Category Archives: Round-Ups

Speed Reading: Flashbacks, Movies and March Madness

Comics Should Be Good is running a set of March Madness character polls. In the first round, Wally West outraced Death, but despite a last stand, the Thing clobbered Barry Allen. Voting will pick up again on Monday, with the Flash (Wally) up against Rorschach.

Kaiser the Great talks about his first two comics, including Flash v.1 #257.

madripoor_rose writes about the 1990 Flash TV series.

Geek Six includes the Flash — any Flash — in their list of Top 5 DC Characters Deserving a Movie, saying that while super-speed might be hard to portray, “the real stars will be Flash’s rogues’ gallery.”

Quick Thoughts: Twitter Through 2009-03-15

  • ABC’s video player: nice picture, but a FRIGGING PAIN to use. I shouldn’t have to go up to the comp & click a button after each commercial.
  • Watched the premiere of Castle. Could definitely watch more of this. Yeah, it’s Murder He Wrote as a cop-buddy show, but it’s fun so far.
  • Trying to decide whether to hit the comic store today, tomorrow, or just let it slide until next week
  • Logged into Comicon.com for first time since redesign. Couldn’t think of anything to say. Still have only one post. Must lurk for a bit.
  • WWLA would have started tomorrow if it hadn’t been canceled. Might have gone if they had guests who skipped WonderCon for MegaCon.
  • Getting hits from a site called halforum. Turns out it’s named for HAL 9000, not Hal Jordan. Or Half-O-Rum.
  • More thorough write-up of WonderCon Friday at my other blog
  • Best thing about Snakes on a Plane was the Cobra Starship song at the end. Thank you, #iPod for reminding me!
  • Cool! RT @iversecomics: Dynamo 5 #1 and #2 are available on iPhone and Android right now! Dynamo 5 #1 is FREE — GO GET IT!
  • Post of the day: “if comic book fans aren’t complaining…the universe will explode. Do you want the universe to explode?”

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Speed Reading: Silver-Age Guest Stars, Action Figures, Van Sciver and More

Victoria Wayne comments on Captain Boomerang’s first appearance

Crimson Lightning has finished reviewing the entire 1990-1991 Flash TV series, and now presents a round-up of Live Action: The Worst.

Silver Age Comics looks at Barry Allen’s childhood sweetheart, future actress Daphne Dean, as The Other Woman. (She returned a few times in the Bronze Age, including the 4-part story that introduced the Golden Glider.)

Newsarama has a video interview with Todd Dezago, former Impulse writer, in which he talks about Perhapanauts.

DCU Classics Flash Action FigurePOE Ghostal reviews the new DCU Classics Barry Allen action figure.

Geek Stuff Daily looks at the history of the Flash.

Ethan Van Sciver’s weekly column is up to #11, and at least this week he’s renamed it from “Your Time Is Now Mine” to “Hope, Understanding and Compassion.” He links to a discussion thread his wife Sharis started about her experience with a dog rescue gone wrong earlier this week:

This was the worst day of my life. I don’t blame the dog, and I’m especially grateful for Officer Guardian Angel this morning, and the fact that it was ME that was bitten, not a small child, which is easily could have been. But I dedicate my entire life to rescue, and to see the dog shot, to hear it scream in pain and watch it die…this was entirely too much to cope with today.

Please keep supporting rescue efforts and animal cruelty legislation, folks, not the hysteria that causes people to deem all “vicious” dogs “bad dogs.”

There are no bad dogs, just bad owners.

Sharis also posted a link in the thread to her own blog entry about the incident.

Speed Reading: Retro Reviews, Doug Hazlewood, TV Shows and More

The Victoria Advocate profiles Doug Hazlewood.

Comics In Crisis presents Flash v.2 #182 (2002), the Captain Cold Rogue Profile story, among the 10 Essential Bronze Age Comic Stories You Should Read. I’d disagree with the Bronze-Age classification (traditionally, the Bronze Age of Comics ran from the 1970s through mid 1980s, with Crisis on Infinite Earths being a good reference point for DC books), but it’s absolutely a must-read.

X-Man reviews Flash vol.2 #1 (1987), noting how different Wally West was at the age of 20 than he is today. That’s actually one of the things Wallys’ long-term fans like most about the character: that we’ve seen him grow and change naturally, rather than simply be given a personality transplant whenever a new writer shows up.

The Quantum Blog talks about TV shows canceled before their time, including the 1990-1991 Flash TV Series. (Hard to believe it’s been almost 20 years. Seriously, Quantum Leap is having a 20th Anniversary convention this month. I feel old…)

The Worlogog celebrates Weird Silver Age Tales of the Flash.

I haven’t had a chance to listen yet, but Raging Bullets Podcast #152 features Flash’s Rogues with listener guest Mike Simms.

Heritage Auctions will be selling a CGC 9.6 copy of Showcase #4, the comic that rebooted the Flash as Barry Allen, launching the Silver Age (via It’s all Just Comics)

A Journal of Zarjaz Things looks at Flash: Emergency Stop, griping that Grant Morrison’s 9-issue run is split across two trades with the second “padded” out with a 3-parter by Mark Millar. IMO, though, Morrison didn’t write a 9-issue Morrison run — he co-wrote 9 issues of a 12-issue Morrison/Millar run. It would have been less responsible for DC to print only the Morrison issues and leave out “The Black Flash,” which has arguably had more lasting impact on the Flash mythos than the other stories in these trades, good as they are. (It is silly that they left out the first two parts of “Three of a Kind,” though.)

Speed Reading: Old Favorites and the Unknown

Catching up on some linkblogging from the past two weeks.

Crimson Lightning posts the results of the leading lady poll, and starts the next one: what’s your favorite arc from Wally West’s run as the Flash?

At Fraggmented, John Seavey describes a personal favorite: Flash vol.2 #50, the conclusion of William Messner-Loebs’ arc with Vandal Savage.

Comic Coverage looks into the Flash’s worst retcon, the Silver Age “real origin of the Flash” that introduced the much-reviled Mopee — including contemporary fan response from the letters column! For a character whom readers and writers alike wanted to forget, he’s certainly getting a lot of attention lately.

The latest Random Dive into the Deep End of the Long Box features Flash vol.2 #220, the opening chapter of “Rogue War.”

Robot 6’s Grumpy Old Fan ponders the emphasis on “important” events instead of just telling stories.

More Flash in last week’s 20 Questions with Dan Didio. Nothing really new, though, just the same old statements.

Newsarama interviews Mark Waid on his upcoming miniseries, The Unknown.

Jesse Blaze Snider (Dead Romeo) tells Fangoria that he’d love to write the Flash (among other super-heroes).

Tweeting WonderCon 2009

Friday

  • Waiting in line to get into WonderCon…
  • Almost ready to go in, all I can see of the main floor is the giant T-shirt booth.
  • Waiting for DC Nation to start. Batman across the aisle, Green Lantern a few rows up. Techs getting slideshow ready.
  • Realized I’m right next to audience Q&A mike. Might want to move….
  • Ian Sattler: This is a really long story – ina good way
  • 8 Bat books in June, & Paul Dini is on both Batman: Streets of Gotham & Gotham City Sirens.
  • Catwoman,Poison Ivy & Harley Quinn as a serious teamup? (Sirens)
  • Sattler to yawning GL cosplayer: Have the willpower to stay awake during our presentation!
  • Wonder Woman movie is phenomenal.
  • GL trailer looked very impressive. Really going scifi cosmic, w/ the corps, Sinestro (in his modern uniform) etc.
  • Uploading WonderCon (and vacation) pics to Flickr
  • *sigh* Flickr Uploadr got stuck. Retrying now.. then sleep.

Saturday

  • Wow… WonderCon is a LOT more crowded than yesterday
  • Spotted 3 Rorschachs so far. And a zillion Wonder Woman tiaras. (I think they’re today’s DC giveaway)
  • Autograph area is PACKED
  • A balloon just went racing across the hall until it ran out of air.
  • At DC Universe panel…
  • Judd Winnick reads Top 10 Things You Expect From Judd Winnick Writing Batman
  • Ian Sattler on Flash:Rebirth: everything you want in a Flash Book x10
  • And yes, Wally will keep playing a role in the DCU
  • James Robinson: goal is to make books so good that you CAN’T wait for the trade
  • Arg! Final Crisis IS linear, except the final issue, and that’s a straight framing+flashback parallel structure.
  • People leaving after Star Trek panel at WonderCon
  • Crowd Control: “There’s plenty of room, they all left after Star Trek because they’re crazy.”
  • More WonderCon photos up at Flickr

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Note: Somehow when I added the headings, I added the wrong days of the week. This was Friday and Saturday, not Saturday and Sunday.