Updated: See end of post! Back in 1997, Mark Waid took a break from writing The Flash so he could work on JLA: Year One. Final Crisis scribe Grant Morrison and Civil War writer Mark Millar stepped in for a year, co-writing issues #130-138, with Millar writing #139-141 solo. At the end of the year, Waid and Brian Augustyn returned with the epic “Chain Lightning.” To date, none of the Morrison/Millar run has ben collected.
The stories had a much more sci-fi take on the character than had been seen since the Silver Age, and included:
Emergency Stop (#130-132): The Flash finds his own dead body, sent back in time from the future, and has to solve his own murder. Introduced The Suit, the ultimate super-villain costume that came to life, draining those who wore it.
Flash Through the Looking Glass (#133), battling the Mirror Master.
Still Life in the Fast Lane (#134): A spotlight on Jay Garrick, the original Flash, as he fills in for an injured Wally West.
Three of a Kind (#135): Part of a crossover with Green Lantern and Green Arrow, in which the youngest members of the Justice League try to take a vacation…only to find a trio of super-villains is on the same cruise.
The Human Race (#136-138): Wally must compete in a galactic race against his childhood imaginary friend, Krakkl of the planet Kwyzz. If he loses, Earth is destroyed. If he wins, Krakkl’s homeworld is destroyed.
The Black Flash (#139-141): Death comes to everyone, even speedsters… but this time, Death takes the wrong target. Introduced the Black Flash, who featured prominently on the cover of last year’s cover for Flash: The Fastest Man Alive #13 (remember those Dead Flash Covers?).
Now, eagle-eyed Comic Bloc poster Lee H has spotted The Flash: Emergency Stop on Amazon, coming in January 2009. There’s no official word yet, and the Amazon listing doesn’t include a page count, so it’s not clear how many of the issues will appear. We may find out soon, however: tomorrow DC will announce solicitations for September, and they usually include upcoming collected works as well.
Update (June 20): Collected Editions reports that the book does include “The Black Flash.” Whether that means the entire run is included, or just the first and last arcs, remains to be seen.
Update: It turns out that the 12-issue run is being split across two trades, Emergency Stop and The Human Race. “The Black Flash” appears in the latter.
I can not believe they are reprinting the Morrison run, with so much of the Waid run still unreprinted. I would buy a Hard cover of the Waid/Ringo stuff in aheart beat
As a guess, the reason they’re reprinting the Morrison stuff (however much of it they’re reprinting) is Final Crisis.
Nice to hear. There are some periods of the Flash v2. that I still haven’t bought and that’s one of the main gaps I’ve got in my collection.
I still don’t understand why DC hasn’t published TPBs of some of the eras of the character, there still isn’t one from Bill Loeb’s run or from the second stint of Mark Waid (“Chain Lightning” oughta be collected at some point, even if it’s not that good).
Figures. I bought all those a few years ago. This is just like Wonderland all over again!
What’s annoying is that we have yet to see a Dark Flash/Walter West trade. And that was awesome.
@rwe1138: Think of it this way: You got to read them several years earlier than you would have if you’d waited for the trade.
@Human Tornado: Absolutely!
@Esteban: I think the Messner-Loebs run would be tricky to collect, though there are certainly several long storylines they could pick. The Velocity 9/Vandal Savage story he picked up from Baron, for instance, or the Porcupine Man, or the Welcome to Keystone story where he fought the Turtle. Actually, now that I think about it, it probably wouldn’t be that hard to pick trade-length stories.