Category Archives: Other Speedsters

Heroes’ Brea Grant: Comic Fan

Access Hollywood writes about “rising star” Brea Grant, who plays speedster Daphne Millbrook on Heroes. While it had previously been reported that she prepared for her role by reading a box of Flash comics, it turns out it wasn’t just research: she’s a self-professed geek.

Brea is so much of a fan, that she attended this summer’s San Diego Comic-Con as a regular fan of the genre and caused quite a stir on the convention floor when other fans who were treated to a sneak peak of the new season of “Heroes” recognized the actress — something Brea got a kick out of.

They also ask the fluff question of which super-hero she’d want to date (No one asks the guys this kind of question, do they? Do reporters ask Milo Ventimiglia, “Which superheroine would you date?”), and the Flash does make her list, even though “he wasn’t always a good boyfriend.” Judging by Wally West’s track record, it’s pretty clear which Flash she’s talking about.

Bits and Pieces: Interviews and More

First off, Newsarama interviews Alan Burnett, whose 4-issue arc on The Flash started last week. He very carefully avoids giving out any spoilers, but talks about how he got the assignment and his history with reading The Flash.

Former Flash writer Mark Waid, now Editor-in-Chief of BOOM! Studios, speaks with writer Rockne O’Bannon about his upcoming Farscape comic books at Newsarama.

Marc Guggenheim, the final writer on Flash: The Fastest Man Alive, talks to the Pulse about Spider-Man, where he applies the Chewbacca Defense to “One More Day” and the end of the Spider-marriage, and to CBR about Eli Stone. (Pulse link via Lying in the Gutters; Comics Should be Good riffs on the OMD comments)

Monday’s Heroes featured the show’s first on-screen speedster, Daphne Millbrook. It was also a very good premiere. Season 3 is off to a much stronger start than last year.

Todd Klein, who designed the first post-Crisis Flash logo in 1987, looks at dots and dashes in comic lettering, and how the typewriter gave comics the double-dash (--) instead of the more standard em-dash (—). Among his examples: the last issue of Flash Comics and the lead story from Showcase #4, the last and first solo Golden Age and Silver Age Flash stories.

Speaking of Todd Klein, last Spring he wrote up a 4-part study of the Flash Logo from 1940 through the present day: Part 1 · Part 2 · Part 3 · Part 4.

Heroes: Villains’ Speedster: On the Set

CBR has an extensive interview with Brea Grant, who debuts as the super-speed villain Daphne Millbrook in Heroes Season 3: “Villains.” In it she talks about her character’s personality and journey, as well as the show’s effort to make the speedster’s powers look authentic. “We’ve talked about the physicality of it,” she says, “as well as there are just practical elements to it. I have to run a certain way, stop really quickly or stop on a dime.”

Daphne also starred in a two-part comic book story earlier this month, “Our Lady of Blessed Acceleration,” by Zach Craley and Micah Gunnell. The story is available on NBC’s website: Part 1, Part 2.

Heroes Speedster Studies the Flash

According to the L.A. Times‘ Show Tracker, Brea Grant, who plays the super-speedster Daphne in the new season of Heroes, prepared for her role by reading a long box–worth of Flash comics.

A little ball of Texas fun, Brea Grant said that it was “kind of daunting” joining the “Heroes’ cast but prepared herself for her super-speed role well, being the “nerd” that she is.

“I read a bunch of Flash comics, and now I have about this many (spreads her arms about three feet apart). I tried to watch the Flash TV series, but it was really bad.”

She also discusses the possible uses of super-speed in ordinary life:

“If I had it [super speed] in real life … it’d be amazing. My room would always be clean. I’d never run out of cereal…”

It’s worth noting that in the season opener, she appears wearing red. Yes: she shows up as a scarlet speedster.

Linkage: Velocity and MK vs. DC

Various news bits today:

Newsarama interviews Joe Casey on his upcoming Velocity series starring the speedster from Cyberforce

Justice League: The New Frontier has been nominated for an Emmy award (via Blog@Newsarama)

Mike Schramm of Joystiq got to play a demo of Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe at E3 last weekend. (via Blog@Newsarama)

For their part, [senior designer Brian] Lebaron did say that Midway is trying to push the line as much as possible, both with DC and with the ESRB (the game is set to be rated T): he showed us a Scorpion fatality against the Flash where Bart Allen (at least we saw him as Bart Allen — when we asked Lebaron which Flash he was, Midway said they weren’t choosing a certain one) fell to the ground, his costume and skin charred and burned.

Velocity Series for November

Velocity, the speedster from Top Cow’s CyberForce and one of the two winners of 2007’s Pilot Season*, will be getting her own series in November. CBR spoke with artist ChrisCross this weekend at Wizard World Chicago, where the company announced he would be joining writer Joe Casey on the series.

Among other things, the artist talked about adjusting the heroine’s costume:

ChrisCross has also re-imagined Velocity herself, which he said has as much to do with Casey’s influence as it does with his own. “I retooled her hair and her uniform a bit, and gave her some real shoes for running,” ChrisCross said. “I don’t know how Flash was able to run that fast in those hideous boots. Now, Velocity, her sneaks are fierce, girlfriend!” [emphasis added]

Velocity made her debut in Cyberforce v.2 #1 (1993). In addition to her Pilot Season special, she headlined a 3-issue minseries in 1995.

Update: ChrisCross has posted some of his character study work.

*The idea behind Pilot Season: Produce one-shots for several different characters, and have fans vote on which get ongoing series. It was successful enough that Top Cow has launched a second round this year.