Category Archives: Site News

Speeding for a Year

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It’s hard to believe, but it’s been a year since I launched Speed Force!

Flash in Limbo

June 2008 was a very uncertain time for Flash fans.

Over the previous two years, DC had changed Flashes twice and creative teams four times. Sharp sales spikes with each relaunch were followed by sharp drops as readers rejected each new direction. Bart Allen was dead. Wally West‘s revived series, already on its second writer and artist, continued to shed readers at an alarming rate.

It had become clear that the Infinite Crisis relaunch had completely derailed the book.

And then there was Barry Allen. DC had announced his return in April when they released DC Universe #0 (which very heavily hints that it’s narrated by Barry Allen)…but after mearly two months, he hadn’t actually appeared on-panel anywhere. Fans weren’t even sure they believed DC when they said he was back for good.

Still, with sales continuing to drop and the apparent return of an earlier Flash, DC was obviously planning another relaunch. It was just a question of when the hammer would fall, and who would wield it.

There were two bright spots:

  • Barry Allen’s fans knew he was returning…sometime.
  • Final Crisis: Rogues’ Revenge was coming up, reuniting the fan-favorite team of Geoff Johns and Scott Kolins.

Jumping Into the Deep End

So what on Earth-Prime made me think that was a good time to launch a blog about the Flash?

Well, the idea had been kicking around in my head for a few months, just as a better place to post news. If I’d been on Twitter at the time, I might have just stuck with that. I had the domain already. I’d picked it up the previous year when I noticed it was available, and hadn’t figured out what to do with it yet.

The trigger was reading about the plans to release a Morrison/Millar Flash collection (or, rather, collections as it’s turned out). I installed a new copy of WordPress on a Sunday afternoon, picked a theme, wrote an intro post and then posted the news.

Running Commentary

Over the past year I’ve made more than 500 posts here. I’ve collected news (and on occasion broken it), reviewed more than a dozen comics, written opinion pieces and the occasional rant, promoted a book, reported on two conventions, done a couple of guest posts and participated in a group April Fool’s joke. I’ve gotten to know (virtually) a bunch of commenters and bloggers, some of whom I’d read or corresponded with before, many of them new. I’ve expanded the site onto Twitter and Facebook.

Meanwhile, as DC announced a new focus on the Flash in Flash: Rebirth, other people started launching Flash websites: Crimson Lightning returned from hiatus. Speedster Site launched a dedicated Flash forum. Tom vs. JLA transformed itself into Tom vs. the Flash, reviewing old Silver-Age Flash comics. The Flash-Back Podcast launched with an eye toward covering Flash: Rebirth, and there’s even a set of Flash: Rebirth Annotations.

It’s been a heck of a year, even if it has kept me really busy, between writing here and keeping up with everyone else. Thanks to all the readers, commenters, linkers, and fellow bloggers out there!

Speed Reading: Lightning Blades, Bronze Age, Variant Covers and More

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RikDad identifies a precedent for those lightning-bolt blades seen in Flash: Rebirth…way back in the Golden Age.

Comic Bronze Age tries to identify…What IS the Bronze Age of Comics? Considering that many fans today are of the opinion that the Silver Age lasted through 1985, it’s a good question.

The podcast Views From the Longbox has their second installment of Views from the Speed Force, focusing on Flash: Rebirth #2.

Flash Rebirth #3 CoversNewsarama asks retailers, do variant covers sell more books? Personally, when a comic has alternate covers that are distributed equally (like they’ve done with the Final Crisis books) I’ll just pick the one I like better. When the variant is rare, like the 1-in-25 alternate covers they’re doing for Flash: Rebirth, I usually won’t bother. Though I am going to try to pick up the alternate cover for , which is 100% more interesting than the standard cover.

Speaking of variant covers, it looks like I forgot to link to the site updates I did last weekend: I updated the collections of variant covers and cover homages to include current and upcoming Flash: Rebirth covers. Still need to work through an email backlog of homages, though.

Crimson Lightning is back from a three-week hiatus with new posts.

Mania’s Top 20 writers of all time includes long-term Flash writers Mark Waid, Geoff Johns and Gardner Fox.

Fastest FirefoxSpeaking of foxes, and still somewhat relevant to this blog’s topic, Firefox is holding a video contest called “Show Us Your Speed“ to promote the upcoming Firefox 3.5 release. Submit a 30-second video of your fastest talent to www.fastestfirefox.com.

Flash: Celebrating #500

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Flash v.2 #150

Or rather, what would have been Flash #500 if the series had never been renumbered. Flash Comics starring Jay Garrick ran 104 issues, and The Flash starring Barry Allen picked up that same numbering with #105 in 1959 and ran through #350. The relaunch in 1987 with Wally West started over with Flash . If DC had started Wally’s series with #351, instead of Flash vol.2 #150 this book would have been Flash #500.*

So why post this cover?

Because this is my 500th post on Speed Force!

To celebrate, and inspired by Major Spoilers’ Ten Superhero Party Drinks, my wonderful wife came up with a Flash drink — two versions, one alcoholic and one not.

Flash drink

Recipe: Flash Drink

  • 4 oz Izze Pomegranate soda (or other red soda that goes well with cranberry)
  • 2 oz cranberry juice cocktail
  • 2 oz vodka (for non-alcoholic version, replace this with more cranberry juice)
  • 1 Lemon
  1. Peel zest from entire lemon in one long spiral with vegetable peeler.
  2. Cut jagged bits into lemon peel to give it a zig-zag or lightning bolt look.
  3. Cut lemon peel strip in half crosswise (use one half for each of two drinks).
  4. Mix all liquid ingredients cold and pour into glass.
  5. Place lemon peel decoratively in glass.

Ideally, you should have something else you can use the rest of the lemon for.

Enjoy!

*Yes, there was a Flash v.2 #0 in between issues #94 and #95, but all DC books that month were numbered #0, so it doesn’t figure into the sequence any more than annuals do.

Comment Issues

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Comment threading is enabled now, so you can now reply to a specific comment on a post and have it appear below it and indented — just like on LiveJournal or WordPress.com. See the comments on this post for an example.

The downside is that it required some changes to the theme, some of which I missed initially. If you’ve visited the site in the last few days, you may have seen some comments showing up in unreadable light yellow-on-white. That should be taken care of now, but if you still see it, just hit reload and it should be fine.

Technical note: It was a caching issue. New visitors, or anyone who hit reload, would get the updated stylesheet, but anyone who had visited the site recently would see it displayed with their local copy of the old version. After I realized this, I renamed the stylesheet to make sure that all visitors would get a fresh copy.

New Mobile Layout

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I’ve updated the site to a new version of WordPress Mobile Edition, which seems to handle both low-end and high-end phones well enough that I don’t need a separate plugin for iPhone and Android visitors. This should make things a bit cleaner.

Mobile Site (WordPress Mobile Edition 3.0)

Anyway, if you have a web-capable phone, please give the site another look when you get a chance and let me know whether anything breaks!

In particular, I want to know:

  • What phone are you using?
  • Are you using the built-in web browser or an add-on like Opera Mini?
  • Can you view the site?
  • Does it look like the image above, or just like it does on your computer?
  • Can you make a comment?

If you can’t post a comment, please try one of the following:

  • Bring up the site on your computer to leave the comment.
  • Send me a Twitter direct message to @SpeedForceOrg.
  • Email me at speedforce – [at] – pobox – [dot] – com.

Thanks in advance!

Light Week…then WonderCon

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WonderCon 2009This week’s going to be a bit light because I’ll be on vacation. That’s not to say I won’t be around — I’ve pre-written and scheduled a couple of posts, some of the hotels will have wifi, and I’ve got a near-permanent link to the Internet now in the form of a G1 phone — but I’ll be spending a lot of time doing touristy things and hanging out with people instead of spending all day in front of a computer.

Then at the end of the week I’ll be attending WonderCon in San Francisco. Keep an eye on @SpeedForceOrg on Twitter and my Flickr photos, plus I’ll make occasional posts here. My con report(s) will go up at K-Squared Ramblings, with anything Flash-specific here.

Line at Moscone Center, WonderCon 2008

You can read my write-up of last year’s WonderCon, as well as check out last year’s photos.