I’ve always been annoyed by the phrase “mental telepathy.” It’s just redundant, like “big giant” or “fast speedster.” Is there any such thing as non-mental telepathy?
So it was nice to see someone taken to task in this panel from a Flash story in Adventure Comics #459…all the way back in 1978!
The characters pictured are two of Barry Allen’s high school classmates at their fifteen-year reunion. The woman, Rachel has just picked up that one of their classmates is the Flash.
Hijinks ensue.
Fellow Flash blog Crimson Lightning has been putting the sinister sorcerer Abra Kadabra at center stage for the last few weeks, including a Rogue Spotlight, classic covers, video from Brave and the Bold, and even thematic sound effects…and what maniacal villain would be complete without “Ha ha ha!”
So head over to Crimson Lightning and let the magic begin!
I had an odd thought while reading The Flash #2* last week. Francis Manapul draws Barry and Iris in a way that makes them look fairly young, and I remembered someone’s remark that the cowl on Wally West’s new costume makes him look older than Barry, even though Wally used to be Barry’s younger sidekick.
Then it hit me: No, Wally isn’t older than Barry Allen (even with time travel) but when you factor in his earlier Kid Flash career, he actually has more experience than Barry at this point!
Wally West became Kid Flash very early in Barry Allen’s Flash career — only six issues into his solo series! Flash vol.1 started with #105, picking up from where the Golden Age Flash Comics left off, and Wally was struck by lightning in Flash #110, back in 1959. He didn’t retire as Kid Flash until very late in Barry’s career, in New Teen Titans #39 — just one year before Barry vanished in 1985.**
So Wally West has been running around for most of Barry’s career plus his own!
During his JLA run, Grant Morrison is one of the few writers I can remember really building on the fact that the original Titans grew up as super-heroes. I don’t recall it being a plot point, but Morrison mentioned it in an interview, or possibly one of the Secret Files books, and it clearly factored into his characterization of Wally West. He might not have been as old as Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, but he’d been working with a team longer than they had, and he was a consummate professional.
Wally wasn’t the rookie on the team by any stretch. That honor went to Green Lantern Kyle Rayner.
Of course, neither Wally nor Barry can hold a candle to Jay Garrick, who has been speeding since 1940!
*Yes, I do still plan on reviewing it. It was just a busy week, and for some reason, it’s been hard to sit down and write it.
**These are of course the real-world publishing dates. The fictional DC Universe would use a vague “X years ago” timeline that always seems to change, but usually compresses everything from the dawn of the Silver Age onward into a 10-15–year period.
This week’s DC comics include a teaser for something called Flashpoint, coming in 2011 from Geoff Johns and Andy Kubert. It’s not clear whether it’s a storyline in The Flash or a separate event, but considering how Blackest Night grew from a Green Lantern/Green Lantern Corps storyline to the year’s big event, it may be too early to reach any conclusions.
Long-time Flash readers may remember that Flashpoint was also the title of an Elseworlds miniseries from 1999-2000 — the only Elseworlds tale outside his own book to focus on the Flash, in fact.
In this story, a paralyzed Barry Allen has turned his super-fast mind to scientific research and development. A mission to Mars discovers a key designed to open a gateway to (essentially) the speed force, which they call the Flashpoint, and which appears to be linked to other realities. Only one problem: the last time it was used, it destroyed all life on Mars. (Interesting side note: The current Flash logo is actually based on the Flashpoint logo, rather than the other way around!)
Back to the teaser, here’s a quick photo of the ad that I took with my phone scan of the ad from Flash #1:
When I started Flash: Those Who Ride the Lightning back in 1996, I’d just refer to the then-current series as “Flash.” As the site grew to encompass more historical information, I’d either leave it to context or mark the pre-Crisis books as “Flash volume 1.” This doesn’t usually matter, but if you need to clarify which Flash #10 or Flash #123 you’re talking about, a shorthand like “vol.1” is a lot cleaner than writing “Flash (1959 series) #X” every time.
Only one problem: There are several different ways to choose the breaks between volumes.
Here are the distinct chunks of series:
Now, here are the ways we can break it up:
Divide at Every Relaunch:
Divide at Renumbering with #1
Track Titles Separately, Divide at Renumbering*
This last one is the way I’ve decided to identify the series. It’s simpler, since we don’t need to add volumes for Flash Comics or Flash: The Fastest Man Alive, and it groups the “bonus season” on Wally West’s series with the rest of that run.
So by that scheme, what we’re getting today is The Flash Volume 3 #1.
UPDATE June 2011:
It turns out that the 2010 relaunch only lasted 12 issues, and DC will be relaunching with a new The Flash #1 (along with the rest of their line) after Flashpoint. Sticking with this same numbering scheme makes the post-Flashpoint book The Flash vol.4.
*I’ve chosen to group the titles Flash and The Flash together for purposes of clarity and simplicity. If you really want to get technical, you could break things down that way, but it seems excessive.
With Flash: Rebirth complete, we can take a look at the changes the series made to the Flash mythos. I listed a lot of them in my review of issue #6 (resurrections, costume/identity/power changes, the re-imagining of the speed force itself, etc.), but I want to look at a specific set of changes: What the Reverse-Flash did to Barry Allen’s past, and the ripple effect from those changes.
Note that I’m specifically looking at things that contradict previous stories, not those that add new details that can be considered to have been hidden.
Spoilers for Flash: Rebirth, of course.