Last night’s Smallville episode included a preview for next’s week’s, viewable on YouTube.
Geekasms has a screencap of and short article about the apparent Legion of Doom slated to appear, which includes Captain Cold and other villains amongst its members. Hopefully they’ll show up for more than just a cameo!
Tomorrow night is the series premiere of No Ordinary Family, a TV drama about a family on the brink of collapse that suddenly finds itself with super powers.
Helpless-feeling Jim Powell (Michael Chiklis) suddenly finds himself super-strong, near-invulnerable, and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. Always on-the-go Stephanie Powell (Julie Benz) gains super-speed. Their self-involved daughter Daphne becomes telepathic, and their learning-disabled son JJ becomes a super-genius.
I got to see the pilot episode at Comic-Con, and it was really promising. There’s an Incredibles-meets-season-one-Heroes vibe to it. The special effects are great, particularly Stephanie’s first super-speed run. (Later scenes rely a lot on the standard vanishing/reappearing act plus wind.) Here are my thoughts on the episode as screened at the convention. They’ve reportedly added a scene or two to set up one of the ongoing storylines.
The Flash movie writing team is heavily involved in this series as well. Greg Berlanti co-created the show with Jon Harmon Feldman, and Marc Guggenheim is involved as a consulting producer.
No Ordinary Family premieres Tuesday on ABC at 8:00pm / 7:00 central.
Next weekend (September 25-26), actress Joyce Hyser will be signing autographs at the Hollywood Celebrities & Memorabilia Show at the Hilton Rosemont / Chicago O’Hare Airport Hotel.
On the 1990 Flash TV series, Hyser played the recurring character Megan Lockhart, a private detective who figured out Barry Allen’s identity. She returned to Central City twice in later episodes, pursuing the fugitive James Jesse, only to find herself the object of his obsession when he became the Trickster.
A few brief news items:
Top Cow’s delayed Velocity #1 is shipping June 16. I’ve been looking forward to this since reading the Pilot Season book, though of course this is an entirely new creative team. On the plus side, it’s a miniseries, so there’s not a huge commitment to picking it up.
Cartoon Network will be producing a Green Lantern animated series. Green Lantern: First Flight
DC will be teaming up with TASCHEN Books to produce 75 Years of DC Comics: The Art of Modern Mythmaking. Basically it’s a history of DC Comics. How soon can I pre-order this?
Hypergeek notes that the UK graphic novel Whatever Happened to the World’s Fastest Man? has been nominated for the 2009 Eagle Awards. From his review, it looks like it’s not about a speester so much as it’s about a man who can stop time, and reluctantly becomes a hero. I’m going to have to look for this one as well. [Edit: I should note that I stopped reading the review once I decided the book looked interesting, just in case there were spoilers.]
Remember the Battlestar Galactica cake? For last night’s LOST finale, my wife made an authentic DHARMA Initiative chocolate cake, and pizzas with the Swan and Orchid logos.
The cake is chocolate, with homemade buttercream icing (vanilla for the background, chocolate for the design). The pizzas have an outer ring of sausage, with bell pepper strips for the I Ching. The Swan logo is cut from a bell pepper. The Orchid is cut from a tomato, and placed on the pizza after baking.
For more views, including in-progress pictures, close-ups, and making-of commentary, check out the LOST finale food photos on Flickr.
Remember No Ordinary Family, the TV pilot featuring a super-powered family headed by brick Michael Chiklis and speedster Julie Benz? Deadline Hollywood reports that ABC has picked up the Greg Berlanti-produced show. Marc Guggenheim (Flash: The Fastest Man Alive – Full Throttle) executive-produced the pilot and will remain “in consulting capacity.”
So even if Heroes doesn’t come back, there will still be at least one live-action speedster on the air this fall.
Update: The Hollywood Reporter has more, including the official description of the show (via @SpeedsterSite):
The Powells are about to go from ordinary to extraordinary. After 16 years of marriage, Jim and Stephanie’s relationship lacked the spark it once had, and their family life now consists of balancing work and their two children; leaving little time for family bonding. During a family vacation set up by Jim in an attempt to reconnect, their plane crashes into the Amazon River. But this is where the fun starts for the Powells as they soon discover that something’s not quite right. Each of them now possesses unique and distinct super powers. But saving and savoring their family life will be equally important as they try to find purpose for their new power and embark on a journey to find out what defines and unifies them. The Powells are a totally relatable family that happens to be a little bit amazing.
WB.com has episodes of the 1990-91 Flash TV series on it’s website to watch for free!
The Flash TV series is a favorite of mine from back when I was just a little guy. My dad was a huge fan of sci-fi tv series, and we used to flip back and forth from The Flash to the Simpsons way back in the day. A few years later my sister would let me rent out the old Flash series from Erol’s, as they carried two VHS of the series, The Flash and The Flash II: Revenge of The Trickster. I found both to be highly entertaining and watched them numerous times with captive eyes. I believe a third one was released later on but I never got a chance to watch it.
At this point in my collection I had only one Flash action figure with which I could act out his adventures with. It was made by Toy Biz and had an action feature that made his arms move when you wound the mechanism on it’s back. I believe these were the immediate successors of the Super Powers Collection Action figures and even had a knock-off quality when compared to them. I had a slew of X-Men action figures so they pulled double-duty as villains. Fun times.
When they finally released the The Flash on DVD back in January of 2006, I was there at Best Buy first thing in the morning to pick it up. I was not disappointed. Well except for the mixed up episodes and the reports of some discs not working correctly. But the show had high production values, a cool suit, a solid cast, and cameos from some future Hollywood mainstays (Angela Bassett and Richard Belzer). Like many first seasons of series it had it’s ups and downs. Many of which are showcased at Crimsonlightning.com, which ran a regular feature reviewing each episode of the show. Although I have to disagree with their review of Sins of The Father, personally that’s one of my favorites. I love the dice scene and the quick change costume scene towards the end. Pure Awesome.
Despite it’s low points the show was the first time that we really had a serious portrayal of a mainstream comics character in live action on TV and it was decently faithful.
I would love to see a live action Flash series (or better yet movie) in this day and age, but we will have to settle for this show in the meantime. We Flash fans have been doing a lot of settling though lately. I can only hope that with DC putting the spotlight back on The Flash in the DC Universe, we will see The Flash take the spotlight in other media as well.
If you missed it up top you can watch free episodes of The Flash here. Feel free to come back and leave some thoughts for us on the series and any memories you may have of it.
Credit: Dustin Fletcher for the link.
Also Speedforce.org and Arrobasilver.com’s Design and Win Your Own Flash Ring Contest is in full swing! So feel free to check out the page and send your entry in today! There is little over a month remaining in the contest and we have some great entries so far. Keep ‘em coming!
TwoMorrows Publications (publishers of The Flash Companion) will be releasing The Age of TV Heroes on Wednesday, March 24. The full-color hardcover book covers live-action TV super-heroes from the early Superman adventures and the Adam West Batman through Smallville, stopping off to visit Wonder Woman, Shazam and, yes, the Flash.
The Age of TV Heroes examines the history of the live-action television adventures of everyone’s favorite comic book heroes! This handsome full-color hardcover features the in-depth stories of the actors and behind-the-scene players that made the classic super-hero television programs we all grew up with. From legendary shows like The Adventures of Superman and Batman, to the modern era of The Tick and Smallville, it’s colorfully presented in vivid detail, lavishly designed with a bevy of color photographs. Included are new and exclusive interviews and commentary from Adam West (Batman), Lynda Carter (Wonder Woman), Patrick Warburton (The Tick), Nicholas Hammond (Spider-Man), William Katt (The Greatest American Hero), Jack Larson (The Adventures of Superman), John Wesley Shipp (The Flash), Jackson Bostwick (Shazam!), and many more, including comments from Reb Brown, Stephen J. Cannell, Chip Kidd, Stan Lee, Noel Neill, John Romita, Alex Ross, Ilya Salkind, Lou Scheimer, Lorenzo Semple, Lyle Waggoner, and other actors, producers, and crew. Re-experience the pop culture birth of the super-hero phenomenon, and relive the first time that these heroes came to life on TV! Written by Jason Hofius and George Khoury, with a new cover by superstar painter Alex Ross
The publisher has posted a free 12-page preview [PDF] on their website, and is offering a 15% discount on purchases through their online store.
ABC has announced casting for the Greg Berlanti television pilot, No Ordinary Family, a drama about a family with super powers. Julie Benz (Dexter, Buffy the Vampire Slayer & Angel) and Michael Chiklis (The Shield, Fantastic Four) play the lead couple. While the announcements don’t say what powers Chiklis’ police artist character has, Benz will be playing a scientist who develops super-speed.
If the name Greg Berlanti sounds familiar, IESB pegged him last week as the leading contender to direct The Flash.
Update: I missed the article when I posted this at lunch, but Rich Johnston reviewed a draft of the script last month. He described the script as “patchy,” but “a much more interesting exploration of possibilities of superfiction than The Cape. And leagues ahead of…Heroes.”
Somewhat related to Kelson’s Article about Batman: Brave and The Bold, it has been pretty much confirmed that Barry Allen will be getting an action figure of his own in the Brave and The Bold toy line.
Oddly enough instead of showing up at Toy Fair 2010, fans caught their first glimpse of the new Flash figure on Target.com. According to the Batman: Brave and The Bold Facebook Page, Mattel didn’t reveal it at Toy Fair on purpose. A sensible decision to try and save some of the new merchandise for the upcoming New York Comic Con. I hope they have a Jay Garrick ready to go as well, because to date he is the only Flash that we have seen guest star on the show. Not really fair for Barry to get a figure before Jay especially when Jay appeared on the show (and in the comics) first. Then again I don’t think Jay would mind that much once he saw this thing:
I don’t know about anyone else (or if anyone else can remember back as far as this) but does this toy remind anyone else of the Centurions from back in the day?
You know these guys:
As you can probably surmise I’m not too thrilled with the overall look of it. But looking at it from a kid’s point of view I could definitely see myself having fun with it. Not myself as a kid, because I was that kid who always questioned why Batman was wearing orange or neon green when he was supposed to be a creature of the night. I’m talking about your average kid who isn’t quite as nit-picky as I was.
I guess it can’t be much worst than this:
It took me a couple of years to finally break down and purchase that thing and it was only because I was in a collectors drought and hadn’t gotten anything new in months. Still every time I look at it I have to pretend that Flash somehow lost his powers and this is his way of making up for it or some nonsense like that. Yeah. Don’t ask.
I will still end up picking it up but if I can help it I will probably drag my feet a bit before doing so. Although with the Flash’s recent resurgence in popularity due to The Flash: Rebirth and the upcoming Brightest Day storyline coupled with the high demand of the Brave and The Bold toy line I might not have a chance to.
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.
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