Monthly Archives: July 2008

This Week (July 10): Justice Society

The Flash doesn’t hold the spotlight anywhere this week, but Jay Garrick is a regular in the JSA, and it seems likely that the Flash will appear in Final Crisis: Requiem.

Justice Society of America #17

In Part 2 of “Gog,” the Justice Society of America is split down the middle as their allegiance to the being known as Gog has disrupted the team. Are Gog’s motives on the level, or is it all some insidious plot to destroy mankind?

Written by Geoff Johns and Alex Ross; Art and variant cover by Dale Eaglesham and Prentis Rollins; Cover by Alex Ross

Final Crisis: Requiem

A very special Final Crisis one-shot honoring the passing of a great hero who’s been a staple in the DC Universe for years. All that remains is one final memory that the League experiences together as they must fulfill his last wishes or die trying.

Written by Peter J. Tomasi; Art by Doug Mahnke and Christian Alamy; Covers by J.G. Jones and Doug Mahnke.

Animated Flash Releases on DVD and iTunes

3 Replies

The Flash (or Kid Flash) appears in two DVD sets being released this week, as well as one upcoming release and a whole set of digital downloads.

Teen Titans

The review by Comics Worth Reading reminds me that Teen Titans season 5 is out on DVD this week. This features the episode, “Lightspeed,” in which the animated version of Kid Flash goes up against the Hive Five and makes a special connection with Jinx. While it’s never been made clear just how Teen Titans relates to Justice League Unlimited, they did cast Michael Rosenbaum, the voice of the Flash on that series, as Kid Flash.

I’ve got this one on pre-order. At the time it aired, I wasn’t watching the show, but I made a point to watch “Lightspeed” and enjoyed it. I’ve since seen the other 4 seasons on DVD, and I’m really looking forward to seeing the fifth.

The Batman & Filmation

Comic Bloc poster BESTBUY points out that The Batman season 5 (2007-2008) is also out this week, featuring several episodes with the Justice League as well as “A Mirror Darkly,” in which Batman and Robin team up with the Flash against Mirror Master.

He also mentions the upcoming DVD release of DC Superheroes: The Filmation Adventures, set for August 12. These are cartoons from 1967, featuring DC’s classic cast of heroes, the Flash included. I’ve never seen them myself — my experience with DC-based animation starts with the early 1980s and Super-Friends. From what I understand, these originally aired as part of The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure. Update: Check out my review of these cartoons.

Super Friends Go Digital on iTunes

Finally, Blog@Newsarama reports that iTunes now has a number of classic DC cartoons, including Super Friends and Season 2 of Superman: The Animated Series. That’s the season that includes “Speed Demons,” the episode that introduced the DCAU Flash in 1997.

Thinking about it, it was probably Super Friends that first introduced me to DC’s heroes. I certainly was watching the show long before I started reading comics. I remember very little of the cartoons now, except for the general tone, and a few moments like Superman trying to pronounce Mxytzptlk, or me getting confused as to why Cyborg’s voice was so high in the commercial (by the time he was introduced, I’d started reading The New Teen Titans) — it turned out they’d run one of Wonder Woman’s lines over a picture of his face. And while I remembered the additional super-heroes like Apache Chief and Samurai, I’d completely forgotten the standard Hanna Barbera additions like Wendy and Marvin, or the Wonder Twins and Gleek, until I started reading commentary about the show online a decade later. I still can’t bring to mind any of their voices, though I imagine Marvin sounding like Shaggy from Scooby Doo

Ethan van Sciver at Wizard World

1 Reply

Newsarama’s Vaneta Rogers spoke with Ethan van Sciver at Wizard World Chicago last week about his upcoming projects, including Green Lantern: Blackest Night with Geoff Johns and an untitled Wonder Woman project with Gail Simone. They also discussed the rumors of an upcoming Flash project with Geoff Johns.

The artist had just come from a DC panel where Dan DiDio seemed to always turn to him to answer any question about The Flash. We asked: Why is that?

“Because he’s a sadist, deep down. He even told me that. He said, “I just like to see you squirm.’ I honestly have no idea. He likes to get the rumors going,” Van Sciver said.

We talked about the rumor mill and how most fans think his upcoming “secret project” with Geoff Johns is either Aquaman or The Flash.

“Aquaman’s leading the pack?” Van Sciver said in obviously feigned surprise….

The mysterious van Sciver/Johns project — whether it’s Flash, Aquaman, or something else — will be announced in San Diego later this month.

More at Newsarama.

Ethan van Sciver is no stranger to the Flash, having worked with Geoff Johns on the 2001 graphic novel The Flash: Iron Heights (now collected in the second edition of Flash: Blood Will Run, released earlier this year). He also worked on Impulse with Todd Dezago, where he helped create Inertia, and did several covers for The Flash in 2004 and for The Flash: The Fastest Man Alive in 2007.

Flash Movie Stalled, But Not Out of the Race

1 Reply

At a July 1 press conference for The Dark Knight, producer Charles Roven discussed the long-delayed film adaptation of The Flash with iF Magazine. David Dobkin (The Wedding Crashers) is still director, but there isn’t much more to say, since they’re “not even writing it yet.”

Back in December 2004, the project was first announced with Batman Begins’ David Goyer as writer/director. His version would have “showcase[d] the legacy aspect of the hero” and played up the sci-fi elements, “playing with relativity, Doppler effects and all kinds of things like that.” Goyer actually wrote and finished a script.

By February 2007, DC had decided to abandon Goyer’s draft, hired Shawn Levy (Night at the Museum), and re-positioned it to be a spin-off of the planned Justice League movie. Just 8 months later, they’d handed the film to Dobkin.

Last Year’s Writers Guild of America strike put both films on hold. And with continuing delays on Justice League: Mortal (currently scheduled for 2011), it’s unclear whether The Flash will still have to wait its turn, or if it’ll run out of the gate first.

Flash Video in MK vs. DC

Leave a reply

Game Trailers TV has posted an episode on Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe. Most of the 21-minute episode is a “making of” feature on MK vs. DCU, with interviews and video clips showing various characters in battle: Superman vs. Sub-Zero, Flash vs. Sonya, Batman vs. Scorpion, and more.

There’s a little about the storyline: cataclysmic events occur in both the DC and Mortal Kombat that result in the worlds merging (it’s called “Worlds Collide” after all), and each set of characters thinks the other is responsible.

Classic Covers: Flash v.2 #51

Leave a reply

I hope Dixon of Crimson Lightning won’t mind me picking up this theme. (Come to think of it, he’s probably used this cover on that blog.)

Anyway, today’s classic cover is Flash v.2 #51 (June 1991), for reasons which should be obvious to US residents.

The other characters running with the Flash haven’t been seen for a while: the three dressed in white and red are the Kapitalist Kouriers, a trio of Soviet expatriates (originally called Red Trinity) who defected to the United States and went into business as super-speed couriers. To the best of my knowledge, they haven’t been seen since Dead Heat (1995).

The woman in the Flash outfit is Christina, originally a member of Red Trinity’s predecessor team, Blue Trinity. She’s had a long history of working for various villains including Vandal Savage, Savitar, and Kobra (sometimes voluntarily, sometimes not — her history with Savage is particularly twisted), but at this time she’d latched onto Wally West and was calling herself Lady Flash. She has been seen recently, albeit in a different costume, among Vandal Savage’s faction/harem in Salvation Run.