Hot on the heels of the one-two infinite-mass punch that was Flash #12 and the Flash Annual, the Flash creative team of Francis Manapul and Brian Buccellato are featured in an interview over at Comic Book Resources.  Within, the duo look ahead to their upcoming “Gorilla Warfare” arc, teased in the Annual, as well as September’s issue #0.

Follow the jump for more about their new take on Barry Allen’s Flash origin, Speed Force Envy, their main chimp-spirations and more!

On Grodd’s motivation in the war on Central City:

Manapul: In the previous issue Grodd was in, we revealed that Grodd thought he was going to be the one, he was going to be more or less the Flash. He thought that he was going to be the one to usher in the next evolution with the gorillas, because right now they’re devolving. They’ve been devolving over the years — we revealed the very first being alive that was struck with lightning and evolved to where they are now were the gorillas. That’s where the Speed line came from and that’s where a lot of things derived from the Speed Force. I think Gorilla Grodd thought that it was his time to usher in the next evolution, but the next evolution was man and that’s why it hit Barry Allen. Gorilla Grodd can’t accept that.

Buccellato: Right, he went from being the chosen one to being sort of cast aside and his people are losing their touch with the Speed Force. That’s a really important factor.

On whether the first year of stories will be resolved in the upcoming arc:

Buccellato: One hundred percent, actually. We’re not clearing the deck, but we have a lot of stuff we’ve established over the past year we want to pay off and we want to take the time to follow through on. So we’re doing two things, we’re attempting to deal with all the stuff we’ve set up and pay it off while setting in motion what’s going to happen beyond the “Gorilla Warfare” arc.

They also touch on the content of the upcoming issue #0, billed as a new origin story for the New 52 Flash:

Manapul: It’s an origin story for Barry Allen but there’s a lot of stuff that’s really set up in it that will also be revealed in the “Gorilla Warfare” storyline. There are aspects to Barry’s past and upbringing that will really I think shock people. There are a lot of big changes that we’ve made, and also there’re characters in that story that are going to come back.

Buccellato: It’s foreshadowing, I’d say.

Manapul: We’re dealing with a lot of stuff that happens after his mom dies; we deal a lot with what happens after he gets struck by lightning. There are some serious gaps that are missing from the original origin. All we know is he got struck by lightning and next thing we know he was the Flash, but what made him become that? What inspired him to become the Flash?

On the portrayal of the “Speed Mind,” first seen in issue #2:

Manapul: We’re going to see peeks of the Speed Mind. He only started applying it now, but there was something innately there when he was first struck by lightning and forgot about it and just focused on the physical side. The way we decided to lay out the pages is kind of interesting because there’s a lot of stuff on the page that’s going on — but then there are panels that almost reveal what’s going on in the page after. We play a little bit with the timing as you’re reading the issue; it’s not quite as overwhelming as what happened in the first arc to his mind, but it’s happening on a subconscious level. It’s a pretty interesting way to tell a story. We still want to keep it very clean and understandable.

For more, including where the Rogues fit into all of this, check out the full interview at Comic Book Resources!

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