Please drop by Nerdage today and check out a guest post I wrote:
Six Things You Might Not Know…
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This Week: Zoom in Time Masters, Flash in Green Lantern, Velocity
This week sees the release of two Flash guest spots and a new installment of Velocity. Time Masters: Vanishing Point #5, guest-stars the Reverse Flash and leads into Flashpoint, while Green Lantern #60 guest-stars Barry Allen in a follow-up to last month’s cliffhanger.
Time Masters: Vanishing Point #5 (of 6)
Written by DAN JURGENS
Art and cover by DAN JURGENS & NORM RAPMUND
None of the Time Masters’ problems in the time continuum compares with what’s in store for them when they cross paths with the Reverse Flash! In fact, nothing will be the same for the entire universe after this fateful meeting!
Don’t miss this companion series to the best-selling “Return of Bruce Wayne” storyline!
Green Lantern #60
Written by GEOFF JOHNS; Art and cover by DOUG MAHNKE & CHRISTIAN ALAMY; 1:10 “DC 75th Anniversary” Variant cover by FRANK QUITELY
BRIGHTEST DAY continues as the truth about the Indigo Tribe members is revealed along with their Entity: the enigmatic Proselyte.
Plus, don’t miss a special Green Lantern movie image!
Velocity #3 (of 4)
Story: Ron Marz
Art & Cover: Kenneth Rocafort
The Pilot Season Winner is Back!
The clock is literally ticking on the life of Carin Taylor, the hero known as Velocity. The fastest girl in the world must race around the globe in an attempt to save her Cyberforce teammates. If Carin can’t beat the clock, she and her friends will succumb to a techno-virus and give Cyberforce’s greatest foe his greatest victory. The issue continues the creative collaboration of writer Ron Marz (Witchblade, Angelus) and artist Kenneth Rocafort (Cyberforce/Hunter-Killer).
4-page preview at Newsarama.
Quick Review: THUNDER Agents #2 Runs a Speedster Ragged
I haven’t read the first issue of the new T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents series, but when I read that issue #2 was going to feature the origin of their speedster, Lightning, I decided to take a look. The concept: An international team of covert operatives use suits that give them super-powers…knowing that the powers will kill them.
Despite being the middle of a bigger story, the issue reads quite well. It’s structured with a framing sequence in which the team is on its first mission. It’s not entirely clear what they’re doing, except they need Lightning to get inside the perimeter. To do so, he’ll need to run faster than he has ever run in training…and he’ll learn the true cost of super-speed.
This is wrapped around the story of Kenyan athlete Henry Cosgei, two-time Olympic winner and three-time world champion, a man who loves life, but most of all loves running…and the brutal way in which T.H.U.N.D.E.R. manipulates him into joining the team. By the end of the issue, he sees all too well what he’s given up in order to regain what he’d previously lost.
There’s good character work, not only with Lightning himself, but with the two handlers. There’s some depth here beyond the mindless slugfests, continuity strip-mining, and roster shuffling (though there is a bit of the latter here, since it’s an origin story) that seems to make up so much of the super-hero landscape these days.
T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #2: “Live Fast, Die Young”
Writer: Nick Spencer
Penciller (main sequence): Cafu
Inker (main sequence): Bit
Artist (Lightning sequence): ChrisCross
Speed Reading
- “Superspeed seems like such a cool power, right? Well after you read THUNDER AGENTS #2 you’ll never think of it the same way again.” Wil Moss on T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #2
- 5 Absurd Ways Comic Books Have Resurrected Dead Superheroes from Cracked.com
- Mark Waid leaves BOOM! as CCO, returns to freelancing – Comic Book Resources.
- The Secret of the Flash Beanie by That F’ing Monkey
- Marc Guggenheim talks Flash movie with MTV. Not much new except jokes about the Rogues. (And may I add: “Because he’s the one people grew up with” doesn’t work when there’s a whole generation or two that grew up with the other guy.)
- Now Read This! reviews The Greatest Flash Stories Ever Told.
Review: Flash #7 – “What Goes Around, Comes Around”
Those unfamiliar with the Rogue Profiles from Geoff Johns’ previous Flash run might dismiss a whole issue focusing on Captain Boomerang as filler. And while it’s true that this issue and the next were added to the schedule to get the main story back on time, it feels like an integral part of the mythos (if a bit more related to Brightest Day than to the story building to Flashpoint), and leads directly into next week’s issue’s profile of Professor Zoom.
Like the earlier profiles, this issue follows the featured villain as he goes about his business and thinks back about what made him the criminal he is today. It serves both as an origin story for new readers and a way for the writer to explore just what makes him tick. In this case, it doesn’t add anything really new to his background, but rather collects and crystallizes the key elements that have been established over time: a troubled family life (what Rogue didn’t have that?), coming to the States as a toy mascot, and then embarking on his life of crime.
I’ve raved before about how well Scott Kolins’ art is suited to the ruggedness of the Flash’s Rogues Gallery, and that remains true here. Yet his art is transformed by Brian Buccellato’s painted-looking colors, making it blend perfectly with Francis Manapul’s work and revealing just how much of the look of this series is due to his contribution.
Coco riffs on Captain Boomerang and others at WB Animation Studios
Last night on Conan, he visited Warner Bros Animation Studios to procure a superhero design of himself. Along the way he met up with the Creative Director of Animation at the studio, Peter Girardi. Coco discussed multiple topics with him but the funniest part of the segment and most relevant was where he riffs on a number of heroes and villains from the DC Encyclopedia.
Conan and his crew had gone through the book prior to the the show and blew up a number of pictures of what he felt were lame characters from it. Amongst them our very own Captain Boomerang:
