Monthly Archives: September 2009

Dead Flash Covers

Looking back at the cover for Flash: The Fastest Man Alive #13, it wasn’t promising for Bart Allen, especially with the Flashes’ history of death. We know now that it ended badly for him (though he got better).

Crisis on Infinite Earths #8Countdown: Flash: The Fastest Man...Flash: The Fastest Man Alive #13

Of course, there’s also a history of Flashes (and supporting cast) appearing dead on the cover, but still making it through. More than 25 examples of dead Flash covers appear below. Continue reading

This Week (Sep 23): Wednesday Finale & Flash Chronicles

This is it: the final issue of Wednesday Comics! Also, the first volume of The Flash Chronicles, which picks up the Silver Age stories and reprints them all, in order, in trade paperback form.

The Flash Chronicles Vol.1 TP

Flash Chronicles Vol.1Written by Robert Kanigher and John Broome
Art by Carmine Infantino, Joe Kubert, Frank Giacoia and Joe Giella
Cover by Carmine Infantino and Joe Kubert

The stories that introduced Barry Allen as the new Flash in the late 1950s are collected chronologically in trade paperback for the first time, with tales from Showcase #4, 8, 13 and 14 and The Flash #105 & 106.

On sale September 23 · 160 pg, FC, $14.99 US. Order from Amazon.

Notes: They’re not just reissuing the Flash Archives in paperback — The Flash Archives v.1 is longer, running through the contents of Flash v.1 #108.

Wednesday Comics #12

Wednesday ComicsWEDNESDAY COMICS, DC’s new, 12-issue weekly series, reaches its incredible conclusion in September. WEDNESDAY COMICS will arrive in stores folded twice to 7″ x 10″.

16 pg, FC, $3.99 US

Super Friends #19

Super Friends #19Written by Sholly Fisch
Art by Dario Brizuela
Cover by J. Bone

School’s back in session! That is, Headmaster Mind’s school for Super-Villains! And he’s got a few lessons to teach the Super Friends about crashing his field trip!

On sale September 23 · 32 pg, FC, $2.50 US

Flash Comics for December 2009

Immediately after the conclusion of Flash: Rebirth, December sees the launch of he three-issue Blackest Night: The Flash miniseries. There’s also a new set of Uni-Formz toys featuring the Flash, the Reverse-Flash, and Black Flash.

Blackest Night: The Flash #1

Blackest Night: The FlashWritten by Geoff Johns
Art and cover by Scott Kolins
Variant cover by Francis Manapul

The Flashes of Two Cities – Barry Allen and Wally West – battle the undead Rogues. Will the legendary speedsters be able to handle the Black Lantern Rogues’ revenge?

Plus, witness the resurrection of Barry’s greatest enemy, the Reverse Flash in this hyper-speed miniseries event reuniting the fan-favorite Flash creative team of Geoff Johns and Scott Kolins!

This issue will ship with two covers. For every 25 copies of the Standard Edition (with a cover by Scott Kolins), retailers may order one copy of the Variant Edition (with a cover by Francis Manapul).

On sale December 2 – 1 of 3 – 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US

Notes: Francis Manapul, of course, was recently announced as the artist on the new, ongoing Flash series. And may I say I like the description of Barry and Wally as the “Flashes of Two Cities.”

Team books and more after the cut. Continue reading

Upcoming Cons: Long Beach, WonderCon, Anaheim & San Diego

Long Beach Comic ConLong Beach Comic-Con is only two weeks away! They’ve posted their programming schedule and floor map, and I’m happy to see that the panels I most want to see are (a) on the day I’m going and (b) not opposite each other!

Comic Con International has opened online registration for 2010. There’s a pretty steep price jump — the full week is $100 now. Admittedly, that comes out to $25 a day, so it’s not that bad when you think about it. But it’s still triple digits.

They’re trying to cut down on the Wednesday night crowds by selling two types of full-con tickets, one with Preview Night and one without. On one hand, that’s probably a good idea. “Preview” Night has gotten rather insane the last couple of years (since the last time Warren Ellis came out to San Diego, really). On the other hand…you need the Preview Night version to pick up your badge early. If you get the regular version, you have to wait until Thursday morning. Otherwise, I’d happily forgo Preview Night so that someone who really wants to go can have a slightly less crowded experience, since I rarely spend more than half an hour on Wednesday anyway.

WonderCon has announced the dates for next year’s convention: April 2-4, 2010. That’s later than it’s been the last few years, and puts it only 2 weeks before Wizard’s Anaheim Comic Con (April 16-18). It’s close enough to make me feel like there’s no point in going to both. WonderCon looks like a better idea for a lot of reasons…but Anaheim is so close that it feels like it would be a waste to not go.

Speed Reading: Sales, Humor, TPBs, Movies

Rounding up a week of links:

Major Spoilers has the Top 300 Comics for August 2009, and Flash: Rebirth #4 is #14. They’re also holding a costume contest.

Dan Didio’s latest 20 questions explains how Geoff Johns & Francis Manapul moved from Adventure Comics to The Flash. He adds, “my goal now is to get those guys going on Flash as soon as possible.”

High Five! Comics lists their top ten second-string couples, featuring both Barry & Iris Allen and Ralph & Sue Dibny. Their latest Things I Learned From Comics feature covers How to Gain Superpowers.

Collected Editions has updated their DC Comics Trade Paperback Timeline and moved to its new, post-GeoCities home.

Humor

The Onion brings the “news” that melting ice caps are exposing hundreds of secret arctic lairs. Does anyone remember whether Dr. Impossible had one?

Noah Van Sciver continues his comic-strip Flash: Rebirth Recaps with issue #4.

Movies

We Are Movie Geeks has made a list of five projects for DC Entertainment to jump on, starting with the Flash.

And finally, Crimson Lightning has the results of the casting poll. Fans cast Neil Patrick Harris as the Scarlet Speedster. Next up: Who’s your favorite Reverse Flash?

Deadly Nightshade After Closing Time

Comic Cavalcade was an anthology series that ran from 1942 until 1954, publishing super-heroes and other adventures for the first six years. Wonder Woman, the Flash, and Green Lantern were the headliners. DC has reprinted the first three issues as The Comic Cavalcade Archives, Vol. 1. (At 100 pages per issue, it’s still a pretty big collection!) I bought a copy, mainly for the Flash stories, and it finally arrived yesterday.

I read a few of the stories this afternoon, and these panels from the Green Lantern story in issue 1, “The Adventures of Luckless Lenore,” made me laugh out loud.

Two panels from Comic Cavalcade #1

Green Lantern’s sidekick, Doiby, has been trying to romance Lenore, whose “bad luck” seems to be engineered. At this point he’s been captured. I didn’t even notice the name of the bar the first time through, it was the menu that caught me off-guard. Continue reading