The Flash TV show has gone on a four-week hiatus, but there are a lot of Flash comics coming out!
Flash #39 arrives in stores Wednesday, continuing the saga of the future Flash taking over present-day Barry Allen’s life, and bringing us more information about Overload (but not an overload of information). Preview at 13th Dimension. Written by Robert Venditti and Van Jensen, art by Brett Booth, Norm Rapmund, Andrew Dalhouse.
Monday saw the release of the latest Flash Season Zero chapter, featuring the origin of King Shark. Written by Lauren Certo, Andrew Kreisberg and Kai Wu with art by Phil Hester, Eric Gapstur and Kelsey Shannon.
DC adds two more Silver Age Flash comics to the digital backlist on Wednesday, Flash #145 and Flash #146 from 1964: “The Weather Wizard Blows up a Storm,” “Girl From the Super-Fast Dimension!” “The Mirror Master’s Master Stroke” and “The Fatal Fingers of the Flash.” Stories written by Gardner Fox and John Broome with art by Carmine Infantino and Joe Giella.
DC has also been adding the Tangent Comics issues to their online catalog, and this week features both Tangent Comics: The Flash and Tangent Comics: Trials of the Flash. The idea behind the Tangent Universe was to take just the names and come up with a whole new set of characters (kind of like revamping the Atom from a short boxer into someone with shrinking powers). Lia Nelson is the first baby born in space, now a teenage celebrity who has light-based powers. Both books are a lot of fun, and kind of resemble the Road Runner/Coyote cartoons: a secret agent keeps setting ridiculously complex traps for her, and she just keeps casually eluding them. Bio of the Tangent Flash. Todd Dezago writes both issues, with Gary Frank & Cam Smith on the first and Paul Pelletier & Andy Lanning on the second.
“The idea behind the Tangent Universe was to take just the names and come up with a whole new set of characters”
Gee…this sound familiar. -sigh-
Yeah, it was called the Silver Age. 🙂
Seriously, though, DC usually builds on the existing concept, not just a name. Green Lantern might go from a guy who finds a magical artifact to a space cop, but he still creates green constructs from a ring.
The idea of Tangent Comics was to go wild with creativity. Flash is living light. GL raises the dead to fulfill unfinished business. Nightwing is a mystical secret agency. The Doom Patrol are time travelers trying to prevent their own apocalyptic future from happening.
It’s a *totally* different level of “in name only.”
To be fair, the Tangent stuff was actually a lot of fun!
The first round of books were really well done. The second round were much more hit & miss.
Definitely! I probably should have led with that…
Sounds more similar to “Stan Lee Imagines the DC Universe” than the Silver Age.
Well I was half joking about the silver age.
Tangent goes way beyond Just Imagine, though. Most of the Stan Lee versions are still recognizable in concept. Superman’s a flying alien who gets powers being on earth, Flash is a speedster, GL has energy blasts, Wonder Woman has mythological ties, etc. They’re like going from Jay Garrick to Barry Allen or Alan Scott to Hal Jordan. Or maybe JLA to Squadron Supreme. Tangent is more like going from Al Pratt to Ray Palmer or Wesley Dodds to Morpheus the Dream King.
(Also, IMO the first round especially of Tangent was a lot better written than the Just Imagine books that I read.)
Never had any interest whatsoever in the Tangent universe. It always looked so goofy. After reading this post though, it actually sounds like a lot of fun.
Long before I ever read DC comics (I read only Marvel for quite a few years), a friend bought me the first Tangent Flash issue because of her first name. It’s kind of fitting that I became a Flash fan later!