Category Archives: Out This Week

This Week: Flash #10 (with Preview), Digital Flashback #31-33

Out this week:
Flash #10

THE FLASH vs. THE WEATHER WIZARD!
The Flash may survive…but will BARRY ALLEN?

Written by Francis Manapul and Brian Buccellato
Cover by Francis Manapul and Brian Buccellato
Art by Marcus To and Ray McCarthy
Preview at Complex.

Marcus To and Ray McCarthy are handling interior art for issues #10-11 to give Manapul & Buccellato a bit of a breather before they take over again with #12.

Digital back-issues on ComiXology:

Flash (1987-2009) #31-33
Written by William Messner-Loebs
Art by Greg LaRocque and Larry Mahlstedt

Some real transitional issues. Flash #31, “Comfort of a Stranger,” re-introduces the Pied Piper as a member of the supporting cast and introduces Linda Park. (She appeared briefly in #28 in her role as a TV news reporter.) In Flash #32, Wally West leaves New York for Keystone City and finds super-villains already waiting for him. Flash #33 guest-stars the Joker…or does it?

» Flash v.2 on ComiXology

This Week: Digital Flash(back) #28-30, DC Presents Impulse

This week’s digital releases at ComiXology include three more issues of the 1987-2009 Flash series starring Wally West, plus DC Comics Presents: Impulse #1, itself a collection of Impulse #50-53.

Flash #28 by William Messner-Loebs and Greg LaRocque: “The Porcupine Man” concludes as Wally West’s friends find him…but so do the brother-sister bounty hunter team of Captain Cold and the Golden Glider!

Flash #29 by Lew Strazewski, Grant Miehm and Paul Fricke: In a rare guest issue (I think there were 5 in the whole series), the Flash travels to Casablanca, only to find himself caught between three factions who all want the same political defector. Guest-starring Phantom Lady, Merlyn and Syanide.

Flash #30 by William Messner-Loebs and Greg LaRocque: Date night at the movies should be safe, right? Not when a gunman opens fire from the back of the theater! Wally West has to search a darkened theater for all the bullets fired at an unexpected audience. (This is notable for its portrayal of super-speed from the Flash’s point of view.)

» Flash v.2 on ComiXology

The Impulse collection features four issues by Todd Dezago and Ethan Van Sciver.

Impulse #50: Impulse teams up with Batman. What more do you need to know?

Impulse #51: It’s hard enough to get those collector’s-item variant action figures before the super-villains get in on it!

Impulse #52-53 Inertia makes his move, attacking Impulse while Kalibak keeps Max Mercury busy.

So far only a handful of Impulse issues are available online. Judging by the DC Comics Presents: The Flash collection released last week, they probably won’t post the solo issues into the Impulse series, at least not immediately, though really, all they’d need to do is add the covers. They don’t even need to come up with guided navigation for that.

» Impulse on ComiXology
» DC Comics Presents on ComiXology

(Covers via comics.org)

This Week: Digital Flash(back) #25-27 – The Porcupine Man

It looks safe to say that DC and ComiXology have settled into a pattern, releasing three issues of the 1987-2009 Flash series each week. Among this week’s releases are Flash #25-27, featuring the middle segment of the “Porcupine Man” storyline that ran from Flash #24-28.

After the events of Invasion!, Wally West has been left powerless. In Flash #24, a team of scientists tries to re-create the accidents that gave him and Barry Allen their super-speed. It works…but his control is gone. In the moment he starts running, he cuts a swath of destruction across North America, then disappears. The next few issues follow scientists Tina and Jerry McGee and Wally’s neighbor Mason Trollbridge as they follow his trail and search for Wally West, only to find rumors of a legendary creature of the southwest desert: the Porcupine Man.

» Flash (1987-2009) on ComiXology.

Update: I didn’t notice it in the blog post, but ComiXology has also added a digital edition of DC Presents: The Flash #1, a reprint book from 2011 containing a collection of Silver-Age time-travel stories.

Spotlighting tales of time travel and the Rogues! Collects [ed. note: stories from] SHOWCASE #4 and 14, THE FLASH (1959-1985) #125, 130 and 139, pitting The Scarlet Speedster against Mirror Master, Captain Boomerang, The Top, Captain Cold, and more! NOTE: some issues are available individually online.

It’s a bit of an odd choice: wouldn’t it make more sense to digitize the original issues and then bundle them, rather add content from The Flash somewhere other than The Flash? I guess this way is easier since DC has already restored these stories, and they don’t have to take the time to restore the other story from each issue. (Most Silver-Age Flash issues contained two short stories instead of one full-length story.)

Showcase #4 (including “The Man Who Broke the Time Barrier”) and Flash #125 (“Conquerors of Time”) are already on ComiXology. Flash #139 (“Menace of the Reverse-Flash”) is a full-length story, so the only thing missing is the cover. That leaves one story each from Showcase #14 (“Giants of the Time World” is in this collection, but Dr. Alchemy’s first appearance isn’t) and Flash #130 (“Who Doomed the Flash?” is collected, but not “Kid Flash Meets the Elongated Man”) needed to get a full set in the library for the series itself.

This Week: Jay Garrick in Earth 2 #2 and Digital Wally West in Flash #19-24

Earth 2 #2

MR. TERRIFIC – Michael Holt – lands on EARTH TWO!
Don’t miss the origin of the Earth Two FLASH – and the first time he uses his powers!
What could be a bigger threat to Earth Two than APOKOLIPS? Jay Garrick is about to find out!

Written by: James Robinson
Art by: Nicola Scott & Trevor Scott
Cover by: Ivan Reis & Joe Prado
Variant Cover by: Ivan Reis & Joe Prado
U.S. Price: $2.99

Digital Back-issues

» Flash (1987-2009) at ComiXology

I missed the fact that Flash v.2 #19-21 went up at ComiXology last Wednesday sometime over the last week. Flash #22-24 will be up this Wednesday. These six feature the (in)famous Rogues Gallery party (the Trickster invites Wally West to Captain ~~Boomerang’s~~ Cold’s celebration of his Suicide Squad-earned pardon, figuring the Flash wouldn’t dare show his face…and he does), the Invasion tie-in issues where the Flash and Manhunter fight shape-shifting aliens in Cuba, a creepy appearance by Abra Kadabra, and the lead-in to the Porcupine Man storyline.

Unfortunately, it looks like the two Manhunter issues that the Flash crossed over with during Invasion aren’t available yet. (Neither is Invasion!, but at least that’s available as a trade paperback.) The two Flash issues read well on their own, but Flash #21 and Manhunter #8 are an interesting pair of stories, in which you see the same events from two different perspectives.

If you ever do manage to track down the Manhunter and Invasion issues, I’d recommend reading them in this order:
Flash #20
Invasion #1
Flash #21
Manhunter #8
Invasion #2
Flash #22
Manhunter #9
Invasion #3

As usual, thanks to comics.org for the older covers.

This Week: Flash #9

THE FLASH #9

Written by Francis Manapul & Brian Buccellato
Art by Francis Manapul & Brian Buccellato

Continuing the debut of Gorilla Grodd in DC Comics –- The New 52! The Flash travels to Gorilla City for the first time! Who are the “Runners” –- and what do they mean for The Flash and the Speed Force?

IO9 has a preview of the issue.

This Week: Digital Flashback – Flash (Wally West) #13-14

Among this week’s ComiXology releases are The Flash vol.2 #13-14, in which Wally West, still early in his solo career, battles Vandal Savage and a host of Savage’s pawns given super-speed by the drug Velocity 9.

This completes the Mike Baron run on the character, except for the 1987 Flash Annual #1 (a stand-alone story mixing the Flash with movie-style martial arts as Wally accidentally develops the “death touch”). Since ComiXology already had the first four issues of the William Messner-Loebs run (including the recommended “Adventures of Speed McGee” three-parter), this also completes the first 18 issues of the series, and the Vandal Savage/Velocity 9 story that spans the transition between writers.

» The Flash (1987-2009) at ComiXology