Category Archives: Flash History

Naming Flash Eras

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I’ve been trying to work out how I can best break down appearance lists with the repeated Flash relaunches. Assuming that Flash: Rebirth sticks, I can categorize them this way:

  • Golden Age: Jay’s series, 1940–1951
  • Silver/Bronze Age: Barry’s series, 1956–1986
  • Legacy: Wally’s series, 1987–2006
  • One Year Later: Bart’s series, Wally’s relaunch, and Flash: Rebirth, 2006-2009
  • Post-Rebirth: Whatever we end up with starting next year.

I originally used the term “Modern Apperances” for 1987+, but with Infinite Crisis marking a major relaunch, I clearly needed to rename it. I picked “Crisis Era” on the idea that it was bounded by Crisis on Infinite Earths and Infinite Crisis. But with DC overusing the term “Crisis” lately, it doesn’t seem to fit that era anymore. I think “Legacy” has a better sound to it, and since DC did a lot of legacy characters in the 1990s (some with greater success than others), it fits.

As for the period from Infinite Crisis through Flash: Rebirth, I’m thinking “Musical Chairs Era” might be the most accurate, but I’m going to stick with “One Year Later” for now.

Flash Companion Preview: Mark Waid on Impulse

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TwoMorrows’ book, The Flash Companion is now available! It debuted at Comic-Con last week, Amazon orders have been shipping, and it’s been showing up in stores.

Here’s one more excerpt to round out the quartet of Scarlet Speedsters. As with the others, it’s posted here with permission of the book’s main author, Keith Dallas.

Mark Waid: Running on Impulse (excerpt)

By John Wells

WELLS: Why call him “Impulse,” rather than “Kid Flash”?

WAID: Because it was a perfect name. We didn’t want to call him “Kid Flash” because it sounded a little corny, and I still think it sounds a little corny. “Impulse” is the perfect confluence of a character’s name, his powers, and his personality, all in one word. And once we had the name — and I can’t swear it wasn’t Kurt Busiek’s suggestion — it completely summed up the character. Thought to deed in one motion without all those pesky synapses getting in the way.

WELLS: [laughs] It really did. Whose idea was that hair?

WAID: I think it was Humberto’s. Pure Humberto [Ramos]. Mike Wieringo had done the initial costume design, without the mask, but boy, Humberto went to town with the look, with the giant hair and the gigantic feet.

WELLS: Now kind of earlier on, you’d had the Tornado Twins revived in 1991’s Legion of Super-Heroes #18 and immediately had them executed by the Dominators.

WAID: [chuckles] “You” meaning “the Legion editors and writers after you left staff.” Don’t look at me, man.

WELLS: And later on, their DNA created a female speedster called Rush. And meantime, Don Allen was said to have been survived by his wife, Carmen Johnson and their two-year old son, Barry II. So what came first? You said you had the teen speedster idea for the Justice League story []earlier in the interview], was that before or after?

WAID: A little after, so that would have been the “Barry II” that we were talking about at the time, I suppose. But at that point, we were going to reboot the Legion with Zero Hour, so I knew that all bets were off in terms of Rush and those characters. It also freed up the name “Impulse,” which I believe was the codename of —

WELLS: Kent Shakespeare.

WAID: Kent Shakespeare, yeah.

WELLS: Iris brought Bart back to the 20th Century in the hope that Wally could cure her grandson, but she also wanted Wally to rein in Bart and train him in the use of his powers. Why was that not going to work?

WAID: It was so not going to work because Bart and Wally just hated each other. Wally saw in Impulse all of his own negative characteristics, so it put his teeth on edge.

WELLS: On the other hand, Max [Mercury] and Bart did work out pretty well, even though they didn’t think it was going to. How did you see that relationship?

WAID: We went into the Impulse series not sure who the mentor figure was going to be. And for a long time, I think we were talking about it being Jay, but Jay has his wife, Joan, and I don’t know what they could have brought to the series that wouldn’ t have been Ma and Pa Kent. Making Bart’s mentor Max, somebody who was so dry and so much the opposite of Bart, was too much comic potential to let go.

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Flash Companion Preview: Mike Baron Interview

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The following is a 1-page excerpt from the new book, The Flash Companion. The full interview appears in the second section of the book. It is printed here with permission of the book’s main author, Keith Dallas.

The Flash Companion will be available at the TwoMorrows booth at Comic-Con International this week, and should arrive in stores either next week or the week after. Orders through Amazon are shipping now.

Mike Baron: Wally West’s Fast Living (excerpt)

By Keith Dallas

DALLAS: It seemed pretty obvious that during your run on Flash you were avoiding the classic Flash Rogues. No Captain Cold, no Captain Boomerang, no Mirror Master. Instead you introduced some completely new villains… with the exception of Vandal Savage. What particular reason did you have for starting this Flash re-launch with Savage as the villain?

BARON: I can’t exactly recall, but for starters, he’s a great villain. It may also have been that I wanted to have some continuity in that first issue between Barry Allen and Wally West.

I would like to do a lot more with Kilg%re. That’s my main character that I created for Flash. He and the Chunk.

DALLAS: What was it about Kilg%re that you liked?

BARON: He encapsulates a number of science fiction ideas that lend themselves to exciting story-telling. Dark Horse took a stab at it with a movie called Virus, which is very similar in idea to Kilg%re. It wasn’t the greatest movie in the world. It starred Jamie Lee Curtis.

DALLAS: I remember that movie.

Now what was it about Chunk that you liked?

BARON: He was kind of a projection of me. The ultimate nerd.

DALLAS: [laughs] It didn’t take you long to show that Chunk wasn’t a true villain.

BARON: No, he was just an outsider who wanted to belong.

DALLAS: Is that a sentiment that you felt perhaps the readers could connect to?

BARON: Oh, yeah!

DALLAS: The other two villains you introduced during your run on Flash were Speed Demon — the steroid monster gone crazy — and Blue Trinity — the Russian Soviet speedsters. Continue reading →

Flash Companion Preview: Cary Bates Interview

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The following is a 1-page excerpt from the upcoming book, The Flash Companion. The full interview appears in the second section of the book. It is printed here with permission of the book’s main author, Keith Dallas.

The Flash Companion is scheduled for a July 23 release.

Cary Bates: A Scarlet Speedster for the Seventies (excerpt)

By Jack Scott

SCOTT: Was [the serialized storytelling] your decision or a DC editorial decision to change how the Flash stories were being written? I’m wondering if there was a DC mandate to become more like its competitor Marvel Comics.

BATES: I don’t think going the serial route was an official mandate or anything. It just seemed like a natural way to proceed at the time, dictated by the story-lines more than anything else. It first began the last couple of years Julie [Schwartz] was editing the book, in the form of 2-4 issue arcs (like the Golden Glider stories). And with Ross [Andru] and Ernie [Colon], who were more Marvel-oriented guys, the full-on serialized mode pretty much became the status quo. Although I do recall a temporary return to more self-contained stories for awhile, when Mike Barr was editing and Carmine [Infantino] first returned to the book.

SCOTT: Speaking of the co-creator of Barry Allen/Flash, Carmine Infantino returned to pencil the book with issue #296 in 1981. How did it feel to get to work with one of the original creators of the book?

BATES: As I’ve mentioned, when I was growing up, Carmine’s distinctive artwork made a huge impact on me as a fan (and an aspiring amateur artist), so it was a great thrill to finally be working with him on Flash. Carmine and I always got along well, but when I first met him, he had given up his drawing board to serve as DC’s editorial director, although he still laid out most of the covers for other artists. In 1976, after Warners hired Jennette Kahn to take over that job, Carmine went back to penciling, and for a year or two he was working almost exclusively for Jim Warren on books like Creepy and Eerie. Ironically, it was here where our first collaborations took place, as I was writing occasional Warren stories for Louise Jones, who was the editor at the time. I think Carmine and I must have done 3 or 4 one shot horror stories that have long since been forgotten.

SCOTT: How far did you plot out stories? Continue reading →

Flash Sales: 1996-2002

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Following up on yesterday’s graph showing Flash Sales from 2001-2008, I did some more searching and found a site with figures going back to 1996. More importantly, this one also has relative rankings.

Sales — but not ranking — dropped heavily in 1996 and early 1997. Of course, this was in the middle of the speculator crash, so the entire comics industry was doing pretty badly at the time. (Also, the first issue in these stats might have been higher, since #119 was a Final Night tie-in.)

They stayed in the low-to-mid 40,000s for the next few years, during the Grant Morrison/Mark Millar run and the return of Mark Waid and Brian Augustyn. Highlights during this period include:

  • #130, the first Morrison/Millar issue.
  • #135, part of the “Three of a Kind” crossover with Green Lantern and Green Arrow.
  • #1,000,000, part of the DC One Million crossover. Oddly, it didn’t jump much the previous month, when Waid and Augustyn returned with #142.
  • Small spike for #150, conclusion of Chain Lightning and a milestone issue.
  • Larger spike for #152, start of the Dark Flash saga.
  • I’m not sure what made #157 catch on, unless it was the striking cover showing Linda’s grave.

Sales started dropping as soon as Waid and Augustyn wrapped up the main part of their run (#159), and the book went into a series of done-in-ones.

Geoff Johns took over for a 6-part arc, “Wonderland,” with #164. I was surprised to find that sales dropped through the whole arc, but DC decided to give him the regular gig anyway. They kept dropping through “Blood Will Run,” bottoming out with the conclusion in #174. Oddly enough, that was also the highest rated issue since he’d taken over. The next year and a half held steady around 30,000. And the post-2002 climb is shown in yesterday’s post.

This shows an interesting contrast to DC’s current tactic of changing the creative team every time sales come in lower than the month before.

Other Observations

These years also cover most of Impulse‘s 90-issue run. At the start of this period it was selling in the mid-to-low-30K range, dropped to around 20K in 1998, and down to 15K from 2000-2002.

This also includes the overlap period between regular Annuals and Secret Files.

For three months in 1999, there were four Flash-related books each month: Flash, Impulse, and the miniseries Flashpoint and Flash/Green Lantern: The Brave and the Bold. The latter miniseries outsold Flash for the first two months, then dropped below it for the next four issues.

The actual figures from CBGXtra appear after the cut. Continue reading →

Flash Sales: 2001-2008

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This week’s Permanent Damage at CBR brings up the issue of maximizing profits, and just what that means in today’s comic-book marketplace. At one point, Stephen Grant mentions:

As far as I know, Geoff Johns wasn’t thrown off The Flash. He left the book. There was no indication that Wally West… pardon me… had legs left, and it’s not like sales had been going up and up and up under Geoff either. Just not that many people are interested in The Flash.

While the first part is true, the second part is incorrect. Sales had been going up under Geoff Johns. When he came on board In the middle of his run, the series was selling in the 20,000-30,000 range. After a few years, around #200, it started climbing steadily until it actually broke 50,000 with his final issue, #225. [Edit: I’ve found some earlier sales figures that cover the Waid-to-Johns transition, and got some surprises.]

I’ve compiled the following sales chart from posts at The Beat over the last few years:

Some Highlights:

#200 is the conclusion of Blitz, and being a milestone issue, it’s not surprising to see a spike. Cameo guest spots by Hal Jordan and Barry Allen probably helped as well.

#209 guest-stars the Justice League and features a race with Superman.

#214-216 is the Identity Crisis tie-in, “The Secret of Barry Allen.” #217 is also billed as a tie-in, and features the funeral for Captain Boomerang.

#225 is the conclusion of “Rogue War” and Geoff Johns’ final issue on the series. Notice the brief dip for the following issue, which is a fill-in, then a hasty drop over the final 4-issue arc of the series.

Both relaunches show huge spikes followed by dramatic dives as people tried them out, then decided no, this wasn’t what they wanted to read. And the second spike was only half the height of the first. Interestingly, current numbers are actually higher that they were early in Geoff Johns’ run (though the precipitous slope suggests they won’t be for long, unless people have responded favorably to the middle issues of Tom Peyer’s arc).

I’ve been of the opinion that another relaunch would further damage the book — but it might be necessary just to get people to look at it. Sales charts for a healthy book do show attrition, with occasional jumps like those shown on the left side of this graph, but DC may want that quick injection of readers. The trick, of course, is going to be figuring out what will resonate with readers and get them to stay after they pick it up, instead of dropping it again once curiosity is satisfied.

The actual data, compiled from The Beat’s sales charts, follows after the cut. Continue reading →