Speed Force

Longtime Flash artist Greg LaRocque needs little introduction for readers of this site.  Hot on the heels of his return to the character in DC Retroactive: The Flash – The ’80s, we caught up with the man once again to talk about the story, his past and future work, as well as the apparent fate of Wally West.

This is the third Speed Force interview with Mr. LaRocque.  We’ve previously discussed “The Return of Barry Allen” and previewed the Retroactive issue with him.  Part three is after the jump!

UPDATE:  Added some comments from LaRocque, which were originally made in response to the Speed Force review of the issue.

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Apologies for the lateness of this review, as I’ve been somewhat unwell recently. My lateness certainly had nothing to do with disliking the issue! I enjoyed it very much, as it was a lot of fun. More details and mild spoilers after the cut.

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DC has posted a preview of the DC Retroactive Flash: 1980s, arriving in stores on Wednesday.

Central City is filled with villains cleverly trying to stay under the radar of The Flash. So then why is one of them doing everything in her power to attract his attention? And when an obsessed fan gets out of hand, Wally West must follow an unlikely trail of victims to his latest challenge: a gallery of his most notorious Rogues.

What becomes of this super-fan will shock you in an all-new story from writer William Messner-Loebs and art by Greg Larocque. DC RETROACTIVE: THE FLASH-THE 80s also includes a 22-page classic story originally published in the ’80s by Messner-Loebs, Larocque and Tim Dizon. Pick up this one-shot in stores on Wednesday.

DC has announced that Greg LaRocque will be joining writer William Messner-Loebs for DC Retroactive: The Flash 1980s in August. This is the second of three *ahem* flashback one-shots bringing back classic creative teams to tell “lost tales” set during their original 1970s, 1980s and 1990s runs. Each issue features a new 26-page lead story and a reprint from the writer’s original run.

DC RETROACTIVE: THE FLASH – THE ’80s #1

The ’80s were a decade that forever changed the Scarlet Speedster. Now telling a new story from that era will be the creative team of artist Greg LaRouque and writer William Messner-Loebs.

ONE-SHOT • On sale AUGUST 3 • 56 pg, FC, $4.99 US • RATED T

Yes! I was hoping they’d get Greg LaRocque back for this! Starting in 1988, LaRocque drew the Flash for Messner-Loebs’ entire 4-year run on the Wally West series, and several years of Mark Waid’s, finishing with the classic, The Return of Barry Allen.

The July 1970s Flash special by Cary Bates was announced earlier this month, and we can expect more details on Brian Augustyn’s 1990s special in a few weeks.

Meanwhile, check out The Source to read about the other 1980s specials focusing on Superman, Wonder Woman, etc.

At the WonderCon DC Nation panel, DC announced a series of one-shots coming this summer called “Retro-Active.” Each set features three one-shots set in 1970s, 1980s and 1990s continuity re-uniting the characters with the creators most associated with of classic runs from that era.

The Flash issues will be written by:

• Cary Bates for the 1970s
• William Messner-Loebs for the 1980s
• Brian Augustyn for the 1990s.

Each issue will feature 26 pages of new story and 20 pages of reprinted material and will run $4.99. No word yet on artists or release dates. Other characters announced include Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, and the Justice League of America.

It’s odd that they’ve broken up the Waid/Augustyn team. Given that Waid has expressed willingness to work for DC again, I figure this means one of two things:

• DC doesn’t want to hire Mark Waid for now.
• Mark Waid doesn’t want to return to The Flash after the disaster of “The Wild Wests.”

Source: CBR coverage and Newsarama coverage.

Update (Monday): DC has released the logos and writers for the event.

The linkblogging catchup continues!

Comics Should Be Good features Flash #54: “Nobody Dies” (William Messner-Loebs and Greg LaRocque) in their Year of Cool Comics. It’s one of my favorite one-issue stories from Wally West’s run, and not surprisingly it made the reader-selected list of top 10 Wally West stories a few weeks later.

A bit off topic, CSBG also reviews Mysterius the Unfathomable. It was a fun fantasy/horror/comedy miniseries last year, and is now available as a trade paperback.

Multiversity Comics recommends the new Flash series. Among other reasons: “he has a secret identity which actually gets used, instead of being forgotten for more exciting superhero stories.” And of course, “Flash has some of the best and most fleshed out rogues in the business.”

Update: One more! Several Flash storylines appear in CSBG’s Greatest Mark Waid Stories Ever Told list: Dead Heat, Terminal Velocity and The Return of Barry Allen.

Comics Should Be Good has posted the results of their reader poll for the Greatest Wally West stories ever told. It’s technically a top ten list, but they included eleven stories because the #10 winner was essentially a prologue for one of the other winners.

It’s interesting to break down the results by writer:

• 7 by Mark Waid (including the top three)
• 2 by Geoff Johns
• 2 by William Messner-Loebs

In a way it’s surprising that Geoff Johns, DC’s current superstar writer, isn’t more heavily represented, but it also makes sense. Mark Waid’s run on The Flash was very much about Wally West and his journey through young adulthood (Messner-Loebs’ run even more so!), while Geoff Johns’ run tilted a bit more toward the Rogues.

Head over to Comics Should Be Good for the full list!

I learned on Comic Bloc that today is William Messner-Loebs’ birthday! He wrote The Flash vol.2 for about four years from Flash #15 (1988) through Flash #61 (1992), during which he laid the groundwork for Wally West’s characterization in the 1990s and beyond. He also had a two-year run on Impulse, taking over from Mark Waid in Impulse #29 (1997) and handing the reigns to Todd Dezago after Impulse #49 (1999).

Twenty years ago, William Messner-Loebs started a four-year run on The Flash. Seven years ago, out of work, he and his wife lost their house. Michigan Live writes about how his life has turned around since then. (via The Beat).

Another former Flash scribe, Mark Waid, talks to CBR about his arrival on Spider-Man.

Flash: The Fastest Man Alive “Full Throttle” writer Marc Guggenheim’s TV show Eli Stone has not been renewed beyond the network’s current 13-episode commitment. Update: Newsarama also has an interview about Guggenheim’s “Character Assassination” arc on Amazing Spider-Man

Flash: Iron Heights and Impulse artist Ethan Van Sciver, currently working on Flash: Rebirth, has started a weekly column at Newsarama, Your Time Is Now Mine.

Update: One more: Geoff Johns talks with CBR about bringing the Legion of Super-Heroes to Smallville.

Edit: This has been restructured and rewritten a bit to make the post come off a bit less personally, since that wasn’t the intention.

Groovy Superhero is running a series on The World’s Fastest Cancellation, looking at the way the series has been relaunched over and over since Geoff Johns 2005. The Flash has had a remarkably consistent writing credit over the years, until Geoff Johns left the book in 2005 to do Infinite Crisis.

Wally Before Geoff

One thing the author of that series said got me thinking about the series’ creative history: In part one, he or she writes about the book after Geoff Johns left it:

The Flash…was relegated to the status he had endured throughout most of the ’90s: a “who needs work?” book, being tossed around from creator to creator

Tossed around from creator to creator? True of the last three years, but certainly not true of the 1990s. William Messner-Loebs wrote the book for four years from 1988–1992. Mark Waid* took over in 1992 and stayed on until 2000 (Brian Augustyn joining him officially halfway through after several years as editor and an uncredited co-writer), with a one-year break during which he wrote JLA: Year One and Grant Morrison and Mark Millar filled in. In fact, if you count the Morrison/Millar run as a main creative team, there’s a grand total of only five issues by fill-in writers** from #1 to #225 (the end of Geoff Johns’ run), covering 1987–2005.

Long-Term Consistency

If you go further back, Gardner Fox wrote most of the Golden Age books, with Robert Kanigher coming in near the end. John Broome wrote most of the Silver Age, with Fox and Kanigher. There was a transition period in the late 1960s, and then Cary Bates wrote nearly every issue from the early 1970s through 1985.

Three main writers from 1940-1970. One from 1970-1985. Five writers or writing teams from 1987-2005. (I’m lumping the Waid/Augustyn and Waid solo runs together. Same with the Morrison/Millar and Millar solo books.)

Now let’s look at the book after Geoff Johns left in 2005:
4 issues by Joey Cavalieri
8 by Danny Bilson & Paul De Meo
5 by Marc Guggenheim
7 by Mark Waid
6 by Tom Peyer
4 by Alan Burnett
2 one-shots

Six writing teams in three years, and a couple of one-offs.

Flash or Thrash?

Following Johns’ final issue, it’s clear they had already decided to axe the book, since all that remained was one stand-alone story that had been sitting on the shelf and the 4-part “Finish Line,” which was clearly intended (like the current “This Was Your Life, Wally West”) to wrap up the series.

Then DC proceeded to throw lead characters, creative teams, and creative directions at the wall haphazardly, hoping something would stick. How could anything gain traction with that much churn?

In my opinion, given that DC is already committed to relaunching the series with Flash: Rebirth, the best thing DC could do to build the book back up would be to keep Geoff Johns on after the miniseries, and give him at least a year to establish the series tone, direction, and at least one long-term arc. Then make sure that whoever follows him is sufficiently high-profile not to scare readers off, and won’t simply throw everything out and start over.

Notes

*By part 5, he explains that “Waid’s main contributions to the Flash mythos were to introduce Wall and Wife Linda’s twins.” Now, I would assume that he meant Waid’s contributions this time around, but given the remark in part 1 about the series being a dumping ground of random writers in the 1990s, I have to wonder whether the writer in question is simply not familiar with Waid’s eight-year run, or that it established the Wally/Linda relationship, introduced the Speed Force, built up a family of speedsters, spun off an Impulse/Max Mercury book, and really established the Flash as once again being a major player after 60-odd issues of the B-list.

**Those fill-ins would be:
#29: Len Strazewski (1989)
#151: Joe Casey (1999)
#160: Brian Augustyn solo, not sure you can properly call it a fill-in. (2000)
#161: Pat McGreal (2000)
#163: Pat McGreal (2000)