This Week (Jan 20): Blackest Night: Flash, More

Believe it or not, once comics ship this week we’ll have had three months in a row with new Flash comics. Astonishing, isn’t it?

Blackest Night: The Flash #2

Written by Geoff Johns
Art and cover by Scott Kolins

Variant cover by Francis Manapul

Geoff Johns and Scott Kolins continue this must-have BLACKEST NIGHT tie-in!

The Flashes find themselves more tangled into Nekron’s ultimate plan than they could ever have imagined. Meanwhile, it’s a well-known fact that Captain Cold hates running. But when the Rogues of the past rise to claim those that still survive, he has no choice!

This issue will ship with two covers. For every 25 copies of the Standard Edition (with a cover by Scott Kolins), retailers may order one copy of the Variant Edition (with a cover by Francis Manapul).

On sale January 20 (rescheduled) – 2 of 3 – 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US

Notes: The Black Lantern Rogues appear to be, from left to right:

Three of the dead Rogues have successors (four if you include the Rainbow Raiders). Two of them — Top and Boomerang — have died and come back to life before. Four of the surviving Rogues — Captain Cold, Mirror Master (Evan McCullogh), Weather Wizard, and Heat Wave — have also died and returned to life (Underworld Unleashed and Hell To Pay).

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Readers’ Favorite Flash Story of 2009

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Earlier this month I posted a poll asking readers to choose their favorite Flash story of 2009. The poll closed today, so here are the results.

Not surprisingly, Flash: Rebirth — the only Flash-titled series we’ve really had during 2009 (not counting one issue of Blackest Night: The Flash in December) won the poll…but it only pulled in 35% of the vote!

Making a strong second-place showing was Blackest Night at 28%. While not primarily a Flash story, the Green Lantern-based universe-wide event has focused heavily on Hal Jordan and Barry Allen.

Third place, with 13%, is the Flash feature in Wednesday Comics. (This one was my favorite.)

Some of the write-ins are rather telling, though. While many readers have liked this year’s Flash stories (or at least some of them), others have been extremely disappointed. I have to admit getting a chuckle out of “It’s like asking which punch in the face was better.”

Update: Sadly, Twtpoll purged the complete results before I thought to copy them over.

Team Turmoil and Dynamo 5

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I was recently looking through old scans and ran into an image of Team Turmoil. Readers from the 1990s will recognize them as a group of generic villains who would show up anytime Mark Waid needed the Flash to have a short battle as part of a larger story about something else.

The funny thing is that their costumes reminded me of another team — a much more developed team with actual characters: Dynamo 5. Continue reading →

Flash Returns to Batman: The Brave & the Bold

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Tonight’s episode of Batman: The Brave and the Bold, “The Golden Age of Justice,” features more guest stars than usual: not only the return of the Flash, but the entire Justice Society of America!

CBR has preview images from the episode, which airs at 7:30 tonight (which means it probably just finished on the east coast).

Sidekick Corner: Ignition

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So as I am the new kid around here I wanted to name my posts something that can identify them different to our glorious leader and I feel that right now being the new kid on the block sidekick is a good way to identify myself. Kelson is the guy that channels the speed force. I am impulse to his wally at the moment. I might change the name later but for now I think it is a nice way to let you know when I am speaking.

So this is the place that I will be looking at The Flash and his universe at the characters and events that have shaped each person that has worn the lightning.

Ignition: the end of one age, the birth of a new one.

So today I wanted to look at the Ignition storyline that begins with Issue 201 and what the story meant to the character of the Flash and the Flash universe in general.

Ignition is an interesting issue from the perspective of serialised super hero story telling. It is a great example of how you can make large scale changes to the status quo and still maintain the integrity of the character and honour the audiences expectations.

This is the reboot that I feel the people involved with “One More Day,” the Spider-Man story that was intended to create a new paradigm for the character. But where they failed with “One More Day,” Geoff Johns succeeded: execution. Geoff Johns took the subplot that ran through the Flash starting in the last half of Mark Waid’s run (the fear of loss) and used that theme as the reason for the changes made in this story.

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Geoff Johns on the Nature of the Speed Force

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Last Monday, CBR posted a new installment of Geoff Johns Prime, their occasional question-and-answer feature with the writer.

Responding to a question about the new costumes introduced in Flash: Rebirth #5, he talked about the “Emergency Stop” story by Grant Morrison and Mark Millar and how it provided “the first inkling that the Speed Force was more than just gasoline.”

I always thought of the Speed Force as if it were this layer, kind of like the fluid in your joints that allows your bones to move together, and if you think of that as the Speed Force, it’s this fluid between the now and the time stream. It allows the two to co-exist, because the way time exists, it’s not just a line, it’s a sphere. So that fluid coats that sphere and the sphere is the Speed Force. And that sphere touches all reality and it’s full of everything, it’s full of ultimate speed, moving through reality, because time is all relative and it’s full of all scientific knowledge. It’s all knowledge of all eras.

Johns answered several other questions about the Flash, confirming that the Rogues will be heavily involved in the new series (no surprise there) and that their tailor, Paul Gambi, will return.

Another item I found interesting is that the price was a major factor in the decision to scrap the backup stories they had previously announced.

There’s more there about the Flash, plus he answers questions about Blackest Night, Earth One, Smallville and more.