Monthly Archives: February 2012

Flash by Geoff Johns Ombinus 3 Coming Late Summer/Early Fall

Collected Editions made a discovery on Amazon.com this morning: The Flash Omnibus by Geoff Johns Vol. 3 is available for pre-order with a September 4 date, meaning it will most likely arrive in comic stores the last week in August. (Amazon gets their new releases on the Tuesday bookstore schedule, not the Wednesday comics schedule.)

What’s surprising about this is that volume 2 isn’t out yet (it’s due in April), and there was a full year’s gap between the first two volumes of the massive hardcover collection.

Volume 2 runs through issue #200 of the Wally West Flash series, completing the Geoff Johns/Scott Kolins run on the book. This will pick up with Alberto Dose’s “Ignition.” If the page count on this book is anywhere near the 640 quoted in the listing, it will easily cover Flash #201-225, including the entire Geoff Johns/Howard Porter run on the series. Highlights include a Superman/Flash race (pictured here in Michael Turner’s cover); the origin/profile issues of Mirror Master and Heat Wave; the Identity Crisis tie-in, “The Secret of Barry Allen”; at least half of the Villains United Flash/Wonder Woman crossover; and of course, “Rogue War.”

I still think we’ll see a volume 4 at some point covering Flash: Rebirth through Flashpoint. It’ll be about the same length as this one.

»Pre-order at Amazon.

Flash #9 Solicitation and Cover, the Return of Jay Garrick & Flash Omnibus by Geoff Johns Vol. 3

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THE FLASH #9
Written by FRANCIS MANAPUL and BRIAN BUCCELLATO
Art and cover by FRANCIS MANAPUL
Variant cover by TONY S. DANIEL
1:200 B&W Variant cover by FRANCIS MANAPUL
On sale MAY 23 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T
• Continuing the debut of GORILLA GRODD in DC Comics – The New 52!
• THE FLASH travels to GORILLA CITY for the first time!
• Who are the “RUNNERS” – and what do they mean for THE FLASH and the SPEED FORCE?

Big thanks to Collected Editions for their always eagle-eyed approach, which spotted this listing for The Flash Omnibus by Geoff Johns Vol. 3. The hardcover collection is due Sept. 4. More to follow on the expected contents of this 640-pager.

DC’s May Justice League solicitations are up at The Source. Flash fans looking for Jay Garrick should check out the solicit for EARTH TWO #1 after the jump…

Continue reading →

Speed Reading

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That F’ing Monkey looks back at a piece of Super Friends merchandise in I Slept With the Rogues
@BitterWallyWest posted a mini-story on Twitter the other day. Fans of the MIA character should check it out.
News on Brian Buccelato’s creator-owned series, Foster: Foster #2 is on its way later this month, following the same limited, self-distributed run as the first issue. A direct market edition of #1 is on its way as well, and he talks to IGN about the series.
The creator of Ghost Rider, Gary Friedrich, not only lost a suit to reclaim ownership of the character, but has been ordered to pay Marvel $17,000 for money he’s made using the character over the years (think convention sketches). Steve Niles has set up a donation page to help him. Update: Mark Evanier weighs in on the situation.
This week’s Wayback Wednesday is a classic Young Justice moment featuring Impulse, Superboy and the Ray. Remember when you comic was canceled?
Added: 5 goofiest moments in Flash #127-131 at CSBG

New 52 Month 5: Flash still in the Top 10

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Five months into the New 52, the latest relaunch of The Flash is still a top 10 seller, with Flash #5 taking the #8 stop in Diamond’s sales rankings. ICv2’s estimates put it at 71,611 units sold*.

Comichron points out that January is usually low, but this isn’t bad for a January. (via The Beat) And if January is usually down overall, that means the 7.4% drop for The Flash — the lowest drop since the relaunch — may be exaggerated itself. Could the audience for the series be leveling out near 70K, or in the upper 60s? If so, that’s a big win for DC, because the last volume, written by superstar Geoff Johns, stabilized at sales of about 55,000 copies a month.

Digital Difference

Interestingly, while The Flash is holding steady in the top 10 for North American print sales, it doesn’t appear even in DC’s top 10 digital sales for the month. This could mean that digital readers are less interested in the Flash than print readers, but I don’t think the market is quite so simple as having digital readers and print readers. I suspect that most people who buy digital comics still buy at least some of their comics in print form, and with the art being a big selling point for the book, I’d imagine a lot of them are choosing to keep The Flash on the print side of their list.

Numbers

Issue	Rank	Month	Units Sold	% Change
Flash vol.4
Flash v.4 #1	4	September 2011	129,260
Flash v.4 #2	5	October 2011	114,137	-11.7%
Flash v.4 #3	9	November 2011	90,417	-20.8%
Flash v.4 #4	8	December 2011	77,336	-14.5%
Flash v.4 #5	8	January 2012	71,611	-7.4%

A few key articles covering past sales (with lots of numbers):

*What these numbers measure: US-only sales, wholesale from Diamond to comics retailers. They don’t count sales through bookstores, they don’t count international sales, and they don’t count how many copies were actually bought and read…but they do measure the same thing every month, which means they can be used to spot trends.

Why I Like The Top

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Since the Top is not an especially popular character, occasionally I get asked why I like him or people seem to be incredulous that anyone could. I figured it was finally time to write a short essay about it. This isn’t necessarily intended to change other people’s minds about him; of course he has a ton of flaws and I’m well aware he’s not particularly appealing to most people. It’s just an explanation of what I like about him.

I first developed an interest when reading some short biography, which stated to the effect “He taught himself to spin at high speeds, and the spinning increased his intelligence”. Frankly, I was delighted by the sublime ridiculousness of it, and can’t understand why some people consider that aspect of his origin to be a negative thing. I enjoy at least a bit of silliness and light-heartedness in superhero comics, a genre that by definition has some inherent goofiness.

I admire that he’s very much self-made. He taught himself about tops and the physics of rotation, taught himself how to spin, and built all of his own wide-ranging inventions. His genius intellect and psionic powers were unexpected gifts, but also the result of his own achievement (spinning). His repeated escapes from Hell and returns from the dead seem to have been the result of his own cleverness and stubbornness; he decided he wanted to come back, so he went and did it. He has a hell of an ego, but you can see why. Continue reading →

Annotations: Super-Team Family #15, “The Gulliver Effect!” – Part One

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Welcome to the latest installment in our series of annotations of classic DC Comics stories starring the Flash!

We’re taking a break from The Trial of the Flash to look at Super-Team Family #15 (December 1977), written by Gerry Conway and featuring a team-up between Flash and The New Gods! This book contains major unheralded moments in the history of both Flash and The New Gods, as well as foundations for future stories that would go untold. Links to artwork and research are included throughout this post. For previous annotations, click here!