Next weekend (September 25-26), actress Joyce Hyser will be signing autographs at the Hollywood Celebrities & Memorabilia Show at the Hilton Rosemont / Chicago O’Hare Airport Hotel.
On the 1990 Flash TV series, Hyser played the recurring character Megan Lockhart, a private detective who figured out Barry Allen’s identity. She returned to Central City twice in later episodes, pursuing the fugitive James Jesse, only to find herself the object of his obsession when he became the Trickster.
After a long wait, Velocity #2 comes out next Wednesday. The first issue of this four-part miniseries was quite good and new reader–friendly. You can read my review here.
CBR has a 5-page preview of issue #2.
As the members of Cyberforce lay dying from a fatal techno-virus, their only hope for survival is their teammate Velocity. Carin Taylor has never been more in need of her super-speed as the races around the globe, trying to find and cure her teammates before the same virus kills her. The issue continues the inaugural creative union of writer Ron Marz (Witchblade, Angelus) and artist Kenneth Rocafort (Cyberforce/Hunter-Killer).
Rickey Purdin’s discovery of Green Lantern GLO-Balls in the supermarket has been making the rounds of comics blogs this week, but he spotted another super-hero-themed snack at the same time: Flash Cakes.
OK, so the name doesn’t amuse the inner twelve-year-old. But it does call to mind those 1970s Hostess ads in which super-heroes, the Flash included, defeated villains with the power of Twinkies. Usually they were low-rent villains like the Bureauc-Rat, Destroyer, Medusa and Dr. Sorcery, but occasionally real villains like Mirror Master or the Penguin.
They’re also surprisingly close to convincing me to buy Hostess cupcakes for the first time in a decade, and I’m married to someone who can make considerably better cupcakes in her sleep. (Of course, she’d probably draw the Flash symbol on the top, rather than simply toss yellow sprinkles onto the red frosting.) Update: She did!
Oh, for the record:
In his post on re-using old characters, David Brothers mentions that in 6 years writing the Avengers, Brian Michael Bendis created only one new villain. That started me thinking about Geoff Johns’ original run on The Flash (2000–2005). Johns created a wealth of new enemies for the Flash during the first part of his run, particularly in Iron Heights, but I couldn’t think of any from later.
It turns out, that’s because there basically aren’t any.
This run can easily be divided into two main pieces: Flash #164–200, from Wonderland to Blitz, and then Flash #201–225, from Ignition through Rogue War. The dividing line: the moment when the Spectre erases everyone’s memory of Wally West’s and Barry Allen’s identities as the Flash.
Here’s a list of the new villains who were introduced before that moment:
Ten entirely new enemies, and two new versions of old villains. Not bad for a roughly 50-issue run!
Now, here’s a list of new villains introduced after that moment:
Just one legacy villain, in the very first story, and he died at the end. OK, maybe you can count the Rainbow Raiders, but they never made more than a single cameo appearance in the book.
As much as I love Geoff Johns’ writing on the classic Rogues, I’ve got to admit I miss seeing new villains. The Renegades sort of count, but I’m definitely looking forward to the new villain Francis Manapul mentioned will debut in the second story arc on the new series.
Sony has released a set of screenshots from DC Universe Online featuring Gorilla Grodd battling the Flash and other heroes.
Starting in November, Image Comics will publish Halcyon, a five-issue miniseries by Marc Guggenheim (Flash, JSA) and his wife, screenwriter Tara Butters (Dollhouse, Reaper), about what happens to super-heroes when they win the never-ending battle against crime. In an interview with Newsarama, Guggenheim describes several of the major characters, including…
There’s another character named Transom, who’s a speedster. And what’s cool about him is the fact that, once you remove war and crime and any sort of man-made aggression, the only thing left for superheroes to deal with are natural disasters, like plane crashes and earthquakes. The problem is that Transom is the only superhero on the planet who is fast enough to get to these disasters as they’re happening. So he’s the one superhero who’s being run completely ragged, because he’s the only one who’s able to still be a hero.
The “what now?” question has been raised before, even in the DC Universe. Countdown to Final Crisis featured Earth-51, a world in which the heroes managed to eliminate super-crime and retired to pursue civilian careers. Of course, since this was Countdown, the world was created as cannon fodder, so it wasn’t explored much.
Between this book, Justice Society of America, No Ordinary Family, and (if Warner Bros. approves the treatment) the Flash screenplay, Guggenheim is going to be busy with speedsters this fall.