Fan Film: Flash — Crossover

Influence Films has released a short fan film starring the Flash, called Crossover.

Flash: Crossover

Here’s how the site describes the film:

Wally West (Jason Damian), is grieving the death of his mentor, Barry Allen, The Flash … and trying to decide if he wants to continue the heroic legacy as The Fastest Man Alive; when two of Gotham City’s most sensational villains, Harley Quinn (Amanda Geisel) and Talia al Ghul (Rachael Redler), along with Talia’s henchmen (Tim Rowe & Khigh Abner), come to Kansas to ask for his help at any expense. They are willing to do anything to get his help — even — if it means harming Linda Park (Angela Morrow), Wally West’s longtime friend and love interest. Now Wally must choose between hurting over the death of his mentor, or helping these two villains with a shocking request, and in the process determine his own future in The Flash: Crossover.

It runs about 13 minutes, and you can view the film at InfluenceFilms.com.

We’re Baaack!

I apologize to those who’ve tried to visit the site this weekend and couldn’t see it. Apparently when I upgraded one of my plugins (WP Super-Cache, which normally improves performance on the site), it tried to enable a feature on the server that it didn’t have permission to turn on. Whenever it tried to load a page from the cache, it would run into the permissions problem and show a “500 Internal Server Error” page.

Of course, since I was always logged in when I looked at the site, it never tried to load the page from the cache, so I never saw the error. I even made a few posts.

Reminder to self: When updating plugins, always test the site both while logged in and while not logged in!

Technical details: The .htaccess file in the wp-content/cache folder didn’t have permission to turn on expiration (the error in Apache’s logs was “ExpiresActive not allowed here”). Solution: add “AllowOverride Indexes” to the folder’s area in the server configuration.

Dan Speaks: The Future of Wally West

From Newsarama’s Dan DiDio: 20 Answers, 1 Question for January 23:

13. One question that keeps coming back with the return of Barry Allen as Flash. What’s the role of Wally West going to be?

DD: That question is great fodder for story, and what will be taking place in Wally’s life. He will be trying to figure out his place in the world in regards to being a hero and a family man, given the turn of events and the return of Barry. The return of Barry basically forces Wally to ask himself why he would want to continue, and should he continue in the role of the Flash? He took the mantle on, and “graduated” from Kid Flash to Flash because Barry died, and now that he’s returned, Wally has to question what he wants to do. He also gets to reexamine his family life, and see where he fits in and what exactly his purpose is. That’s going to be the centerpiece of a lot of stories in Titans and beyond in the coming year. Wally will be featured very prominently in Titans following the conclusion of Flash: Rebirth. We’re going to be addressing all of that – there’s a lot of story left to be told with Wally.

The interview also talks about a possible role for Barry Allen in Blackest Night, which seems to have grown from this year’s big Green Lantern story in the style of Sinestro Corps War to being this year’s big DC Universe Event-With-a-Capital-E.

A question to anyone reading Titans: has it actually gotten good? It took me a long time to break the habit of reading it, and if I’m going to have to fall off the wagon just to be able to read new Wally West stories, it had better be worth it.

Speed Reading: Barry, Daphne, Mopee and Hippies

Progressive Ruin looks into a forgotten Flash supporting cast memberMopee — and a surprise find in the old Flash comics letters column: a letter from a fan named Cary Bates!

4thletter! bemoans the fact that Barry Allen’s return appears to be linked to another speedster’s death.

Comic Coverage looks at an editor’s excuse for a then-shocking swear word appearing on the cover of a 1960s Flash comic.

Death in Comics is clearly on the collective mind of the blogosphere, with (again) 4thLetter weighing in.

And finally, Heroes’ Brea Grant posts this fan picture of Daphne, Flash and Quicksilver by Drawing Power:

Speedsters by Drawing Power: Quicksilver, Daphne, and the Flash

This Week (Jan 21): Emergency Stop, Justice League and Lightning

The new Flash material coming out this week is in Justice League of America and the second-to-last chapter of Tangent: Superman’s Reign, but there are three collections coming out: two softcover, one hardcover.

The Flash: Emergency Stop TP

At last, DC collects the fast-paced 1990s epic by Grant Morrison (Final Crisis) and Mark Millar (Civil War) from The Flash #130-135! Confined to a wheelchair after a run-in with the mystery villain known only as The Suit, how can The Flash protect Keystone City from evil run amok?

144 pg, FC, $12.99 US. Written by Grant Morrison & Mark Millar.
Art by Paul Ryan & John Nyberg. Cover by Steve Lightle. More info on the Morrison/Millar Run, and order from Amazon.

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