The Flash appears on a banner at E3 for the upcoming video game Injustice: Gods Among Us. Photo by Wayne Sung, a friend of mine from way back who’s working on breaking into the gaming industry.
Injustice: Flash Banner at E3
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Monthly Archives: June 2012
This Week: Digital Flash(back) #25-27 – The Porcupine Man
It looks safe to say that DC and ComiXology have settled into a pattern, releasing three issues of the 1987-2009 Flash series each week. Among this week’s releases are Flash #25-27, featuring the middle segment of the “Porcupine Man” storyline that ran from Flash #24-28.
After the events of Invasion!, Wally West has been left powerless. In Flash #24, a team of scientists tries to re-create the accidents that gave him and Barry Allen their super-speed. It works…but his control is gone. In the moment he starts running, he cuts a swath of destruction across North America, then disappears. The next few issues follow scientists Tina and Jerry McGee and Wally’s neighbor Mason Trollbridge as they follow his trail and search for Wally West, only to find rumors of a legendary creature of the southwest desert: the Porcupine Man.
» Flash (1987-2009) on ComiXology.
Update: I didn’t notice it in the blog post, but ComiXology has also added a digital edition of DC Presents: The Flash #1, a reprint book from 2011 containing a collection of Silver-Age time-travel stories.
Spotlighting tales of time travel and the Rogues! Collects [ed. note: stories from] SHOWCASE #4 and 14, THE FLASH (1959-1985) #125, 130 and 139, pitting The Scarlet Speedster against Mirror Master, Captain Boomerang, The Top, Captain Cold, and more! NOTE: some issues are available individually online.
It’s a bit of an odd choice: wouldn’t it make more sense to digitize the original issues and then bundle them, rather add content from The Flash somewhere other than The Flash? I guess this way is easier since DC has already restored these stories, and they don’t have to take the time to restore the other story from each issue. (Most Silver-Age Flash issues contained two short stories instead of one full-length story.)
Showcase #4 (including “The Man Who Broke the Time Barrier”) and Flash #125 (“Conquerors of Time”) are already on ComiXology. Flash #139 (“Menace of the Reverse-Flash”) is a full-length story, so the only thing missing is the cover. That leaves one story each from Showcase #14 (“Giants of the Time World” is in this collection, but Dr. Alchemy’s first appearance isn’t) and Flash #130 (“Who Doomed the Flash?” is collected, but not “Kid Flash Meets the Elongated Man”) needed to get a full set in the library for the series itself.
At last, you can get a real FLASH drive!
It’s been several years since Mimoco bought the license to produce DC character-themed USB thumb drives. Of course they started with the usual suspects: Batman and related characters. Green Lantern got a push when the movie came out. You’d think that a Flash-themed flash drive would be an obvious choice, but I suppose they were playing it safe.
Well, the wait is finally over: You can now buy a Flash Mimobot drive with 8GB, 16GB, 32GB or 64GB capacity.
Store and transport your data at lightning fast speeds with the ultimate self-referential flash drive of all time, the Flash MIMOBOT designer USB flash drive. Could there be a more perfect character for a character-based flash drive? The answer, of course, is no.
Truer words, Mimoco. Truer words.
Thanks to Christopher Schmitt for the tip!
Update: Come to think of it, this does look a bit familiar… Continue reading
Upcoming Flash Collections: Move Forward (New 52 vol.1) & Showcase Presents vol.4
DC Comics’ full solicitations are up for September 2012 monthlies and the next few months of collections.
THE FLASH VOL. 1: MOVE FORWARD HC
Written by FRANCIS MANAPUL and BRIAN BUCCELLATO
Art and cover by FRANCIS MANAPUL
On sale NOVEMBER 7 • 192 pg, FC, $24.99 US
- In this first DC COMICS – THE NEW 52 collection of THE FLASH, Mob Rule wages a campaign of crime across Central City, plunging the city into darkness! The only way The Flash can save his city is to make his brain function even faster than before – but as much as it helps him, it also comes at a steep price.
- Collects issues #1-8 of the original monthly series.
DC first told us about this collection back in January, but didn’t announce a firm release date at the time. Collecting Flash v.4 #1-8 covers the opening “Mob Rule” arc, the two-parter with Captain Cold, and the one-shot in the Speed Force introducing Turbine.
The Flash: Move Forward is available for pre-order now.
SHOWCASE PRESENTS: THE FLASH VOL. 4 TP
Written by JOHN BROOME, GARDNER FOX, E. NELSON BRIDWELL, CARY BATES and FRANK ROBBINS
Art by CARMINE INFANTINO, ROSS ANDRU and others
Cover by CARMINE INFANTINO and JOE GIELLA
On sale OCTOBER 24 • 528 pg, B&W, $19.99 US
- The Flash faces Heat Wave, Gorilla Grodd and Captain Cold, and meets Green Lantern, Superman and the Golden Age Flash!
- Collects THE FLASH #162-184.
Let’s take a quick look at what’s in here. Barry Allen and Iris West’s wedding…Reverse-Flash…oh, no, it’s the Mopee story!…a three-Flash team-up with Wally West and Jay Garrick…the Stupendous Triumph of the Six Super-Villains with the now-iconic, frequently-homaged cover of the Rogues standing over the Flash’s dead body…the second Superman/Flash race (the first was in the pages of Superman)…the Giant-Head Flash…Cary Bates’ first Flash story, introducing Earth-Prime…the Samuroids…and the Most Tragic Day. They stories 1966-1968, as the Flash inches its way from Silver-Age goofiness toward the more serious (but still odd) Bronze Age.
Showcase Presents: The Flash vol.4 is also available for pre-order.
Flash #0 Solicited – The Origin of the Flash
DC’s Justice League Group solicitations are out for September and the Zero issues, including…
THE FLASH #0
Written by FRANCIS MANAPUL and BRIAN BUCCELLATO
Art and cover by FRANCIS MANAPUL
1:25 B&W cover by FRANCIS MANAPUL
On sale SEPTEMBER 26 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T
Update: This issue will ship with two covers. The variant cover will feature the standard edition cover in a wraparound format. (from Newsarama)
- At last, it’s the origin of The Flash!
- The loss of his mother put Barry Allen on the road to becoming a hero, but only when he gains his powers will he understand her most important lesson.
As noted last week, this is not the final cover, but a piece of promotional art.
I think I’ve mentioned it before, but I’m disappointed that the tragic backstory Geoff Johns grafted onto the character is still in place. I know getting rid of it would mess up the theme of Flashpoint, but if you look at the New 52 as its own entity (which is what they’re doing everywhere else), it would have been the perfect time to clean up the “Can’t be a real hero unless he knows tragedy” cliche.
(I’ve become more and more certain over time that Hunter Zolomon was thematically an author stand-in in the same way that Superboy Prime is a stand-in for fans that Geoff Johns disagrees with.)
Speed Reading: State of the Industry / Before Watchmen
- Who influenced DC Comics more: Wolfman/Perez or Moore? – Grumpy Old Fan (Robot 6)
- DC Comics Month-to-Month Sales: April 2012 — The Beat. “Given high-ticket writer Geoff Johns’ absence, this is probably one of the surprise hits among the bunch”
- Long-term impact of the New 52 on DC sales – comiks debris
- Kotaku: The Lego Batman 2 Video Game Might Know What Kids Want Out of Comics Better Than Comics Do
- When Words Collide: D&D and the Myth of the Rational Reader
- This WSJ article on Leaping Tall Buildings takes some cheap shots at current mainstream comics creators, but has some good points too.
- Before Watchmen arrives; trade-waiters are bored – Collected Editions
- Update: Ty Templeton steps into the ring with Before Bun Toons