Monthly Archives: June 2010

Review: Velocity #1 – “Decoys”

The first issue of Ron Marz and Kenneth Rocafort’s Velocity miniseries delivers an effective blend of action and exposition. Appropriately for a book about a speedster, it hits the ground running, and while the main conflict doesn’t really begin until the end of the issue, there’s plenty going on in the opening chapter.

The setup for “Decoys” is simple: A mad scientist infects Velocity and her teammates with a virus that will kill them within an hour, and she’s the only one who might be able to stop it.

Wait, Who?

A bit of background for those not familiar with Top Cow’s resident speedster: Carin Taylor is a member of Cyberforce, a team made up of former (unwilling) test subjects of Cyberdata. Cybernetic implants give her super-speed, and a layer of Kevlar under her skin gives her some degree of invulnerability.

The comic is actually quite new-reader friendly. You get a good sense of Velocity’s personality (snarky, tends to get ahead of herself), powers (runs fast, jumps fast, dismantles killer cyborgs fast…but vibrating through walls and into other dimensions is right out), and the basics of her origin. The villain’s motives are established clearly. There’s even a page in the back with short profiles of Velocity and her teammates.

Continue reading

Speed Reading

Some weekend linkblogging…

Once Upon a Geek can’t wait for the upcoming DC Adventures RPG.

Multiversity Comics casts the Teen Titans

The Beat finds that Comic-Con brings money into San Diego after all. Who knew? Oh, right, we did: the ones spending it!

4thletter! looks at Flash and Batman in Final Crisis: “Everything about the Flash, any of them, in Final Crisis is dead on…”

Flash Week Concludes

Flash Week at Collected Editions concludes with a review of Flash: Rebirth!

Here’s a full list of the Flash trade paperback and hardcover reviews posted this week:

If you’ve been following along, you already know that I contributed the reviews of the Morrison/Millar books, Emergency Stop and The Human Race. I forgot to mention it earlier, but this is actually the second set of guest reviews I’ve done for the site: I reviewed Perhapanauts: First Blood for them last year.

When you visit Collected Editions, be sure to check out the huge collection of reviews (including more Flash trades) and the DC Trade Paperback Timeline.

Flash #4 Delayed One Week

According to Diamond/Previews’ shipping updates, Flash #4 has been pushed back one week from July 28 to August 4. (Hat tip to Jay75 on Comic Bloc)

In the discussion on Comic Bloc, trmnlvlctyyy pointed out that Francis Manapul has been traveling a lot filming a TV show, which probably interferes with his time to work on the art.

On the other hand…how many comics is Geoff Johns writing these days? Add in the fact that Brightest Day is biweekly and has to be a priority, and he’s got that new job wrangling all of DC’s media adaptations, and you’ve got to wonder just where we should be pointing the finger.

Flash #3 is still scheduled to arrive in stores next Wednesday, as can be seen on Diamond’s upcoming releases list.

Jim Lee: Icons and the Flash

A couple of weeks ago, CBR previewed Icons, an upcoming book featuring Jim Lee’s WildStorm and DC Comics art. It got me thinking: Has Jim Lee ever drawn the Flash?

I posed the question on Twitter and Facebook. @Pogophile and Joe Dy came up with the cover of the “Joker’s Last Laugh” issue of The Flash:

I did some searching around the Grand Comics Database when I looked up the Flash v.2 #179 cover, and didn’t find anything obvious. Several people suggested that the Flash may have appeared in Superman: For Tomorrow.

Then of course there are his designs for DC Universe Online.

It’s entirely possible that this is the only published Jim Lee art focusing on the Flash!