DC has been handing out plastic Flash rings at conventions this year. Sadly, I managed to miss the relevant panel at San Diego (IIRC it was the Geoff Johns panel, and it conflicted with Robert J. Sawyer), and I never managed to hit the DC booth at the times they were giving them out either.
Johanna Draper Carlson of Comics Worth Reading was kind enough to send me an extra that she picked up at Baltimore Comic Con.
As you can see, it’s just plain yellow plastic, but it’s sculpted. Try as I might, though, no matter how many times I hit that button on the side, it didn’t open up to release a costume. 😀
Actually, I do have a Flash ring with a miniature costume somewhere in storage. DC Direct released a replica Flash ring with a stand. It’s held open slightly so that you can see the costume inside. Rather than hunting through storage, I searched online and ganked the first photo I found, from Planet Krypton.
I may have to turn in my own geek-cred / card / decoder-ring…
Try as I might, I just can not suspend my disbelief enough to accept the “costume in ring” aspect of the Flash.
Run on water? Sure.
Vibrate thru walls? Makes sense to me.
Cosmic Treadmill? Absolutely!
Costume stored in tiny ring? You’re kidding me, right?
Even if I were to be able to squint and say “OK, it expands when it hits the air” to it, then I can’t wrap my head around how he gets it BACK IN!
Hell, I have trouble folding my shirts correctly so that they’ll be wrinkle-free.
And SOME people can’t re-fold a map at all.
If it were the ATOM who had his costume in a ring, I could TOTALLY buy it, since his POWERS are to shrink stuff.
Flash? not so much.
So… I’m sure they’ve gone over this ad nauseum in the comics (but as a not-really-too-much-into-the-DC-stuff reader, I never really found out).
Is there an explanation to it all that makes even a modicum of “comic book science” sense?
I’d like to know.
X_the_Phantom-Longbox__
I’m with you there — just recently I posted on my other blog about how I could go with the totally out-there elements of Fringe, but the more borderline stuff just bugged me.
As for the Flash costume, the explanation I recall is that it expands on contact with the nitrogen in the air, and then when he’s done, the ring emits an electric charge that drives the nitrogen out, causing it to revert to its “normal” tiny size.
Fortunately, no one with electrical powers has managed to trigger this while he was wearing it!
For a while, wasn’t the costume made out of the Speed Force itself? It was after he’d been stabbed. The name of the storyline is escaping me though.
.-= Wally East’s latest blog post: Mint Chocolate =-.
So it’s like “memory cloth”?
Put a charge thru it and it takes a shape?
Hmmm…. ok.
I’d buy it more if it were “unstable molecules” or something.
(Oh, the irony of accepting THAT as plausible and not an “expands on contact to air” type of silver age goofiness.)
Thanks though.
🙂
X_the_Phantom-Longbox__
I couldn’t find a picture(and was too lazy to take a picture of my own) but they also released a ring with certain DC Direct Flash action figures which was plastic and actually have a little switch on the side that would open it to reveal a little square with a lightning bolt on it(supposed to be a folded up costume). Was pretty cool but I could never wear it because my hands are much too large for the ring and I was afraid to force it because it’s made of a much harder and less malleable form of plastic than the comic con one.
There is also this ring, which might be unlicensed but is freaking awesome.
http://i6.ebayimg.com/02/i/001/10/ef/08f0_1.JPG
I think wormholes are involved. Remember how shapeshifter Odo (of ST:DS9) could change into a tiny mouse and everyone asked where all that extra mass went? Wormholes.
Wish I could have gone.
Let me know when you get a cosmic treadmill, O’ Mighty Kelson.
They released a prop version of the cosmic treadmill as well, albeit in plastic toy form.
I have the ring with the costume in it, but haven’t been able to get one of the convention rings. The one with the costume is a gorgeous piece of work. I wish they’d give that level of detail to a Flash statue someday.
.-= Brian’s latest blog post: The Avengers Movie Dream Cast =-.
So wait a second, people can believe that a guy can channel an extra-dimensional “Speed Force” by sheer will… but you can’t understand that he can fold up a costume super quickly?
.-= StanLee Wannabe’s latest blog post: Hawkgirl Helmet Completed =-.
That’s pretty much the problem I had with Fringe — I could just go with the totally out-there stuff, but the things that were only slightly outside of reality were harder to swallow.