Monthly Archives: December 2010

Speed Reading

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Review: Flash #7 – “What Goes Around, Comes Around”

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Those unfamiliar with the Rogue Profiles from Geoff Johns’ previous Flash run might dismiss a whole issue focusing on Captain Boomerang as filler. And while it’s true that this issue and the next were added to the schedule to get the main story back on time, it feels like an integral part of the mythos (if a bit more related to Brightest Day than to the story building to Flashpoint), and leads directly into next week’s issue’s profile of Professor Zoom.

Like the earlier profiles, this issue follows the featured villain as he goes about his business and thinks back about what made him the criminal he is today. It serves both as an origin story for new readers and a way for the writer to explore just what makes him tick. In this case, it doesn’t add anything really new to his background, but rather collects and crystallizes the key elements that have been established over time: a troubled family life (what Rogue didn’t have that?), coming to the States as a toy mascot, and then embarking on his life of crime.

I’ve raved before about how well Scott Kolins’ art is suited to the ruggedness of the Flash’s Rogues Gallery, and that remains true here. Yet his art is transformed by Brian Buccellato’s painted-looking colors, making it blend perfectly with Francis Manapul’s work and revealing just how much of the look of this series is due to his contribution.

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Coco riffs on Captain Boomerang and others at WB Animation Studios

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Last night on Conan, he visited Warner Bros Animation Studios to procure a superhero design of himself.  Along the way he met up with the Creative Director of Animation at the studio, Peter Girardi. Coco discussed multiple topics with him but the funniest part of the segment and most relevant was where he riffs on a number of heroes and villains from the DC Encyclopedia.

Conan and his crew had gone through the book prior to the the show and blew up a number of pictures of what he felt were lame characters from it. Amongst them our very own Captain Boomerang:

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Flash First Impressions: Why I don’t like Joan Garrick

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Today’s guest post is by Ken O of That F’ing Monkey.

I’m going to make a confession and I realize it sounds irrational, but I don’t like Joan Garrick. I know that sounds bad. You hear something like that and think, “How can you hate that nice grandmotherly lady?” Before we even get into the whys I want to clarify, I dislike her, I don’t hate her. I wasn’t cheering when she came down with fake-cancer. Besides the fact that cancer isn’t really cheer worthy, I didn’t want to see her die.

So what started all this craziness? Her first appearance. I’m not even talking about her issue as a whole; I’m talking about the first page of Flash Comics #1. Our hero, young scientist in training Jay Garrick meets Joan at school and asks her out to the Victory dance. Her response is, “I…I don’t thinks so, Jay…You’re…a scrub on the football team…and captain Bull Tryon’s already asked me!!”

Wow. How nasty is that? She could have easily said, “Sorry, but someone already asked me,” or anything like that. Instead she decides to bust on his football skills. And bless his heart; Jay somehow still wants to impress her. He gains super speed and immediately uses it for football. Maybe it’s because I’m not a football fan? I’ve also though of Joan as cold hearted after that.

I realize Iris didn’t come off any better. In her first panel she’s chastising Barry for being late. I’ve read a number of other people’s complaints about how nasty Iris was during all those early adventures, but for some reason I never disliked her. Maybe it is because I’ve been stood up before and I know what a soul crushing blow to the ego that can be.

How did the other women in the Flashes’ lives fare with their first appearances? Continue reading →

Flash #11 Schedule Set

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When DC Comics released its solicitations for February, it announced The Flash #11 would be arriving on February 23, 2011…even though they had already scheduled The Flash #10 for that date. Now, DC’s website shows the more realistic date of March 30, 2011.

No changes have been made to any other upcoming Flash issues. Flash #8 is still scheduled for December 29, #9 for January 26, and #10 for February 23.

Mayfairstivus – Captains Cold & Boomerang in the 1989 DC Heroes RPG

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Today’s guest post is by Frank Lee Delano.

Hello, Flash fans! I go by the alias Frank Lee Delano, was voted second most likely to run entirely too many blogs (after Rob Kelly,) and I will be your substitute teacher for the day. For the second year in a row, I’m running a complex and lengthy inter-blog crossover between Thanksgiving and Christmas, in part because I’m a sadistic misanthrope who takes his hatred of the holidays out on my unsuspecting fellow bloggers. The theme this year is Mayfairstivus, a make believe holiday where we celebrate the Mayfair Games Incorporated DC Heroes role-playing system and its many releases. A large part of the blame for this type of event falls on the shoulders of The Irredeemable Shag, who brought me into his own crossover, Crisis on Earth-Blog, almost two years ago, and continues to conspire with me on these dirty dealings. Shag was your guest blogger forMayfairstivus – Celebrating Flash in the DC Heroes RPG, and when I volunteered to write a second post while your regularly scheduled Kelson was tending to his newborn son, Shag offered the advice, “I believe his blog is typically on the positive/up-beat side, so I wouldn’t trash Captain Boomerang too much (but that’s just me).” As I believe I already established that I am diabolical and make all my promises through crossed fingers, I now present to you Captains Cold and Boomerang, whom I will surely criticize venomously.

I assume I first became aware of Captain Cold through the Super Friends cartoon show, because that’s just what people of my generation did (see also: mustachioed men wearing mirrored aviators and Lacoste polos with skimpy tennis shorts defending original Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.) As you may or may not be aware, Ape Law* dictates that every super-hero must have an ice-themed villain, so to me Captain Cold was just Mr. Freeze on a budget. It wasn’t until John Ostrander wrote Cold into his first Manhunter script as a loser who loved betting baseball that Leonard Snart felt like he had something unique to contribute to the field, as more of a blue collar snow blower. Of course, now Snart is a fan favorite, after taking on a Golden Age attitude toward casual homicide. If you’re going to flash freeze some dope in the equivalent of liquid nitrogen, you might as well indulge the bloodlust of Rome by punching the schmuck’s head into a pink-tinged flurry, right? So cool, Captain Cold is now the baddest gangsta to wear a fur-lined hoodie.

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