Newsarama’s Vaneta Rogers interviews Ethan Van Sciver about Blackest Night and Flash: Rebirth. I found one segment particularly interesting:
Flash is the same way [as Green Lantern]. Throughout 60-70-some years of DCU history, there have been lots of little pieces and hints and clues about what the speedsters are or where they come from or what they mean. A plucky couple of creators could get together and put those clues together to mean something much bigger. And that’s what we’re attempting to do.
So Flash: Rebirth is what Green Lantern: Rebirth was in the sense that we’re trying to get all of our ducks in a row here and prepare for the much, much bigger story that will come from it. And that’s got to include every single Flash character.
I find this interesting for a couple of reasons.
The first is that linking all the speedsters together and examining what’s behind their existence is exactly what Mark Waid did with the speed force back in Terminal Velocity and Dead Heat. So in a sense, what he’s talking about has already been done.
The second is that there definitely are further implications to the power of speed, particularly when time travel is added to the mix. There’s that “Green Lantern is to Space as the Flash is to Time” analogy that Geoff Johns made a while back. There’s the nature of Zoom’s powers as a shifting timeline that mimics super-speed — a theory which had been tossed around by fans as an explanation for the Flash’s own powers. And then there’s the suggestion in the novel Flash: Stop Motion that super-speed is simply one aspect of a power based on quantum mechanics.
And of course the implication that they have a big story planned for the future that involves the entire Flash family.
Also, regarding the upcoming Flash: Rebirth #4:
Major heroics and fireworks on the part of Jay Garrick and Bart Allen, who have never been made to look this kick-ass before. They’re going to really get their moment to shine in Issue #4. It’s fantastic stuff. It’s a big action issue. It’s good. It’s scary.
That is interesting. Johns, we see now, didn’t just “Rebirth” Green Lantern; instead he began a considerably long saga that re-defined Green Lanterns in the DC Universe, culminating right now (we think) with Blackest Night. Johns didn’t do that when he wrote the Flash Wally West — he re-defined Wally of sorts, but not the DC Universe along with Wally — but he might now be doing so with Barry; Flash: Rebirth could be the start of a Flash saga with Blackest Night-level implications.
Which makes me wonder, what about Superman? I’m looking forward to reading New Krypton, but New Krypton doesn’t seem to have the power that Sinestro Corps did (thousands of Kryptonians notwithstanding). There’s a little part of me that’s bugged by seeing Hal Jordan, not Superman, up front on the cover of Blackest Night — what’s a DC Comics event without Superman up front? I’m all for a big Flash story following the big Green Lantern stories of late, but a big Superman story is long overdue.
.-= collectededitions’s latest blog post: Review: Superman: Braniac hardcover/paperback (DC Comics) =-.
It’s a safe bet that Chunk is connected to Barry’s coworker.