Category Archives: Flash History

Speed Reading: Retro Reviews, Doug Hazlewood, TV Shows and More

The Victoria Advocate profiles Doug Hazlewood.

Comics In Crisis presents Flash v.2 #182 (2002), the Captain Cold Rogue Profile story, among the 10 Essential Bronze Age Comic Stories You Should Read. I’d disagree with the Bronze-Age classification (traditionally, the Bronze Age of Comics ran from the 1970s through mid 1980s, with Crisis on Infinite Earths being a good reference point for DC books), but it’s absolutely a must-read.

X-Man reviews Flash vol.2 #1 (1987), noting how different Wally West was at the age of 20 than he is today. That’s actually one of the things Wallys’ long-term fans like most about the character: that we’ve seen him grow and change naturally, rather than simply be given a personality transplant whenever a new writer shows up.

The Quantum Blog talks about TV shows canceled before their time, including the 1990-1991 Flash TV Series. (Hard to believe it’s been almost 20 years. Seriously, Quantum Leap is having a 20th Anniversary convention this month. I feel old…)

The Worlogog celebrates Weird Silver Age Tales of the Flash.

I haven’t had a chance to listen yet, but Raging Bullets Podcast #152 features Flash’s Rogues with listener guest Mike Simms.

Heritage Auctions will be selling a CGC 9.6 copy of Showcase #4, the comic that rebooted the Flash as Barry Allen, launching the Silver Age (via It’s all Just Comics)

A Journal of Zarjaz Things looks at Flash: Emergency Stop, griping that Grant Morrison’s 9-issue run is split across two trades with the second “padded” out with a 3-parter by Mark Millar. IMO, though, Morrison didn’t write a 9-issue Morrison run — he co-wrote 9 issues of a 12-issue Morrison/Millar run. It would have been less responsible for DC to print only the Morrison issues and leave out “The Black Flash,” which has arguably had more lasting impact on the Flash mythos than the other stories in these trades, good as they are. (It is silly that they left out the first two parts of “Three of a Kind,” though.)

Speed Reading: Old Favorites and the Unknown

Catching up on some linkblogging from the past two weeks.

Crimson Lightning posts the results of the leading lady poll, and starts the next one: what’s your favorite arc from Wally West’s run as the Flash?

At Fraggmented, John Seavey describes a personal favorite: Flash vol.2 #50, the conclusion of William Messner-Loebs’ arc with Vandal Savage.

Comic Coverage looks into the Flash’s worst retcon, the Silver Age “real origin of the Flash” that introduced the much-reviled Mopee — including contemporary fan response from the letters column! For a character whom readers and writers alike wanted to forget, he’s certainly getting a lot of attention lately.

The latest Random Dive into the Deep End of the Long Box features Flash vol.2 #220, the opening chapter of “Rogue War.”

Robot 6’s Grumpy Old Fan ponders the emphasis on “important” events instead of just telling stories.

More Flash in last week’s 20 Questions with Dan Didio. Nothing really new, though, just the same old statements.

Newsarama interviews Mark Waid on his upcoming miniseries, The Unknown.

Jesse Blaze Snider (Dead Romeo) tells Fangoria that he’d love to write the Flash (among other super-heroes).

Flash: Crisis on Earth-Blog (Alex Ross and George Perez)

11 Replies

Crisis on Earth-Blog

The landmark Crisis on Infinite Earths, by Marv Wolfman and George Perez, came out in 1985-1986, but it took until 1998 for DC to collect the whole series in one volume. The slipcased hardcover featured a wraparound painted cover by Perez and superstar Alex Ross. (That edition is no longer available, but the paperback edition is based around the same cover.)

Crisis on Infinite Earths Poster

The Flashes figured prominently in the story. Jay Garrick and Barry Allen shared the story that introduced the concept of the DC Multiverse, “Flash of Two Worlds” (Flash v.1 #123, 1963). And of course, Crisis on Infinite Earths featured Barry Allen’s death, and Wally West taking up the mantle. So naturally, the Flashes had a prominent spot on the cover, arguably the second most-visible after the pair of Supermen holding the bodies of Wonder Woman and Supergirl. A streak of crimson, yellow and white runs along the lower half of the cover, colliding dead center in a burst of lightning, and finally images of the Flash disintegrate and collapse at the end.

The Run-Down

Read on for an in-depth examination of the scarlet speedsters on this cover. Continue reading →

Speed Reading: Rogues, Waid, Crossovers

Mark Waid talks to Newsarma about Batman in Barcelona: Dragon’s Knight #1

Comicbook.com includes the Flash’s Rogues in their Top 10 Costume-Dependent Comic Book Characters.

Seduction of the Indifferent is starting a feature on Pied Piper covers, and the first installment highlights Flash Comics #59. A decade before the Rogue of the same name first appeared, this other villain based on the Piper of legend fought Hawkman and Hawkgirl.

Robot 6’s Grumpy Old Fan looks into “Flash of Two Worlds” and its influences on later comics as part of his “Towards A Modern Superhero Canon” series.

Flash and the Mechanical Brain

Leave a reply

A recent post at Crimson Lightning with a boxy golden-age robot reminded me of this design from Flash Comics #52, “The Machine that Thinks Like a Man.”

The Mechanical Brain

The “mechanical brain” was basically a computer, but of course back in the 1940s, computers were mostly stuck in the realm of science-fiction (except for the occasional warehouse-sized monstrosity with less computing power than a modern calculator). It was built by scientific genius Evart Keenan, a recurring character who left Earth for the alien planet Karma so that his inventions wouldn’t call into the wrong hands. Oddly enough, his first appearance leads directly into the first appearance of the Thinker!