in a stroller, since he’s mostly crawling.) As we started off, I noticed that the family walking next to us was all wearing Superman T-shirts.
Technically it wasn’t a race, but for the record: We finished first!
More at my other blog.
So, the DC reboot* is upon us, and it’s time to make some decisions:
I’ll tackle the second question later. For now, here are the books I was looking at when the New 52 was first announced, and what I’m looking at now.
As with Action, it was the creative team that got me excited about the fifth relaunch in as many years. (Seriously, DC, pick a direction and stick with it.) And as with Action, every interview, every announcement since then has chipped away a little more at my interest. But then Francis Manpul posts a new piece of artwork, and I feel like can’t possibly pass it up. TENTATIVE YES.
And yes, that’s a sad verdict for someone who’s spent the last 15 years running a Flash fan site, but it is what it is.
Love the concept, hate the title. I had high hopes for this when it was announced, but the execution of Flashpoint: Secret Seven, by the same writer and featuring many of the same characters, has me worried. TENTATIVE YES.
The complete opposite of Action Comics. When I first read about it, I thought, “Hmm, that sounds sort of interesting, but I just don’t know.” But everything I’ve heard about it makes me more interested. DEFINITE YES.
Regarding Demon Knights and Justice League Dark, it seems that the Matt Wagner/Amy Reeder Vertigo series has made me a fan of Madame Xanadu. Who would have expected that?
I really liked the Seven Soldiers version of the Frankenstein monster, and the idea of him as a sci-fi secret agent sounds like a lot of fun. Plus the Flashpoint: Frankenstein and the Creatures of the Unknown miniseries was enjoyable (despite a dip in the middle issue), so I’m on board for this one. DEFINITE YES.
I keep meaning to read the articles about this, but somehow keep forgetting to come back to them when I have time. So I still don’t know a whole lot about it, but the concept is interesting enough to make it a TENTATIVE YES.
Announced as part of the second wave of new titles, the 12-issue miniseries launches in October. I like the character, especially the modern interpretation, and I really enjoyed the 4-issue miniseries James Robinson did back in the 1990s, so I’m on board for this one as well. DEFINITE YES.
Grant Morrison brings Superman back to his roots. Sounded great at the time, but the more I’ve heard about the actual direction, the less interested I’ve gotten. PASS.
I’ve been burned too many times, and I think what I really liked about the series was the Wolfman/Perez dynamic, which I’ve come to realize is never going to exist again. I actually think it’s a good thing that they’re taking the book in a new direction, even though it’s clearly not for me. PASS.
As fond as my memories are of the series 20 years ago…I just can’t. PASS.
I liked his solo series back in the day, but between my changing taste and the emphasis on ultra-violence, I don’t have any interest in the new version. PASS.
(OK, except for the issue where he destroys the 405 freeway. I live in LA and commute on that damn thing. It’s a revenge fantasy.)
So that’s my DC Comics pull list for September. 5 comics out of 52 (plus The Shade) may not sound like much, but considering I was only reading one DC proper title before Flashpoint, it’s actually a pretty big increase.
Edited to add: For context, this brings the DC Universe back up to 50% of my active pull list. The rest is 1 Vertigo (The Unwritten), 3 BOOM! (Elric, Farscape & Darkwing Duck, at least until Farscape & Darkwing Duck end in a couple of months), 1 Dynamite (Wheel of Time) and 1 Aspen (Lady Mechanika). Mostly sci-fi/fantasy, with the closest to a traditional superhero being Darkwing Duck.
How about you? What are you planning to pick up?
*Of course it’s a reboot. They’re resetting the system, with some things altered and others preserved. They installed a service pack, and now they’re rebooting. People use the term reboot to mean starting over completely from the beginning, but if we’re going to use the computer metaphor properly, that would be a wipe-and-reinstall.
One of the things that frustrated me about DC Comics’ post-Zero Hour “soft” reboot was the 10-year sliding timeline. Not that it existed, but that it crammed everything from DC’s Silver Age (1956) onward into a timeline tied to the first appearance of Superman, 10 years ago.
It always seemed to me that it would free things up if they’d just allow the characters to be different ages. Let (for instance) Barry Allen and Oliver Queen be a decade older than Superman, and let their super-hero careers have started earlier. They can still have worked together in the Justice League. Superman launched the age of super-heroes in the real world, but he doesn’t have to have done so in the fictional world. Especially when you have a whole Golden Age worth of characters who started their careers decades earlier.
Of course, the Golden Agers introduce another problem: If DC keeps them tied to World War II, but keeps the rest of the timeline sliding at 10 years ago or even 20 years ago, the gap keeps widening. It makes it increasingly hard to explain…
You can mitigate this a bit by rearranging some of the Silver Age characters to be older than Superman, as I suggested — or by letting Superman himself be older — but eventually DC would have to bite the (speeding) bullet and disconnect the JSA from one end of the timeline or the other.
So.
Now that details of the Superman relaunch are out, DC has clarified a bit of their latest timeline juggling. Read the rest of this entry »
We conclude our series reacting to DC Comics’ relaunch announcements. After covering the Justice League, Green Lantern, Batman, Dark, Teen and Edge series, we look at DC’s flagship: Superman.
Action Comics · Superman · Supergirl · Superboy
FLASH QUESTION: Will The Flash and his new allies be able to fix the world?
FLASHPOINT #3
Written by GEOFF JOHNS
Art by ANDY KUBERT and SANDRA HOPE
Cover by ANDY KUBERT and SANDRA HOPE
1:25 Black and white variant cover A by ANDY KUBERT
Variant cover B by IVAN REIS and GEORGE PEREZ
On sale JULY 6 • 3 of 5, 40 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T
It seems like just last week that Kid Flash and Superboy raced against each other…oh, wait — it was! Now Superman and the Flash get in on the action.
Written by J. MICHAEL STRACZYNSKI & CHRIS ROBERSON; Art by EDDY BARROWS & J.P. MAYER; Cover by JOHN CASSADAY; 1:10 Variant cover by KENNETH ROCAFORT
Superman visits Boulder, Colorado, as “Grounded” races forward! And speaking of racing, here comes The Flash! The Scarlet Speedster has made a strange discovery that relates to Superman, so he tracks The Man of Steel down in the Centennial State to get some answers! What did Flash discover? Well, let’s just say there’s a reason Superman isn’t very happy to see him…
DC has a one-page preview at The Source. And speaking of Kenneth Rocafort, the concluding issue of Velocity is currently on Top Cow’s calendar for March 30.
DC is announcing the remaining Flashpoint creative teams today at The Source. They describe it as the eight remaining miniseries and four one-shots, so it sounds like they expanded the line from 15 to 16 miniseries, and the two new series announced last week don’t replace anything previously announced.
Just like last week, I’ll put the Flash-related titles at the top, and update this post throughout the day. Click on the covers to jump to the original posts at the Source.
Covers: Francis Manapul
Writer: Sterling Gates
Art: Oliver Nome
“Where is he? Or should we say when?”
Perfect: We’re finally getting a Kid Flash/Bart Allen story by Sterling Gates! I kind of hope the full title is just “Flashpoint: Kid Flash Lost,” though, because the “starring…” part gets kind of unwieldy. (Not that it comes close to “Countdown Presents: The Search for Ray Palmer: Yet Another Subtitle.”)
Cover: Francis Manapul
Writer: Sean Ryan
Art: Ig Guara
“Africa belongs to him!”
Cover: Ardian Syaf and Vicente Cifuentes
Writer: Scott Kolins
Art: Joel Gomez
“He’s more powerful than ever!”
Kolins really has cemented himself as the go-to guy for Flash villains, hasn’t he?
I don’t know how I missed this one the first time around, but Comics Alliance has posted a round-up of Chris Sims and Rusty Shackles’ Great Comics That Never Happened series – covers featuring bizarre team-ups like the Justice League and the Wu-Tang Clan, or the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen featuring 1980s icons like Mr. T, Doc Brown and MacGuyver, or Hannah Zatanna, torn between the worlds of superheroes and magic…or this one:
When Boss Hogg sets up a phony charity designed to funnel contributions from well-meaning citizens into his own pockets, Superman and the Flash are roped into holding a charity race across Hazzard County–without super-powers! But when Bo and Luke Duke, a couple of good ol’ boys who never mean no harm crash the race, can the two Fastest Men Alive outrun a souped-up Dodge Charger before it hits the county line? Find out in this exciting issue! Also featured: Lois Lane discovers a Hazzard County fashion statement sure to catch Clark Kent’s eye and a two-page backup story where Jimmy Olsen and Kid Flash meet Coy and Vance!”
Click through to the original article for a full-sized cover, as well as a dozen more team-ups that never were!
DC has posted six new variant covers at The Source, including this Ivan Reis cover for Action Comics #892. Part of DC’s 75th Anniversary series, it homages the cover to the very first Superman/Flash race in Superman #199 by Carmine Infantino and Murphy Anderson.
As shown here, the cover has been referenced at least once before, for the first race between Superman and Wally West in The Adventures of Superman #463 (1990) by Dan Jurgens and Brett Breeding.
It’s interesting to look at the three covers together and see just how comic book art styles have changed over the past four decades.
Welcome to SpeedForce.org, a blog focusing on DC Comics' super-hero, The Flash. It's a companion site to Flash: Those Who Ride the Lightning, a fan reference site for the Fastest Man Alive.
Powered by Twitter Tools
