Speed Reading: Two Worlds and More

Some Monday morning linkblogging…

Flash…

Comics Should Be Good’s Year of Cool Comics spotlights “Flash of Two Worlds” — or more precisely, the Grant Morrison/Mike Parobeck retelling of the story from Secret Origins #50. The story was recently reprinted in Flash: The Human Race.

…and Beyond!

In light of Death’s upcoming appearance in Action Comics, Comics Alliance rounds up the long history of Sandman and the DC Universe.

Update: Let me add two more here: Collected Editions has worked out the Blackest Night reading order for the trades/hardcovers, and Once Upon a Geek has also taken a stab at Death in the DCU.

Gotham Central in Keystone City

I just noticed that last month’s hardcover release of Gotham Central: On the Freak Beat includes the “Keystone Kops” storyline. When a fellow police officer is exposed to a mad scientist’s death trap and starts mutating, Gotham detectives Renee Montoya and Crispus Allen travel to Keystone City to consult the imprisoned Dr. Alchemy.

The hardcover line is following a different breakdown than the original trade paperbacks did. The story was previously collected in the paperback Gotham Central: The Quick and the Dead.

Flash #1 Gets Second Printing

Francis Manapul reported on Twitter, and then The Source confirmed that The Flash #1 and 10 other recent launches are getting second printings.

No word yet on when it will ship, or what cover DC will use. They already used an uncolored sketch version of the original cover as a 1:100 variant, but with the number of random Flash covers they seem to have stocked up by various artists, I’m sure they could simply reassign the variant for, say, The Flash #7, or another issue that hasn’t been solicited yet. They could also put out a variation on Tony Harris’ variant cover for the first printing, or use an interior splash page, or take the black-and-white with spot color approach to either of the original covers.

Flash #4 Variant Cover by Scott Kolins

DC has posted seven upcoming variant covers at The Source, including Scott Kolins’ take on The Flash #4.

Unless you count the unfinished cover used to solicit Flash: Rebirth #6, This is Barry Allen’s first unmasked cover appearance in a year and definitely the first since the relaunch. I like the sign’s homage to the classic Robert Kanigher/Carmine Infantino team from the dawn of the Silver Age.

I’m really starting to wonder how long DC plans to keep releasing these 1:10 variants. They’ve got one listed all the way out through the current solicitations for issue #6. Since none of the alternate covers we’ve seen so far have anything to do with the story, I suspect DC just asked a bunch of artists to draw a Flash cover and they’ve been working through the set.

The Flash #4 ships either July 28 or August 4. Diamond reported a delay last month, but that change has dropped off their shipping updates list, and DC’s website still shows the July 28 date.

Speed Reading

Some links from the past week:

Update: