Monthly Archives: June 2008

Flash on Father’s Day

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A belated note: Scarlet Speedster Wally West made #3 on Newsarama’s list of the Top 10 Comic Book Dads:

When the public’s knowledge of his identity led to his wife’s attack and the miscarriage of their unborn twins, Wally was so traumatized that he begged The Spectre to make his identity a secret again, wishing to try to recover from the loss alone with his wife. But after a twist in time meant the two children were born alive, Wally didn’t take them for granted, making their health and happiness the center of not only his home life, but even his time as a superhero, sharing costume time with Jai and Iris.

Morrison/Millar Run on Flash to be Collected

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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.

Welcome to SpeedForce.org!

This blog is going to be a companion piece to the website, Flash: Those Who Ride the Lightning.

The Scarlet Speedster hasn’t really had a blog out there since Crimson Lightning shut down, and since I’ve been adding news items to the front page of my own site, I figured I’d step in and fill the gap.

I’ll be posting Flash-related news here, including a weekly round-up of Flash comics, as well as articles that might not fit into the existing site structure, and (eventually) reviews as well. I’ll be refining the look and features over the next couple of weeks, and cross-linking it more into Ride the Lightning. I might keep the current theme with a few tweaks, or I might try to match Ride the Lightning, or I might build something else entirely.  Feedback on any aspect of the site is welcome!

For now… welcome aboard!

Update:

I’ve enabled Gravatars on this site, so if you have one (and if you don’t, it’s free and easy to set one up) and you leave your email address when commenting, your icon will appear next to your comments.  If you don’t have one, the site will generate a geometric pattern using WP_Identicon.

Also, I’m still working on the layout.  To start with I just grabbed a theme that looked like it would fit.  I may keep this one with a few adjustments, or I may switch to something else entirely.  If you have problems viewing the site, please let me know in a comment here!  Please include the name and version of your web browser (ex: Internet Explorer 7, Firefox 3, etc.) and the name and version of your operating system (Windows Vista, Mac OS X Tiger and so on).

Finally, if you have any suggestions for feature you would like to see, this is the place to mention them.