Annotations: Flash #274, “The Mark of the Beast”

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We’re back with the latest entry in our series of Flash breakdowns.  This week’s focus is issue #274, the last chapter on the way to the momentous issue #275!  Links to additional artwork and research are included throughout this post.

UP TO SPEED:  Last week, Flash attempted to unravel the mysterious appearance of a psychic female fan, while dealing with an internal drug smuggling operation at the Central City Police Department in his civilian guise.  Iris continued to reach for Barry’s attention, but lost out to a massive prison riot spurred by the controversial Nephron Project! 

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Contest: “Where Was Wally West?”, Week Two!

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It is convention season, and Flash fans across the country have been asking the same question: “Where is Wally West?” 

While we do not know where Wally is now, where he will be, or how long it will be until he is anywhere, we certainly know where he was!  With that knowledge, we introduce our new ongoing contest feature, “Where Was Wally West?” 

On Wednesdays, we will post a panel or sequence from a classic comic featuring Wally West visiting an alternate reality, the past or a “possible future”.  Every fan who can tell us the issue, writer, artist(s) and a reasonable description of the locale/era, by Friday, will be entered into a raffle for a cool Flash prize!  Just send your responses to this email address, and we’ll announce the winner next week! 

So check out the image below and ask yourself, WWWW?

 Wally in time -- where is he?

This week’s prize is a copy of the Return of Barry Allen trade paperback by Mark Waid and Greg LaRocque!

Flashpoint Checklist (Part 1)

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Following up on the retailer perspective, here’s what DC wants the reader perspective to be:

I’ve always been kind of ambivalent about this sort of thing. On one hand, it’s nice to have a complete list. On the other, calling it a checklist does sort of imply that you should be getting everything. And while I’m sure the publishers would be thrilled if we all did that, it’s just not feasible for most of us. And I’m sure most DC Comics fans don’t want to read all of these books, just like they don’t want to read every comic that DC publishes.

I’ll give Geoff Johns props for stating up front that it’s a central story with a lot of side stories, and that you only need to read the main miniseries to get a complete story. That’s much better than, for instance, The OMAC Project, where the most important event in the book — the one that continues to have repercussions to this day — happened between two issues of the miniseries, in another comic book.

But it’s still a struggle between the creative team saying, “Read what you want, and I hope you’ll want to read a lot of it,” and the marketing department saying, “Read it all!”

At least it’s not presented as an actual checklist (as these often are), or worse: an ordered list that implies that you have to read the books –all of them — in a particular order to understand what’s going on.

Save The JLU Campaign (Join The Fight)

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Earlier this month Mattel announced through their Facebook page that they would only be releasing two of the eight JLU 3-packs initially announced, and that based on the performance of those two sets they may release the others down the line.

To that end, some users from the Action Figure Insider Forums banded together in an attempt to try and get these last six 3-packs released.

First they started a Save The JLU Facebook Page and then a Twitter page, which Mattel themselves actually now follow. You can show your support by also liking the JLU page and following them on Twitter.

Several fans have even began making promotional materials for the cause. The first two were made by a user named Christhorne and the last one by a user named uberfriend:

 

Great work by both of these guys! I wish them lots of luck in their campaign (especially since I need that Vandal Savage in my collection). I’m going to be buying two sets of the Golden Age set from Matty and I encourage all that want to see the rest of these releases to do the same. I just hope I don’t have any issues with their site or they sell out before I get a chance to jump on them. I think the fact that these are actually desirable characters (not Parademons) will do a lot for the sales. Even though Jay had never been on the show,  I was still holding my breath for him after the release of Barry. I have no real use for Alan or Carter and I definitely don’t need two of them. Maybe we’ll be giving one of the packs away as a contest prize in the near future. You never know…

Speaking of which, congrats to the Winner of this week’s “Where Was Wally?” Contest and thanks to everyone who sent in answers! The next contest begins tomorrow, so dust off those back issues and get to work finding out “Where Was Wally?”.

Thanks for reading,

–Devin “Flash” Johnson

Toronto Comicon (Fan Appreciation 2011) Photos

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On April 9, I attended the first day of the free “Fan Appreciation” show in Toronto. This is the first year it’s been held for the entire weekend, but unfortunately real life got in the way and the spouse and I were only able to go for one day.

It was a pretty good show, with some great guests (including Flash artists Francis Manapul and Ethan Van Sciver) and quite a few vendors selling comics and action figures. I managed to get a couple of Professor Zoom figures and a Flash figurine, and commissioned Red Robin artist Marcus To for a drawing of Captain Boomerang.

Captain Boomerang, by Marcus To

The woman waiting in line behind me for Marcus To got this Impulse sketch from him, which she let me photograph.

Impulse sketch

Here’s Francis Manapul working on a Wonder Woman picture for a fan. I also saw him drawing several Flash pieces, and he drew the Flash on a t-shirt which was later given away in a contest. I didn’t take any photos of the shirt, but the gentleman who won it did!

 Wonder Woman in progress, by Francis Manapul

Alas, we ran out of money quickly (part of that real-life thing I mentioned earlier), and eventually left the show early. After leaving the convention, we went for lunch and wandered around some of the nearby streets before heading back to the car. And stumbled across this: the dressing rooms, washrooms, and hair/makeup trailers for the television show Flashpoint! The series is filmed in Toronto, of course. It was fun to see it given the name of DC’s imminent crossover.

The makeup trailer for Flashpoint

Spike's dressing room trailer

And then we walked by Piper Street, so I had to take photos of that too.

Piper St in Toronto 

Piper's Gastropub

All in all, it was a pretty good day for a Flash fan!