Golden-Age Art Mystery

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Flash stippled portrait (All-Flash #13)Comic Coverage is seeking help in solving an All-Flash Art Mystery — namely, this stippled portrait of the Flash from All-Flash #13 (reprinted in the 1973 Flash 100 Page Spectacular ) in a dramatically different style than regular artist E.E. Hibbard‘s usual (of which the faces in the border are more typical).

(My take: I don’t see any reason to believe it’s not Hibbard’s own work, judging by some of the panels he did for creator cameos and wildlife paintings he did in the years after his comics career. And in The Flash Companion, Tom Brevoort recalls being astonished by this page, and believes it to be Hibbard’s work.)

Speed Reading: Silver-Age Guest Stars, Action Figures, Van Sciver and More

Victoria Wayne comments on Captain Boomerang’s first appearance

Crimson Lightning has finished reviewing the entire 1990-1991 Flash TV series, and now presents a round-up of Live Action: The Worst.

Silver Age Comics looks at Barry Allen’s childhood sweetheart, future actress Daphne Dean, as The Other Woman. (She returned a few times in the Bronze Age, including the 4-part story that introduced the Golden Glider.)

Newsarama has a video interview with Todd Dezago, former Impulse writer, in which he talks about Perhapanauts.

DCU Classics Flash Action FigurePOE Ghostal reviews the new DCU Classics Barry Allen action figure.

Geek Stuff Daily looks at the history of the Flash.

Ethan Van Sciver’s weekly column is up to #11, and at least this week he’s renamed it from “Your Time Is Now Mine” to “Hope, Understanding and Compassion.” He links to a discussion thread his wife Sharis started about her experience with a dog rescue gone wrong earlier this week:

This was the worst day of my life. I don’t blame the dog, and I’m especially grateful for Officer Guardian Angel this morning, and the fact that it was ME that was bitten, not a small child, which is easily could have been. But I dedicate my entire life to rescue, and to see the dog shot, to hear it scream in pain and watch it die…this was entirely too much to cope with today.

Please keep supporting rescue efforts and animal cruelty legislation, folks, not the hysteria that causes people to deem all “vicious” dogs “bad dogs.”

There are no bad dogs, just bad owners.

Sharis also posted a link in the thread to her own blog entry about the incident.

Co-Features, or How To Make All Flash Fans Happy

Over the past month, DC has announced a (somewhat) new format for some of its books: the co-feature. It’s essentially the same as the classic lead+backup format, except that the lead story is a full 22 pages.* The upcoming Doom Patrol relaunch will co-feature the Metal Men, and now Booster Gold and Teen Titans will be getting Blue Beetle and Ravager backups. The books will jump to $3.99, but they’ll have more story pages than the standard $2.99 book.

Thinking about this, I realized: This is the perfect way to satisfy all Flash fans! Relaunch the series after Flash: Rebirth as a co-feature book. Make the lead 22-page story focus on Barry Allen. Make the backup story focus on Wally West, or rotate through Wally, Jay and Bart. I’ve been vocal in my displeasure at losing a regular series focusing on Wally, but I would buy this in a hot second with no complaints (unless the stories turned out bad, of course). It also seems more viable in this market than a second Flash book.

So how about you, readers? Does this sound like a good idea?

Edit: Went to post this on ComicBloc and realized that The Speedster posted the same idea [edit: dead link] a week ago. And I responded in the thread. Clearly I need either more sleep or more coffee.

*It’s not clear how long the backups are, but I’m guessing probably 12 or 16. 16 would make it roughly equivalent to a 40-page book, which is the format that Final Crisis and tie-ins like Rogues Revenge have used.

Van Scivers: Local Hero and Signing

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Two items of note:

First, Sharis Van Sciver, wife of Flash: Rebirth artist Ethan Van Sciver, is in the news today for leading a growling dog away from a group of school children. The dog, which showed signs of abuse and had apparently broken its chain and escaped, bit her hand, but her injuries are minor. (via Blog@Newsarama)

Second, Flash fans in the Orlando, Florida area should take note: Ethan Van Sciver will be doing a free signing for Flash: Rebirth at A Comic Shop in Winter Park, Florida (that’s the actual name of the store) on April 3.

This Week (March 11): Titans & Collections

Titans #11

The Titans #11Written by Judd Winick
Art and cover by Howard Porter

Shaken by the loss of one of their teammates, the Titans attempt to regroup and move on. But they discover that their problems aren’t even close to over as their past comes back to haunt them in this prelude to the major “Deathtrap” crossover with Teen Titans starting next month!

32 pg, FC, $2.99 US

Showcase Presents: Justice League of America Vol.4

Written by Gardner Fox and Dennis O’Neil
Art by Mike Sekowsky, Dick Dillin, Sid Greene,
George Roussos and Joe Giella
Cover by Neal Adams

The JLA continues to fight evil in this new bargain-priced volume collection Justice League of America #61-83. These epic tales feature the JLA debuts of the Red Tornado and Black Canary, plus the annual adventure with the Justice Society of America!

544 pg, B&W, $16.99 US

Justice League International Vol.4 (HC)

Written by Keith Giffen & J.M. DeMatteis
Art by Kevin Maguire, Ty Templeton, Mike McKone, Bill Willingham, Joe Rubinstein and Dick Giordano
Cover by Kevin Maguire & Joe Rubinstein

The 1980s adventures of the Justice League continue! This new volume collects Justice League International #23-25 and Justice League America #26-30.

208 pg, FC, $24.99 US

Super Friends: For Justice! (TP)

Written by Sholly Fisch
Art by Dario Brizuela, Joe Staton, Stewart McKay, Horacio Ottolini, Phil Moy and Mike DeCarlo
Cover by J. Bone

Stories from the first seven SUPER FRIENDS issues unite in a new collection of stories inspired by the red-hot line of action figures from Mattel! Filled with exciting, all-ages adventure, this volume features the Justice League facing some of their greatest foes, including Amazo and Gorilla Grodd!

144 pg, FC, $12.99 US

As usual, there’s a good chance of the Flash appearing in Trinity as well.

Speed Reading: Retro Reviews, TV Shows and More

Comics In Crisis presents Flash v.2 #182 (2002), the Captain Cold Rogue Profile story, among the 10 Essential Bronze Age Comic Stories You Should Read. I’d disagree with the Bronze-Age classification (traditionally, the Bronze Age of Comics ran from the 1970s through mid 1980s, with Crisis on Infinite Earths being a good reference point for DC books), but it’s absolutely a must-read.

X-Man reviews Flash vol.2 #1 (1987), noting how different Wally West was at the age of 20 than he is today. That’s actually one of the things Wallys’ long-term fans like most about the character: that we’ve seen him grow and change naturally, rather than simply be given a personality transplant whenever a new writer shows up.

The Quantum Blog talks about TV shows canceled before their time, including the 1990-1991 Flash TV Series. (Hard to believe it’s been almost 20 years. Seriously, Quantum Leap is having a 20th Anniversary convention this month. I feel old…)

A Journal of Zarjaz Things looks at Flash: Emergency Stop, griping that Grant Morrison’s 9-issue run is split across two trades with the second “padded” out with a 3-parter by Mark Millar. IMO, though, Morrison didn’t write a 9-issue Morrison run — he co-wrote 9 issues of a 12-issue Morrison/Millar run. It would have been less responsible for DC to print only the Morrison issues and leave out “The Black Flash,” which has arguably had more lasting impact on the Flash mythos than the other stories in these trades, good as they are. (It is silly that they left out the first two parts of “Three of a Kind,” though.)