Wally West the #6 DC Character – Flashes in the Top 50, Final Rankings

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We’ve been following Comics Should Be Good as they count down the results of their Top 50 DC & Marvel Characters survey. Wally West ranks #6 on the DC list. He hasn’t been seen much since DC decided to re-focus The Flash on Barry Allen a few years back, but Wally remains a popular character — more popular among the survey respondents than the current headliner, though as we saw a few days ago, Barry made the top 10 as well.

I hope DC considers this when the time comes around for mid-season replacements or expanding the New 52. If there’s room for 12(?) Bat-books including spots for current and past Robins Dick, Jason, Tim and Damian… If there’s room for four Lantern books including spots for all four human Green Lanterns… If there’s room for four Super-books… Then surely there’s room for a second Flash series featuring Wally West, or at the very least a spot on a team book. Barry’s got the main Flash series, Bart’s in Teen Titans, and presumably Jay will be showing up in the Earth-2-set Justice Society of America series when it launches.

Here are the final rankings of the Flashes for this survey and the previous one in 2007.

Character 2011 Rank  2007 Rank  Points  1st Place Votes 
Jay Garrick (Flash) #45 #41 374 0
Bart Allen (Impulse/Kid Flash) #36 #42 545 6
Barry Allen (Flash) #9 #29 1604 27
Wally West (Flash/Kid Flash) #6 #3 2471 67

About the points: The way voting worked was that you listed your top 10 favorite characters, in order. Your first-place choice got 10 points, your second-place choice got 9 points, etc. According to CSBG, more than 1400 people voted in the survey.

Keep an eye on Comics Should Be Good as they count down the top five!

Flash #1 Preview / The Science of the Flash

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CNN’s Geek Out! has an article on The Science of the Flash. Of course, science in comic books is always a bit more…flexible than it is in the real world.

The speed force is one of the topics discussed. In the 1980s, when DC relaunched the book with Wally West, they tried to explain away the Flash’s super-speed by requiring him to eat a lot. As physics professor James Kakalios points out, “the numbers just don’t work. A typical Flash running at his various speeds would have to eat something like 500 million cheeseburgers to run at the speeds he’s doing, even chewing super fast.” The solution: a field of energy that the Flashes draw their power from. A hand-wave explanation to be sure, but one that at least acknowledged the issue.

Today’s an interesting time to post the article, given the announcement of possible faster-than-light particles. (It does get into that staple of science fiction, the still-theoretical tachyon.) Revolutionary if it can be confirmed, but even the physicists who found the effect aren’t convinced yet. The announcement is basically: “We got these amazing results and haven’t been able to find any errors. We need more people to check our work.” As the webcomic XKCD points out, extraordinary claims like this usually don’t pan out…but when they do, it’s tremendously exciting!

Anyway, what most of you are probably interested in is the Flash #1 preview at the top of the article. It’s a different format than the usual method of just posting the full pages, more like reading a digital comic on a smartphone…only with commentary on each “page” by co-writer/artist Francis Manapul.

The Flash #1 arrives in stores next week, on September 28.

Flash Launch: Brian Buccellato Signings — Fall 2011

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The Flash co-writer/artist Brian Buccellato was kind enough to send his signing schedule for the next few weeks. He’ll be appearing at a number of Los Angeles-area events and comic shops, as well as New York Comic-Con. It all kicks off at The Comic Bug in Manhattan Beach, California on the day that The Flash #1 is released. Continue reading →

News Flash: Barry Allen Ranked #9 DC Character

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Comics Should Be Good continues counting down the results of their Top 50 DC Characters survey, and Barry Allen comes in at #9. The reborn Flash received 1604 total points, and 27 voters named him their favorite DC character.

A Top 10 spot is a big climb from the #29 rank he took in 2007. DC Comics has clearly been successful at building up Barry Allen’s popularity in the years since he’s returned.

We’ve seen three of the four main Flashes so far, with Bart Allen and Jay Garrick at #36 and #45. Still no sign of Wally West, but given his popularity among online fans, it’s unlikely that he dropped below Bart and Jay.

With Robin (Tim Drake) ranked #8, there are seven slots left. Sure bets include:

  • Superman
  • Batman (Bruce Wayne)
  • Wonder Woman
  • Batman/Nightwing (Dick Grayson)
  • Green Lantern (Hal Jordan)

That leaves two up for grabs. Based on other people’s comments and my own gut feeling, I’d say the remaining two slots are likely to be Flash (Wally West) and the Joker.

The question is: What order?

Keep an eye on Comics Should Be Good as they continue the Top 50 countdown!

Early Flash (and Jim Membership)

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Excerpted from an essay originally posted at K-Squared Ramblings in 2005.

Golden Age Flash Archives vol.1Most comic book character indexes aren’t really interested in the supporting cast, or even one-off villains. If I want to find a major villain like the Fiddler, chances are I can find a complete list somewhere online. But if I want to know which issues featured Jay’s old college buddies, I’m on my own.

Speaking of Jay’s old college buddies, he runs into five of them during the issues featured in The Golden Age Flash Archives, Vol. 1….and four of them are named Jim. There’s Jimmie Dolan, Jim Evans, Jim Carter, and Jim Dane. (Interestingly, the fifth friend is named Wally.) Jim Carter and Jim Dane are both in silver mining. Jimmie Dolan and Jim Evans both know that Jay is the Flash, but Jim Carter and Jim Dane don’t. I suspect that Carter and Dane are the same guy, but the writer didn’t remember the name he used before and didn’t feel like looking it up. (Comics were episodic back then, and you didn’t have continuity police among the readers ready to pounce on every coloring error.)

Also interesting: In the 17 issues collected in that book, no super-villains appear. The villains are all gangsters, kidnappers, corrupt politicians, crime bosses, etc. Even the story with the giant lizards has gangsters creating them. Skimming one list, the first recognizable villain to show up is the Shade—in issue #33! For the first three years (or at least the first year and a half), most of the Flash’s enemies wore ordinary business suits!

Note: Since I originally wrote this, I have tracked down a number of Golden Age stories. You can read a follow-up in Completing the Set: Tracing the Origins of the Shade.

Netflix Becomes…the Quickster!

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Today, Netflix announced that they are separating the DVD and streaming businesses, and will be renaming the DVD-by-mail service as Qwikster, “because it refers to quick delivery.”

Qwikster…why does that sound familiar?

Ah, right…The Quickster, speedster alter-ego of Spongebob Squarepants and parody of the DC Comics’ Flash and Marvel Comics’ Quicksilver.

He looks a bit more like a VHS tape than a DVD or Blu-Ray disc, don’t you think?