Francis Manapul and Brian Buccellato are featured in an exclusive interview over at Comic Book Resources. Within, they reveal their plans to debut the New 52 iteration of the Reverse-Flash in the pages of February’s Flash #17. They also confirm that, in the following arc, the New 52 Kid Flash will make his first appearance alongside Barry Allen.
For more on Flash’s new opposite number, as well as details on Manapul’s upcoming breather, follow the jump!
Struck by a bolt of lightning and doused in chemicals, Central City Police scientist Barry Allen was transformed into the fastest man alive. Tapping into the energy field called The Speed Force, he applies a tenacious sense of justice to protect an serve the world as The Flash!
The Fastest Man Alive returns to his own monthly series as part of the DC Comics—The New 52 event with the writer/artist team of Francis Manapul and Brian Buccellato. The Flash knows he can’t be everywhere at once, but he has seemingly met his match when he faces DC Comic’ hottest new Super Villain, Mob Rule, who really can be everywhere at once!
As Mob Rule wages a campaign of crime across Central City, including an electromagnetic blast that plunges the city into darkness, The Flash learns the the only way he can capture Mob Rule and save Central City is to learn how to make his brain function even faster than before—but as much as it helps him, it also comes with a steep price.
This volume collects issues 1-8 of the monthly series.
— Amazon’s description of the book.
And yes, contrary to previous reports it does collect issues #1-8. I met Brian Buccellato at Long Beach Comic & Horror Con over the weekend, and he showed off a copy of the book.
ComiXology adds Flash #70-71 and Impulse #31-32. Flash #70 concludes the 4-part “Gorilla Warfare” crossover with Green Lantern #30-31, while Flash #71 is the first part of a 2-part story with an all new Dr. Alchemy. Impulse #31 has Max Mercury going up against his old nemesis Dr. Morlo, and Impulse #32 focuses on one of Bart’s friends, Preston, as he deals with both being injured as a bystander in a superhero/villain fight and facing his mother’s mental health problems.
I was thinking about the Flash: The Greatest Stories Ever Told collection recently, and about how I would have swapped out a few of the stories. (In particular, there’s a giant 80-page story that was decent enough, but I think that space would have been better used for more regular-length stories, like “Nobody Dies”).
And then I thought about tomorrow’s election in the US, and thought: let’s do a survey.
Here’s my question for you. Imagine that you can choose the contents of a Greatest Flash Stories Ever Told collection. You have room for 10 single-issue stories (or 20 half-length Gold/Silver Age stories, or 5 two-issue stories, etc.) from the entire history of the Flash.
What do you include?
DC has announced the next wave of the New 52, to launch with the new Justice League of America series. Also launching are Katana, spinning out of Birds of Prey, and Justice League of America’s Vibe.
And with a premiere issue being co-plotted by Geoff Johns, JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA’S VIBE will come to you from the creative team of writer Andrew Kreisberg (ARROW) and artist Pete Woods (LEGION LOST).
I have two words: Called it.
Update: MTV Geek has a statement by regular writer Andrew Kreisberg…who turns out to be the writer of the Justice League Unlimited episode, “The Greatest Story Never Told.”
All I can say to that is, “Thank you, Green Lantern!”
Ghost stories seem a natural fit with some superheroes. Not so with the Flash. An origin based in science, scientifically trained alter-egos, villains who use technology. Even the “magician” villain, Abra Kadabra, is more of a techno-mage, using highly advanced future technology to carry out transformations that seem like magic to our experience. The closest the Flash mythos gets to the supernatural is the metaphysical nature of the speed force, and even that is described in terms of energy and the nature of space-time.
So it makes sense that for 1998’s “Ghosts” annuals, the Flash story would feature not a traditional ghost, but one tied to the speed force: Johnny Quick, who had vanished into the speed force two years earlier during Dead Heat.
This week’s digital back issues at ComiXology include Flash v.2 #68-69 and Impulse #29-30.
Flash #68 concludes the two-parter re-introducing Abra Kadabra, and presents a new vision of the 64th century: a highly regulated world where everyone’s lives are planned down to the second, controlled by a massive computer called the Chronarch. (Mark Waid, Greg LaRocque)
Flash #69 & Green Lantern #30-31 feature the first three chapters of “Gorilla Warfare” — not the current storyline of course, but a crossover between Flash and Green Lantern in which Hector Hammond teams up with Grodd. (Mark Waid, Gerard Jones, Greg LaRocque, M.D. Bright, Romeo Tanghal)
Impulse #29 marks William Messner-Loebs’ debut on the series, as Bart and his friends stumble on a group of criminals dumping toxic waste near their town.
Impulse #30 is a tie-in to the Genesis crossover in which all the super-powers…and all the hope as well…are drained from the world…and an old enemy of Max Mercury’s takes the opportunity to settle the score. (William Messner-Loebs, Craig Rousseau)
Today’s half-remembered quote that I’ll fix when I have time to look it up:
“What kind of super-villain puts the location of his evil lair on his web page?”