Today at the SEMA (Specialty Equipment Marketing Association) trade show in Las Vegas, Nevada, Kia Motors and DC Entertainment finally revealed their long-awaited Jim Lee designed Justice League-themed cars and for the most part they look pretty excellent. The project was created to support the “We Can Be Heroes” campaign to feed the starving in the Horn of Africa (Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia).
Welcome to the latest installment in our annotations of the collected edition of The Trial of the Flash! We analyzed related stories leading up to the release of Showcase Presents: The Trial of the Flash. In addition, we interviewed author Cary Bates about the buildup and the Trial itself, plus showed you what wasn’t included in the collection.
IN THIS ISSUE: What are the secret properties of the mysterious “Vitamin F”? Then, meet the cat who found out Flash’s secret identity!
Links to artwork, scans and research are included throughout this post. I scoured the web but could not find any scans of original artwork for this issue. For definitive legal analysis of the story by Bob Ingersoll, go here. Tom vs. Flash took on this issue here. See you after the jump!
ComiXology is holding a DC Super-Villains sale with a whole bunch of digital back-issues discounted to 99 cents. This includes 8 issues of the early Silver Age Flash starring Barry Allen, and six of the early 2000s Flash starring Wally West.
The Silver Age choices are Flash #106, 106, 110, 113, 117, 125, 140, and 155, and include the first appearances of Mirror Master, Pied Piper, Trickster, Weather Wizard, Captain Boomerang and Heat Wave, as well as the first full-on Rogues team-up.
The choices for Wally West’s series are a bit odd: rather than highlighting Geoff Johns’ Rogue Profiles (five in that series, two in the Barry Allen relaunch), they simply discounted Flash #177-182. These issues feature characters ranging from well-known (Captain Cold & Gorilla Grodd) to obscure (Chunk, Fallout, Peekaboo) to not-even-a-Flash-villain (Deadline).
The choices make a bit more sense when you consider that they just happen to be the contents of two trade paperbacks: “Flash vs. the Rogues” and “Flash: Rogues.”
Also on sale: Salvation Run, which while not primarily a Rogues series does feature them prominently in several issues.
Incidentally, I recently discovered that Salvation Run was inspired loosely by an unproduced Elseworlds story co-written by George R.R. Martin — yes, that GRRM — and John Miller, in which the super-villains were exiled to another world and stayed there. The story would have taken place over decades, as the villains learned to live on the new world, fought wars, and eventually built the beginnings of a society. It sounds like it would have been awesome.
Thanks to @RedWolfArtist for alerting me to the sale.
Out this week, it’s The Flash #13 by Francis Manapul and Brian Buccellato. “Gorilla Warfare” begins as Grodd and his army attack Central City and the Flash is forced to team up with the Rogues to defend it.
This week also sees the release of Showcase Presents: The Flash vol.4, continuing DC’s low-cost black-and-white reprints from the Silver Age. This 500+ page volume features Flash #162-184, covering the mid-1960s as Barry Allen fights classic Rogues and teams up with Jay Garrick and Green Lantern. Written by John Broome, Gardner Fox, E. Nelson Bridwell, Cary Bates, and Frank Robbins with art by Carmine Infantino, Ross Andru and others.
Here’s what I said about the contents when it was announced:
Let’s take a quick look at what’s in here. Barry Allen and Iris West’s wedding…Reverse-Flash…oh, no, it’s the Mopee story!…a three-Flash team-up with Wally West and Jay Garrick…the Stupendous Triumph of the Six Super-Villains with the now-iconic, frequently-homaged cover of the Rogues standing over the Flash’s dead body…the second Superman/Flash race (the first was in the pages of Superman)…the Giant-Head Flash…Cary Bates’ first Flash story, introducing Earth-Prime…the Samuroids…and the Most Tragic Day. They stories 1966-1968, as the Flash inches its way from Silver-Age goofiness toward the more serious (but still odd) Bronze Age.
In the digital realm, ComiXology continues its re-releases of Flash (Wally West) and Impulse. Flash #66 features a team-up with Aquaman. Flash #67 is the first half of a two-parter featuring the return of Abra Kadabra and a new look at the 64th Century from which he came. Mark Waid writes and Greg LaRocque draws both issues.
Impulse #26, Mark Waid’s final issue, sees the teens of Manchester occupying the local shopping mall to protest a curfew. Impulse #27 by Tom Peyer and Sal Buscema features the first appearance of Arrowette, who would go on to become a member of Young Justice.
Two quick updates on Flash co-writer Brian Buccellato’s other projects:
Foster #5 is available for purchase on his website. Issue #6 will wrap up his creator-owned crime/horror thriller story…”for now.”
As announced at New York Comic-Con, he’ll be writing the revival of The Black Bat, a golden-age super-hero from the pulp novels who was somewhat overshadowed by another character who dressed up as a bat to fight crime, for Dynamite.
Some linkblogging catch-up. Things are going to be a bit slow since the software I was using to build the round-ups doesn’t work anymore, and I’m going to have clean up the lists more-or-less manually until I have time to write something that will clean it up automatically.
First the Flashy links.
Other comics/fandom links
Other stuff: