Doin’ the Speedster Shuffle (Schedule Changes)

8 Replies

DC’s website has some more scheduling changes for upcoming Flash issues:

Meanwhile, over at Top Cow, Velocity #2 is still in its most recent spot on September 15.

Update September 2:

  • The Flash #7 is now November 17.
  • The Flash #8 is now December 8.
  • Velocity #2 is now September 22. That means Velocity and The Flash are synced up again.

Speed Reading: Boomerang, Barry & Iris, Bart, Sonic & More

2 Replies

Some linkblogging for the weekend.

Flash

Other speedsters

  • Impulse Flashback: Bart Allen’s first day of school at Comics Should Be Good’s Year of Cool Comics
  • First Comics News’ Sonic The Hedgehog Month is almost over
  • Top Cow will be selling the SDCC and Supercon Velocity #1 variants through retail in November

Other comics

Flash Hints from Baltimore & Toronto: Flashpoint in Adventure, Secret Origin – UPDATED

17 Replies

This weekend features two comic book conventions: the comics track at FanExpo in Toronto, and Baltimore Comic Con. DC has had a presence at both, splitting their events between Dan Didio in Toronto and Ian Sattler in Baltimore.

CBR covers FanExpo’s DC Nation without revealing any Flash news, though they did plug Francis Manapul’s role on the TV show Beast Legends.

@liabrown1 caught a few bits of info at today’s DC Universe panel:

  • Flash will intro a new character in the 2nd story arc. Afterwards will be Secret Origins. #
  • Flashpoint will greatly affect the Justice League, but otherwise DiDio refused to talk about it. #
  • On Adventure Comics: currently the Legion, then Flashpoint, then a new char will lead the book. #

Update: CBR’s FanExpo DC Universe report is now online.

Newsarama covers Baltimore’s DC Nation with a live-blog, including this exchange:

Q: Is Sterling Gates’s Kid Flash book coming out?
Gates: nope.
Sattler: “But we have something really cool in its place that we can’t talk about.”

They may be talking about the second Flash book, Flash: Speed Force, that Geoff Johns leaked/announced in San Diego. (I got the impression that they weren’t quite ready to announce it at the time.) Or they may have something else in the works.

Update: CBR’s Baltimore DC Nation report is up as well.

Update (Monday): a bit more news from DC’s Sunday Conversation (Baltimore, via CBR):

Where should fans of Wally West be directing their attention? “It’s coming,” Gates said. “Geoff Johns is world-building for Barry Allen right now.”

Yeah, and tomorrow is a rest day. As much as I’m enjoying the new series, I’m really cynical when it comes to DC’s treatment of Wally West these days.

Update (Monday): ComicsAlliance’s FanExpo DC Nation write-up includes Dan Didio explaining that “the constant reinventing of the same characters was getting confusing and factionalizing our audience,” so they decided to pick one Flash, one Atom, etc. and standardize on the “classic” version.

Never mind that in some cases, the “classic” version was dead or retired before they made this decision, and never mind the fact that they also insist that Blue Beetle Ted Kord will stay dead, and Renee Montoya will continue to be the Question. And I don’t see Barbara Gordon as Batgirl, either. So the explanation doesn’t quite add up.

Flashes of the Multiverse

1 Reply

A while back (OK, a year ago — I’m trying to get my email inbox under control again), David Fulton sent in a link to this image from the 52 back-up feature, History of the DCU.

The panel appears in part three of the story, which summarizes the events of Crisis on Infinite Earths and explains the original Multiverse. I’ve labeled the Flashes I recognize, but I believe the rest are new creations. The mask in the upper right with the goggles reminds me a little of the Crime Society Johnny Quick (who would not make his first appearance until the end of 52). The full face mask directly below Barry Allen reminds me a bit of the suit in the JLI Elseworlds Annual.

So why create new Flashes just for one-time cameos instead of using existing obscure characters? There actually weren’t that many alternate realities explored before Crisis — at least, not realities that were similar to the mainstream Earth-1/Earth-2 dynamic with DC’s major heroes. Once you got as far as Earth-4, they were dealing with the Charlton heroes, or the Quality heroes, or the Fawcett heroes, worlds that didn’t have a Flash.

They could have pulled in some examples from Grant Morrison’s “Second Crisis” story in Animal Man, or from some of the settings retroactively added to the pre-Crisis multiverse like Kingdom Come or the Tangent Comics Flash, but they may have wanted to stick with “real” characters who were actually around at the time of COIE. That leaves the Zoo Crew’s Fastback or the Justa Lotta Animals’ Crash, but they were going for a serious tone with this story. A talking turtle with super-speed might have spoiled the mood!

EVS Draws JLA #50: JLA vs. the Crime Syndicate

3 Replies

Over at The Source, DC has posted Flash: Rebirth artist Ethan Van Sciver’s cover for Justice League of America #50.

I assume it’s either a wraparound or a pair of 50/50 variant covers.

The Donna Troy vs. Superwoman and Supergirl vs. Ultra-Man battles dominate the image, but there’s also Power Ring vs. Jade, Batman vs. Owlman, and (way in the background) Jesse Quick vs. Johnny Quick.

Ever since James Robinson mentioned that the JLA would be going up against the Crime Syndicate, I’d wondered which version of the villainous team they’d be facing. The original version? The Crime Society on Earth-3? Between this and Syndicate Rules in the previous series, it looks like the Morrison/Quitely version from JLA: Earth-2 has been established as the primary version of the team, though they have gone back to the Kyle Rayner analog for Power Ring.

Update: Here’s a close-up (loosely speaking) of part of the Jesse Quick/Johnny Quick battle.

This Week: Jesse, Jay and Bart in JLA and Teen Titans (Plus Outrun, the Blur and Sonic)

There’s no Flash this week, but there are several other comics where you can get a speedster fix:

  • Justice League of America #48 continues the JLA/JSA crossover, and features Jesse Quick and original Flash Jay Garrick.
  • Teen Titans #86 features Kid Flash Bart Allen.
  • Guarding the Globe #1 (Image) features the debut of a new speedster, Outrun.
  • Supreme Power: Contact (TPB Reprint, Marvel) reprints the first six issues of JMS’ Supreme Power, re-launching the characters who would join forces as the Squadron Supreme, including the Blur.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog #216 (Archie), featuring…Sonic the Hedgehog. (Currently the longest-running comic book series about a speedster, by numbering.)