Naming Flash Eras

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I’ve been trying to work out how I can best break down appearance lists with the repeated Flash relaunches. Assuming that Flash: Rebirth sticks, I can categorize them this way:

  • Golden Age: Jay’s series, 1940–1951
  • Silver/Bronze Age: Barry’s series, 1956–1986
  • Legacy: Wally’s series, 1987–2006
  • One Year Later: Bart’s series, Wally’s relaunch, and Flash: Rebirth, 2006-2009
  • Post-Rebirth: Whatever we end up with starting next year.

I originally used the term “Modern Apperances” for 1987+, but with Infinite Crisis marking a major relaunch, I clearly needed to rename it. I picked “Crisis Era” on the idea that it was bounded by Crisis on Infinite Earths and Infinite Crisis. But with DC overusing the term “Crisis” lately, it doesn’t seem to fit that era anymore. I think “Legacy” has a better sound to it, and since DC did a lot of legacy characters in the 1990s (some with greater success than others), it fits.

As for the period from Infinite Crisis through Flash: Rebirth, I’m thinking “Musical Chairs Era” might be the most accurate, but I’m going to stick with “One Year Later” for now.

The Day Evil Won

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Final Crisis #3 was released today, and the Anti-Life Equation hit the Internet.

Meanwhile, the Comic Bloc website and forums are offline. A domain parking page loads instead.

Coincidence? Or casualty?

(Seriously, just before I started a round of forum reading, I joked with my wife, “Well, Final Crisis came out. Time to see if the Internet’s broken.” It wouldn’t surprise me if the server got overloaded again.)

This Week (Aug 6): The Wild Wests

This week we have the first collected edition from the current Flash relaunch, featuring Mark Waid’s brief return to the title. Several Flashes also appear in Final Crisis.

Flash: The Wild Wests

Wally West returns to active duty as the Flash — with the addition of his two children — in this amazing hardcover collecting The Flash #231-237, guest-starring the Justice League! What’s his dark, dark family secret — the one that’s helping him keep the peace in Keystone? This volume also includes “The Fast Life,” by Mark Waid, John Rogers and Doug Braithwaite — the compelling tale of the West family’s life on a Flash-friendly alien world.

Written by Mark Waid, John Rogers and Keith Champagne; Art by Daniel Acuña, Freddie Williams II and Doug Braithwaite; Cover by Acuña.

Notes: It’s odd that this would be the first Flash collection to come out in hardcover (not counting the archive editions), given how many people disliked the direction the series took. (Personally, I wasn’t wowed by it, but I enjoyed it well enough, and it led into Tom Peyer’s run, which I’ve really liked.)

This was originally scheduled for last week, but pushed back. Oddly enough, I saw a copy at Freddie Williams II’s table in Artist’s Alley the weekend before the original release date.

Final Crisis #3 of 7

Batman missing in action! Superman immobilized! Green Lantern on trial for his life!

A shadow is falling across Earth’s super heroes — and now it’s Wonder Woman’s turn to face the Evil Gods!

What bizarre warning from beyond awaits Frankenstein, The Question and the agents of S.H.A.D.E. in the shadows of the Dark Side Club? What grim fate lies in store for The Human Flame? What happens when the Anti-Life Equation hits the internet? Can the Fastest Men Alive outrun The Black Racer — Death himself? And who are the Justifiers?

The answers are all here as the unstoppable rise of evil continues in FINAL CRISIS #3 by Grant Morrison and J.G. Jones.

Notes: We all saw what happened at the end of the last issue. It seemed obvious from the cliffhanger, but just in case, the three fans who read the B&W preview at Comic-Con have assured us that yes, Barry Allen does appear in this issue. And then there’s the four-page preview released yesterday…

Edit: Either I misread the release date, or Tangent: Superman’s Reign has been rescheduled. It’s actually coming out August 20.

Blogging Elite?

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When I launched this blog, I did several things in order to promote it. I added it to my forum signatures. I took blogs that I read occasionally and made them regular reads, and started using this URL when commenting. And I submitted the site to some relevant blog directories.

I found Comic Blog Elite through Collected Editions. Speed Force started off fairly low in rank (in part because it started late in the day, so the daily averages were pulled down by that first day with only 1 or 2 hours), but it’s been slowly climbing up the ranks. I figured it would eventually settle around #5 or so.

Amazingly, for the last few days, Speed Force and Collected Editions have been vying for the #3 spot.

Wow!

Here’s a big thank-you to everyone who’s been reading!

Free-Falling Flash Sales

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It’s depressing, but sales on The Flash have continued to drop through June. Personally, I’d been hoping to see an uptick in the Tom Peyer/Freddie Williams II “Fast Money” arc, which has been quite good (IMO)…but with figures in for the fourth issue of their run, the numbers just keep dropping. The Beat’s sales charts for June:

02/2008: Flash #237     —  37,719 (-  9.0%)
03/2008: Flash #238     —  35,606 (-  5.6%)
04/2008: Flash #239     —  33,741 (-  5.2%)
05/2008: Flash #240     —  31,944 (-  5.3%)
06/2008: Flash #241     —  30,810 (-  3.6%)

They go on to add:

In what seems like a last-ditch effort to salvage the property, DC are apparently looking to exchange the title character again, which would be the third time since June 2006. Given that it won’t happen until January 2009, however, the next six months worth of The Flash sales are bound to be ugly.

Given that there’s a trend among comics fans to only care about books that “matter” — just look at how stand-alone books like The Brave and the Bold, JLA: Classified and JSA Classified, etc. tend to do vs. Final Infinite Countdown Crisis tie-ins — I can imagine plenty of potential readers will be sitting out the next five months, waiting until Flash: Rebirth not because they’re waiting specifically for Barry, but because they feel the current book is just filler.

It makes me wonder why DC is even bothering with another 4-issue arc, particularly one with a new creative team, when they’ve effectively undercut interest in it by announcing Rebirth before it starts.

Linkage: Rumors of Bart

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While many fans seem to be taking it as given that Bart Allen will return in Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds, there’s been considerably less certainty as to where he might continue to appear afterward. Will he return to the present, or stay in the 31st century? Will he return as Impulse, Kid Flash, or the Flash? Will he appear on any sort of regular basis, or just be an occasional guest star?

Rumor column Lying in the Gutters suggests he might be staying with the Legion, or at least be available in that setting:

One San Diegoer tells me, “I was waiting at the Aspen booth at Comic-Con getting a sketch done by current Legion Artist Francis Manapul, when Geoff Johns came over and interrupted to talk to him for a second. Johns had a copy of…his first Teen Titans trade, and handed it to Manapul, which Manapul said, ‘I eventually did get my hands on a copy and read it last night.’ The two of them talked about Bart Allen for a couple of minutes, with Manapul being very complimentary of how he was written. Johns looked around, saw people were watching, and turned his back and the two of them continued to talk inaudibly for about 10 minutes about something before Johns left.

“Combine that with the vague question that Johns asked at one panel: ‘Does anyone miss Bart Allen?’ and there has to be something there.”

Rich Johnston gives the rumor a yellow light on his traffic-light scale of reliability, so even he isn’t sure what — if anything — the conversation means. It could mean absolutely nothing.