Category Archives: Flash News

Flash Ending With #247

With Barry Allen back, sales slipping, and a recent history of backtracks and revamps that makes a drowning victims’s flailing look stately, it was clear months ago that change was coming. Once Flash: Rebirth was announced, the only question was: when would the axe fall?

At the time the current storyline, “This Was Your Life, Wally West,” was announced, the story’s conclusion seemed a likely candidate. But #247 was solicited without any indication that it would be the final issue. Speculation started again, that there might be a single Faces of Evil issue spotlighting a Rogue, or that it might end with a blow-out issue #250, or might stop at #249, with the new, relaunched series combining numbers and relaunching with #600.

Today, DC Message Board member adohall posted that he received a letter from DC as a subscriber that Flash would be ending with #247, and he would need to choose another book to replace it on his subscription. Update: Comic Bloc’s Mark MacMillan confirms that he received the same letter.

It seems that Monday’s solicitations for January will have a distinct lack of Flashiness.

Baltimore Flash Hints

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Coverage of Baltimore Comic-Con‘s DC Nation panel is up at Newsarama and at CBR, and they’re dropping more hints about the future of the Flash franchise.

Q: How will Barry Allen react to the modern heroes when he returns?

A: Johns: “Part of the fun of exploring Barry Allen is seeing Barry get along with all of the other DC heroes – in a modern setting, he did get along with Bruce Wayne, and Hal, and didn’t with Green Arrow.” Johns said that both Rebirth and Flash will be very science based, but will also blend in the quasi-science of the Speed Force; and will allow readers to learn a lot about Barry Allen before the lightning hit – what did he do, and why did he wear a bow tie?”

Comic Bloc poster BESTBUY points out that the phrasing was “both Rebirth and Flash” — another hint that perhaps, Geoff Johns may be continuing on the series that launches after Flash: Rebirth concludes.

According to Johns, we’ll find out who’s in the Lightning Rod in Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds #3. (Since that’s the only reason I’m reading the series, my main interest in the Legion of Super-Heroes being in the one version of the Legion that isn’t represented in the series — the Five-Year-Gap Legion — maybe I can skip issue #2.)

Also, while it seems that every other dead character asked about is fair game to be reanimated as a Black Lantern, Bart Allen will be spared that fate.

Intriguingly, “events playing out of Geoff Johns’ recent Legion stories in Superman and Justice Society of America will have repercussions in the contemporary DCU, especially for The Flash.”

Maybe they should call it “Finally! Crisis!”

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The latest DC Direct Channel newsletter has more shipping changes for Final Crisis.

Final Crisis #4 has been pushed back again to October 22, and the next few issues have been rescheduled accordingly. That puts Final Crisis #5 on November 26, and Final Crisis #6 on December 31. (FC6 isn’t on the list, but the new date is on DC’s website.)

So it looks like December will have an issue of Final Crisis, after all.

Faces of Evil: Rogue Profiles Go Global

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In January, DC’s villains will take over the entire line for Faces of Evil. Each regular DC title will spotlight a villain for the month — much like the Rogue Profiles that Geoff Johns did during his run on The Flash, or the “New Year’s Evil” specials from 1998. The project was inspired* by the de-motivational posters DC has been running this year, and by the Final Crisis slogan, “The Day Evil Won.”

This might explain why December’s Flash #247, the conclusion of “This Was Your Life, Wally West,” was not solicited as the final issue of the series even though we know the book will stop for Flash: Rebirth. Even if Rebirth starts right on time in January, they could still run a one-shot focusing on, say, Zoom. Though I’d rather see a villain who hasn’t already had a spotlight issue in recent years.

Of course, I’m still holding out for the book to reach #250. So few series reach that milestone, and it would be sad for it to stop two issues short.

*Cynically, it occurs to me that this allows an extra month to finish Final Crisis before the entire line shifts from just before to just after the world-changing event.

Flash Sales Still Falling through August

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ICv2 has posted August sales estimates, and the overall market is down for the seventh month in a row. Worse, Flash #243 dropped below 30,000 units for the first time in 5½ years, selling just 29,647 copies. That was Flash #196 (March 2003), half-way through Geoff Johns’ storied run on the book, just before the Blitz storyline and the slow rise from 30K to 50K by the end of Rogue War.

02/2008: Flash #237     —  37,719 (-  9.0%)
03/2008: Flash #238     —  35,606 (-  5.6%)
04/2008: Flash #239     —  33,741 (-  5.2%)
05/2008: Flash #240     —  31,944 (-  5.3%)
06/2008: Flash #241     —  30,810 (-  3.6%)
07/2008: Flash #242     —  30,325 (-  1.5%)
08/2008: Flash #243     —  29,647 (-  2.2%)

(Link via The Beat.)

Last month, it looked like sales were leveling out near 30,000 — right where most of Geoff Johns’ original run hovered. But they dropped more between July and August than they did between June and July. No doubt the announcement that Flash would be rebooted didn’t help, as readers decided to wait until the relaunch instead of reading a “lame duck” title.

Final Crisis: Rogues’ Revenge #2 fared better, but still dropped 12.9% from its first issue.

07/2008: Rogues Revenge #1     —  62,482
08/2008: Rogues Revenge #2     —  54,404 (- 12.9%)

The Beat’s analysis of July’s sales was underwhelmed with Rogues’ Revenge’s performance, opining:

The notion that not even Geoff Johns’ commercial Midas touch can reignite interest in The Flash, for that matter, suggests that what the franchise needs right now, above all, is some rest.

Only time will tell, but I expect that the next few months of Flash sales are going to be dismal, even if the quality of the Alan Burnett/Paco Diaz/Carlo Barberi arc turns out to be stellar.

No Black Flash Trade Yet

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Contrary to previous reports, it turns out that “The Black Flash” isn’t getting the collected edition treatment just yet. Now that DC’s December solicitations are out, they’ve officially solicited the January 21 release of The Flash: Emergency Stop. It’s confirmed at a $12.95 trade paperback covering Flash vol.2 #130-135 — only half of the Grant Morrison/Mark Millar run.

So what does that include?

“Emergency Stop” — Flash vs. the Suit, with a time travel mystery.
A one-shot fighting the Mirror Master.
A one-shot focusing on Jay Garrick.
The third part of the “Three of a Kind” crossover with Green Arrow and Green Lantern.