Category Archives: Flash News

A Glimpse of Impulse in Smallville: Season 11 #10

Impulse on the cover of Smallville Season 11 #10 by Scott KolinsWho’s that speedster on the cover of Smallville: Season 11 #10? Last month we got a hint that the Flash/Impulse would be returning to Smallville in January’s print issues (which I think line up with December’s digital issues). The text about an “old friend” was vague, and the figure running past Superman was blacked out so that we couldn’t see who he was, but the implication is clear.

DC’s February solicitations are out, teasing a story about “speed storms,” with a cover full of lightning and…what’s that? Someone moving at super-speed behind Clark!

Here’s a glimpse of Bart Allen’s new look for the Smallville digital-first comic book. What we can see of the outfit looks to be inspired more by Impulse than the Flash, though for some reason he seems to have died his hair blond.

Smallville Season 11 #10 Cover by Scott Kolins

SMALLVILLE SEASON 11 #10
Written by BRYAN Q. MILLER
Art by JORGE JIMENEZ
Cover by SCOTT KOLINS
On sale FEBRUARY 6 • 40 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T

  • The first time in print for these digital-first adventures!
  • Superman races to find answers as mysterious “speed storms” begin to break out across the globe.
  • Lex hands Tess an ultimatum: Reveal everything she knows about the Man of Steel, or face oblivion.

Flash #17 Solicitation: Gorilla Warfare Concludes!

Today sees the release of DC’s Justice League solicitations for February.  The cover for Flash #17 was revealed late last week as part of an interview with Francis Manapul and Brian Buccellato over at Comic Book Resources, which also announced that the debut of the new Reverse-Flash would also be a part of issue #17.

THE FLASH #17

Written by FRANCIS MANAPUL and BRIAN BUCCELLATO
Art and cover by FRANCIS MANAPUL
1:25 B&W Variant cover by FRANCIS MANAPUL
On sale FEBRUARY 27 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

• The finale of “GORILLA WARFARE” as Barry’s battle with Grodd comes to its bone-crunching conclusion!

• Don’t miss the introduction of one of The Flash’s greatest foes!

In the CBR interview, it is also mentioned that Manapul will be taking a two-issue break from Flash following “Gorilla Warfare.”  Buccellato will handle writing duties on his own for #s 18 and 19, and he mentioned Marcio Takara as a possible artist on Twitter.  [UPDATE: Manapul confirmed this on Twitter on Saturday].  Follow the jump for a sketch of Flash by Takara!

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Media Blitz!: New 52 Reverse-Flash Debut, Flash #17 Cover Revealed! (via CBR)

Francis Manapul and Brian Buccellato are featured in an exclusive interview over at Comic Book Resources.  Within, they reveal their plans to debut the New 52 iteration of the Reverse-Flash in the pages of February’s Flash #17.  They also confirm that, in the following arc, the New 52 Kid Flash will make his first appearance alongside Barry Allen.

For more on Flash’s new opposite number, as well as details on Manapul’s upcoming breather, follow the jump!

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Flash vs. the Rogues on sale at ComiXology

ComiXology is holding a DC Super-Villains sale with a whole bunch of digital back-issues discounted to 99 cents. This includes 8 issues of the early Silver Age Flash starring Barry Allen, and six of the early 2000s Flash starring Wally West.

The Silver Age choices are Flash #106, 106, 110, 113, 117, 125, 140, and 155, and include the first appearances of Mirror Master, Pied Piper, Trickster, Weather Wizard, Captain Boomerang and Heat Wave, as well as the first full-on Rogues team-up.

The choices for Wally West’s series are a bit odd: rather than highlighting Geoff Johns’ Rogue Profiles (five in that series, two in the Barry Allen relaunch), they simply discounted Flash #177-182. These issues feature characters ranging from well-known (Captain Cold & Gorilla Grodd) to obscure (Chunk, Fallout, Peekaboo) to not-even-a-Flash-villain (Deadline).

The choices make a bit more sense when you consider that they just happen to be the contents of two trade paperbacks: “Flash vs. the Rogues” and “Flash: Rogues.”

Also on sale: Salvation Run, which while not primarily a Rogues series does feature them prominently in several issues.

Incidentally, I recently discovered that Salvation Run was inspired loosely by an unproduced Elseworlds story co-written by George R.R. Martin — yes, that GRRM — and John Miller, in which the super-villains were exiled to another world and stayed there. The story would have taken place over decades, as the villains learned to live on the new world, fought wars, and eventually built the beginnings of a society. It sounds like it would have been awesome.

Thanks to @RedWolfArtist for alerting me to the sale.

Salvation Run #1

Preview Available for Flash #13

DC has released a preview of Flash #13 to Maxim. The preview pages pick up on threads in both Flash #0 and Flash Annual #1 and tease the main story coming up in Gorilla Warfare: Grodd and his army invade Central City.

Flash #13 by Francis Manapul and Brian Buccellato arrives in stores next week. It’s perhaps worth noting that while we’ve seen three Flash #1 issues since 2006, this is the first time one of those series has made it to #13.*

*Of course, if we’re counting issues and not issue numbers, this series hit thirteen last month, and the 2007 Wally West relaunch went for 17 issues after it picked up where the initial run left off at #231.

Flash/Impulse in Smallville Season 11?

It seems kind of silly putting a question mark in the title, but really, who else is an old friend running with Superman going to be?

From DC’s January Solicitations:

SMALLVILLE SEASON 11 #9
Written by BRYAN Q. MILLER • Art by JORGE JIMENEZ
Cover by SCOTT KOLINS
On sale JANUARY 9 • 40 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T

  • The first time in print for these digital-first stories.
  • An old friend returns to the series with a new look. What terrible secret is he carrying?
  • The secret of “Earth Two” Chloe is revealed.

Smallville’s scarlet speedster is Bart Allen, played by Kyle Gallner. When he first appeared in season four’s “Run,” commercials advertised him as the Flash, but when he returned in the sixth-season episode “Justice,” he was given the code-name Impulse. (Green Arrow remarked that Bart “didn’t get to pick his nickname.”)

This version of Bart was a troubled teen who used his speed for petty theft until an encounter with Clark Kent put him on a more heroic path. He later joined forces with Green Arrow, Cyborg and Aquaman in what became the Justice League.

Presumably the silhouette is there to put off revealing his costume (unless DC has decided to replace Bart with Barry or something, but that seems unlikely), though it’s conceivable the “old friend” is another character entirely.

I haven’t been following the series, so I’m not 100% certain how the digital/print schedule works out, but my understanding is that every three digital chapters are collected in one print issue, so we’ll probably see this story on ComiXology in December.