This Week (May 26): Wednesday Comics HC & More

The long-awaited hardcover edition of Wednesday Comics is out this week, featuring all 15 strips from last summer’s weekly series in all their 11×17″ oversized glory:

  • ADAM STRANGE written and illustrated by Paul Pope
  • BATMAN written by Brian Azzarello with art by Eduardo Risso including additional panel art on each page!
  • METAMORPHO written by Neil Gaiman with art by Michael Allred
  • DEADMAN written by Dave Bullock and Vinton Heuck with art by Dave Bullock
  • THE DEMON AND CATWOMAN written by Walter Simonson with art by Brian Stelfreeze
  • THE FLASH written by Karl Kerschl and Brenden Fletcher with art by Karl Kerschl
  • GREEN LANTERN written by Kurt Busiek with art by Joe Quinones
  • HAWKMAN written and illustrated by Kyle Baker
  • KAMANDI written by Dave Gibbons with art by Ryan Sook
  • THE METAL MEN written by Dan DiDio with art by Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez and Kevin Nowlan
  • SGT. ROCK written by Adam Kubert with art by Joe Kubert
  • SUPERGIRL written by Jimmy Palmiotti with art by Amanda Conner
  • SUPERMAN written by John Arcudi with art by Lee Bermejo
  • TEEN TITANS written by Eddie Berganza with art by Sean Galloway
  • WONDER WOMAN written and illustrated by Ben Caldwell

The Fletcher/Kerschl Flash strip was my favorite Flash story of 2009 (yes, I liked it better than Flash: Rebirth or Blackest Night: The Flash). It was fun, full of crazy ideas and adventure, and played around with the format, making use of the fact that it was being told as a newspaper comic strip.

Wednesday Comics sells for $49.99, though you can find it for less if you shop around. (Amazon’s selling it at $31.49 to start, though since they get their inventory on a book publishing schedule, they won’t have Wednesday Comics until next Tuesday.)

Other Flash appearances this week include:

Flash in Adventure Comics (1978-1979)

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During the late 1970s, DC redesigned Adventure Comics as a Golden Age-style anthology series, where each oversized issue would contain four or more different features. It didn’t last very long — after only eight issues, it went back to a standard size and price. The Flash, Deadman, and Justice Society features appeared in every issue, with Wonder Woman and Aquaman appearing in most of them. Edit: I forgot to mention, these features ran through Adventure Comics #459–466.

While the Flash stories in Adventure Comics were written by the regular writer on the book, Cary Bates, they took a drastically different approach. The main series was structured around long, multi-part stories featuring the Flash and Barry Allen’s supporting cast. The Adventure stories were quick one-offs. In fact, only two of the eight stories featured regular Flash villains! Instead they featured strange monsters or bizarre situations. It was sort of a deliberate throwback to the Silver Age during the Bronze Age.

The Adventure Comics run also spanned a period of transition for the Flash: The death of Iris Allen. She appears in three of the early stories (but doesn’t go with Barry to his high school reunion), isn’t mentioned in several, and by the end, Barry is grieving for her.

The Stories

#459: The Crimson Comets of Fallville High – Barry Allen attends his 15th high school reunion and a former classmate picks up his identity through ESP.

#460: A Nightmare To Remember! – After visiting Earth-2, Barry Allen finds himself in a bizarre reversed version of Keystone City, where the Shade has been elected mayor and Joan Garrick has divorced Jay and remarried the Fiddler.

#461: The Multiple Murders of Mapleville – Barry and Iris are traveling, and stop in a small town for gas. Barry gets framed for murder. There’s a major plot hole in this one, where a gun is set up as compelling him to fire it, but the compulsion is never mentioned again.

#462: The She-Demon of the Astral Plane – Iris meets an old flame who is studying astral projection, and has to try it out…but an extra-dimensional creature wants to follow her back and take over her body.

#463: Urtumi the Image-Eater – The Flash encounters an alien monster who formed the basis of local Native American legends. This one was weird enough I had to write it up.

#464: The Day Up Was Down – Abra Kadabra turns Central City upside-down — literally — looking for an applause machine.

#465: Who Is Invading Central City? – A sonic boom causes the Flash to pick up telepathic transmissions from creatures who can’t figure out what the invading humans want.

#466: The Cloud With the Lethal Lining! – The Weather Wizard turns over a new leaf and tries to use his powers to help people. It doesn’t last. And I really shouldn’t be bothered by the Flash running up a lightning bolt in a story where sunspots cause the Weather Wizard to turn good, but there are limits, you know?

Update: I’ve added the issue numbers to the list of stories.

Weekend Updates: Cover Variants and Urtumi

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One of the things I wanted to do this weekend was finish going through the brief Adventure Comics run of The Flash (more about that tomorrow). In the process I decided I just had to write up the sheer weirdness that is Urtumi the Image Eater.

I also started tracking the variant covers from the new ongoing Flash series.

Well, I’d hoped to get more done this weekend, but other stuff has kept me busy…and now the Lost finale awaits!

Mental Telepathy

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I’ve always been annoyed by the phrase “mental telepathy.” It’s just redundant, like “big giant” or “fast speedster.” Is there any such thing as non-mental telepathy?

So it was nice to see someone taken to task in this panel from a Flash story in Adventure Comics #459…all the way back in 1978!

The characters pictured are two of Barry Allen’s high school classmates at their fifteen-year reunion. The woman, Rachel has just picked up that one of their classmates is the Flash.

Hijinks ensue.

These Are The Greatest Wally West Stories Ever Told

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Comics Should Be Good has posted the results of their reader poll for the Greatest Wally West stories ever told. It’s technically a top ten list, but they included eleven stories because the #10 winner was essentially a prologue for one of the other winners.

It’s interesting to break down the results by writer:

  • 7 by Mark Waid (including the top three)
  • 2 by Geoff Johns
  • 2 by William Messner-Loebs

In a way it’s surprising that Geoff Johns, DC’s current superstar writer, isn’t more heavily represented, but it also makes sense. Mark Waid’s run on The Flash was very much about Wally West and his journey through young adulthood (Messner-Loebs’ run even more so!), while Geoff Johns’ run tilted a bit more toward the Rogues.

Head over to Comics Should Be Good for the full list!

Flash DC Direct Items In Stores This Month

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Coming next week DC Direct’s vinyl designer action figure series, UNI-FORMZ will be releasing their fourth wave featuring The Fastest Man Alive. The Flash’s Classic Look featuring the iconic red and yellow costume with Barry’s straight across belt will be joined by two variants; Professor Zoom (Eobard Thawne) and the Black Flash. These variants will be produced in far lower quantities than the classic Flash look:

Solicits after the jump

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