Quote of the Day

Grant Morrison on Final Crisis (from an interview at IGN):

I think of it like dance music, and how they just took pop music to a place where there was nothing left but the bass and the drum and the build-up and release, and I kind of wanted a comic that would throw out all the boring conversations and fights and keep only the stuff I like to read. You know, to create the crack cocaine of superhero comics. [laughs]

Also worth noting, for anyone who’s confused about how the monthlies line up with Final Crisis:

Pretty much every storyline that’s currently running in a DC book is happening before Final Crisis, because the events of Final Crisis are so big, that we didn’t want to see its influence destabilizing major stories already running in the other comics. The whole story of Final Crisis is in that one book and its few tie-ins, and then when Final Crisis ends, the entire range of DC books will be dealing with the aftermath. So if you look at it that way, everything that you’re reading that comes out during Final Crisis tends to be happening the week before the story takes place.

There’s a lot of other interesting stuff in there — it’s worth a read if you have the time.

Flash in Pop Culture: Big Bang, Skating and Sports

A quick round-up of recent pop culture references to the Flash:

First, reader Will mentioned an episode of the comedy, The Big Bang Theory, in four characters showed up to a costume party, each dressed as the Flash. The episode, “The Middle Earth Paradigm,” aired last fall, but it’s still topical: The first season will be released on DVD next week (region 1).

Second, Esteban Pedreros of Comic Verso writes about the Chilean TV show, Estrellas en el hielo (Stars on Ice) — essentially Dancing with the Stars, with ice skating. One of the contestants is sprinter Sebastián_Keitel, nicknamed “The fastest white man on Earth.” He and his partner appeared on the show wearing Flash costumes (look for Capítulo 3). I had trouble getting the video to play (must be the intercontinental bandwidth), but I was able to check out the photo galleries.

Finally, Sports Illustrated compares Usain Bolt with the Flash, describing the real-world Olympic gold medalist sprinter from Jamaica and the fictional super-hero as “two guys with claims at being the world’s fastest.”

Sorry, no costumes on this one!

Update: One more: Collected Comics Library linked to the Detroit Free Press’ profiles of promising football players as super-heroes, including Oak Park’s running back Edwin Baker as the Flash. According to the profile, “When you have been timed at 10.5 in the 100 meters, what other superhero is there? Maybe Quicksilver?” Other players have been profiled as Hulk and Thor.

Linkage: Didio, Ramos & More

CBR talks with Dan Didio about Flash:Rebirth and why Geoff Johns & Ethan Van Sciver are right for the job — namely, their work relaunching Green Lantern. “They are going to embrace everything there is about The Flash, not ignore it, and I think the story lends itself to the whole Flash legacy and how important Barry is to it.”

Meanwhile, Occasional Superheroine’s Valerie D’Orazio comments on Didio’s “rebooting was a mistake” remarks from Fan Expo.

Newsarama’s Vaneta Rogers has a trio of interviews. First she talks with Humberto Ramos, original artist on Impulse, about the upcoming relaunch of Runaways. Next, Geoff Johns discusses Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds. Finally, Marc Guggenheim is writing another Flash: a Spider-Man spotlight on Flash Thompson, drawn by Flash/Green Lantern: The Brave and the Bold artist Barry Kitson.

Girl-Wonder.org has launched the Con Anti-Harassment Project.

Brian Cronin of Comics Should Be Good presents the Cronin Theory of Comics – Comics Tend to Eventually Regress to the Mean. For the most part, characters will reset over time to the “standard” interpretation. Rarely, that standard will change, such as Dick Grayson as Nightwing, rather than Robin. It will be interesting to see how this applies to Wally West, now that DC is pushing Barry Allen as, in EVS’ words, “The King of Flashes.”

Crimson Lightning Returns

The blog Crimson Lightning chronicled the adventures of the Scarlet Speedster for just over a year, from July 2006 through August 2007. Brian Dixon (who has also indexed most of Flash v.2 and all of Flash: The Fastest Man Alive) provided commentary, historical notes, and links to Flash-related news. Early last year, he embarked on a project to review every episode of the 1990 Flash TV series.

A year ago, 2/3 of the way through the TV project, he stopped updating the blog. His last post was August 24, a year ago yesterday. Crimson Lightning was actually part of what inspired me to launch Speed Force. Its demise had left a vacuum to be filled.

Dixon posted again today, declaring his intent to pick up the blog again.

At the very least, I vow to complete my project of cataloguing and reviewing the episodes of The Flash television series. I’d also like to offer occasional commentary, panels and pages, and general tomfoolery when time allows for it, particularly since the coming months promise big things for the Flash family. Indeed, although the comic book crossovers of the modern era take themselves deathly seriously, I’m interested in reminding everyone–myself included–why we all turned to comic books in the first place. Superheroes are fun, they make us smile. Comic blogs should make us smile, too.

Welcome back!

More on Flash: Rebirth from Fan Expo 2008

From CBR’s write-up of Saturday’s DC: A Guide to Your Universe panel at Fan Expo, here’s some more commentary on the future of the Flash.

[Dan] Didio said, “I don’t think I ever said Bart Allen was dead. I am serious.”

“We all wish it,” added Giffen to a chorus laughs.

“There were changes that were going to be made,” continued Didio. “There were stories that were going to be told and there were definite crossovers taking place at the moment of the death of Bart Allen. So there is a good chance there is going to be more resolutions to that character and what happened to him in the very near future or the very far future.”

Well, we already knew that Bart’s death was one of the major kick-offs for Salvation Run and all the threads in Countdown, Justice League, Checkmate, etc. that tied into it. But I’m not convinced that Dan Didio never said Bart was dead.

Ethan Van Sciver went into more detail on the future of the Flash franchise: Continue reading

Review: DC Super-Heroes: The Filmation Adventures

In 1967, the Filmation-produced Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure featured short animated segments with additional DC characters. The Superman and Aquaman segments have previously been released on DVD, and the rest are now available as the two-disc set, DC Super-Heroes: The Filmation Adventures.

These discs feature three seven-minute episodes each focusing on:

  • The Atom
  • The Flash
  • Green Lantern
  • Hawkman
  • The Justice League of America (made up of the above heroes, plus Superman)
  • Teen Titans (Kid Flash, Wonder Girl, Speedy, and Aqualad)

I’ve never seen these before (I grew up on Super Friends), and it’s hard to not compare them to the Bruce Timm-designed Justice League cartoons, which benefit from 30-odd years of advances in animation techniques (and technology) and storytelling — not to mention a decent budget. The stories are simplistic, the villains’ motivations even more so; lots of footage is re-used, and the heroes are flat. But the action tends to be wild and crazy, in keeping with the comics of the time.

In fact, a lot of the aspects that stand out when viewing these today are true to the source material. This was deep into the Silver Age at DC, and wild and crazy sci-fi adventure hadn’t yet given way to the more street-level storytelling of the Bronze Age. Continue reading