Poll: Favorite Flash Stories of 2013

Gorilla Warfare, Reverse Flash, Villains Month/Forever Evil — plus guest spots in Smallville, Justice League Beyond, and of course the Arrow TV show. What was your favorite Flash story of the year?

Update: The survey is closed — here are the results!

Gorilla Warfare (Flash #13-#17) 2% (2 Votes)
Flash vs. Trickster (Flash #18-19) 1% (1 Votes)
Reverse Flash Saga (Flash #20-24) 15% (18 Votes)
Flash #25: Zero Year 31% (38 Votes)
Flash #26: Flash out of Water
Villains Month: Reverse Flash 1% (1 Votes)
Villains Month: Grodd 1% (1 Votes)
Villains Month: Rogues 4% (5 Votes)
Forever Evil: Rogues Rebellion 3% (4 Votes)
Smallville Season 11: “Haunted” guest-starring Bart Allen and Jay Garrick
Justice League Beyond: “Flashdrive” introducing Danica Williams 2% (3 Votes)
Justice League Beyond: The Flash (Danica Williams origin) 1% (1 Votes)
Injustice: Gods Among Us Chapter 13 (Flash spotlight) 2% (2 Votes)
Arrow: The Scientist / Three Ghosts 16% (19 Votes)
Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox 12% (15 Votes)
My collection of back-issues 9% (11 Votes)

There’s a clear winner, and a sharp division between the top five and the rest:

  1. The “Zero Year” flashback in Flash #26 took the top spot handily with twice as many votes as the next one down. Is it the farewell to the Francis Manapul/Brian Buccellato team? Or do we Flash fans just like our Barry/Iris moments?
  2. Arrow‘s “The Scientist” and “Three Ghosts”, guest-starring Barry Allen, came in next, another strong showing for a pre-Flash story.
  3. The Reverse Flash story to which Manapul and Buccellato had been building for their whole run on the series came in third.
  4. Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox, the first animated feature to focus on the Flash (even if Warner Bros. was afraid to brand it anything other than Justice League), made a solid fourth-place showing, though not as strong as I was expecting.
  5. Back-issues took a surprisingly high slot with more than twice as many votes as the next item on the list — a reminder that there are still a lot of Flash fans out there who like the characters, but not the current direction.

Two choices pulled in no votes at all: Flash #26, which hit stores during the second day of the survey — no surprise, since most people hadn’t had a chance to read it by the time the survey closed, and I actually considered leaving it off because of that. Smallville Season 11: Haunted, a digital-first comic now available in print that focused on Bart Allen and introduced the Smallville universe’s Jay Garrick. Maybe Flash fans are just tired of characters getting killed off.

One problem with the survey: I had to relaunch it after it had been up for about an hour and a half because I realized I’d forgotten to include Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox. (Seriously, how did I do that?) I had to decide whether it was better to relaunch the poll and lose about 40 votes, hoping most of them would see the notice and resubmit their votes, or leave out the Flash’s premiere animated movie. I’m still not sure I made the right call, but it’s a thoroughly unscientific survey.

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2 thoughts on “Poll: Favorite Flash Stories of 2013

  1. Kyer

    Sadly, that was probably the easiest multiple-choice poll I’ve ever answered in my life.

    Dear god I just noticed that lil Funko Flash on the Instagram pic is adorable. Must think of wallet and not look up availability in toy stores.

    Reply
  2. veronicadiall

    Gee, why did you close it so soon? I thought that I would wait until I read issue #26 (which only came out on Tuesday) until I chimed in. Anyway, I am very surprised and pleased to see that Flash #25 took first place and by such a wide margin. I am guessing that most of the votes were impacted by the Barry/Iris kiss at the end of the book than anything else. I hope that DC editorial notices this and slowly builds to them being together. They really make a great team.

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