Tag Archives: Barry Allen

Flash: Rebirth #6 Solicited!

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Newsarama has a preview of DC’s September solicitations, including the conclusion to The Flash: Rebirth!

The Flash: Rebirth

Flash: Rebirth #6Written by Geoff Johns
Art and covers by Ethan Van Sciver

In a battle along the outskirts of time, the secrets of the Speed Force have been revealed! The new archnemesis of those who ride the lightning is coming for Iris Allen. And the Barry Allen you knew is gone forever…or is he? What change does Wally West face? What destiny will Kid Flash choose? Prepare to meet a Flash Family that’s both familiar and different…and get to the starting line for the next epic adventures of the Speed Force!

Retailers please note: This issue will ship with two covers. For every 25 copies of the Standard Edition (with a cover by Ethan Van Sciver), retailers may order one copy of the Variant Edition (with a cover by Ethan Van Sciver). Please see the Previews Order Form for more information.

On sale September 30 • 6 of 6 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US

Wow… my website (Flash: Those Who Ride the Lightning) has an arch-nemesis now! 😉

Also: It seems pretty clear who’s going to be wearing the costume at the end of this miniseries. Not that it was ever really in doubt.

I do have to wonder what they mean by the “new” arch-nemesis. The cover for gives me the sense that they’re combining the Black Flash and Professor Zoom (though that may have been misdirection on the pre-release cover to prevent spoilers). Someone on Comic Bloc (I’m too sleepy to look it up now) suggested that we may be seeing Malcolm Thawne take over the role of Professor Zoom.

Wouldn’t it be interesting if they’re combining all the opposite numbers into one? Eobard Thawne, Malcolm Thawne, Hunter Zolomon and the Black Flash, all in one entity?

Update: Geoff Johns confirms on Comic Bloc that this is not the final cover.

Full Review: Flash: Rebirth #3 — “Rearview Mirrors”

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Flash: Rebirth #3

Well, the good news is that this issue does read better the second time through. I’ve re-read Flash: Rebirth and , then read again. Oddly enough, I liked the first two issues better the first time through than the second, and like this one better the second time through than the first read.

The bad news is that the cliffhanger still leaves me cold.

Now it could just be relaunch fatigue. The excitement of “Geoff Johns is back! With Ethan Van Sciver!” has worn off by now, and in a sense the actual relaunch isn’t going to be for another four months or more. Flash: Rebirth isn’t so much a new direction as it is the process of changing course. It’s not the new house, it’s the act of remodeling. And you know, it would be nice to actually move into that house instead of watch the contractors working on it.

But the main purpose of Flash: Rebirth is to convince people that the new direction is worth their time. People are asking, “Why should I get involved with a series that DC has relaunched 3 times in the last 3 years? Why should I let myself get attached to this new direction when they change it every 6 months? Why should I let myself get attached to the main character when they replace him every year?” By going back to Barry Allen, the one character whose resurrection was not an option for more than 20 years, they’re making a commitment: “This time, we really mean it!” In theory, that should clear away the baggage the Flash has accumulated over the last 3 years and leave it on the same level as any other comics launch.

Which still leaves hooking the readers on the Flash, and hooking them on Barry Allen.

I don’t think I can really go into the rest of the issue without spoilers, so… you’ve been warned! Continue reading →

Super-Speed Violence

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Four Color Media Monitor considers the dark side of Flash as multidimensional CSI — namely, the level of violence in the CSI shows.

And Geoff Johns certainly has a reputation for scripting graphic violence. I didn’t notice it so much on his initial Flash run, despite the fact that he opened with an entire morgue full of murder victims, but it became clear as I read more of his work — JSA (though I only really read “Injustice Be Done” and the first arc of Justice Society of America — which has Baroness Blitzkrieg, who super-speeds through people causing them to explode), Infinite Crisis (Superboy Prime screaming “You’re ruining everything!” as he dismembers and beheads C-list members of the Titans with his bare hands on-panel), etc.

I do think violence — even graphic violence — has a place in storytelling, but not necessarily in every story. In something like Final Crisis: Rogues’ Revenge, or Irredeemable, it fits. You’re dealing with hardened criminals or ax crazy super-beings, and that’s the point.

But I don’t think it’s a good fit for the Flash. In all his incarnations, the character has primarily been about the wonder of speed. And while super-speed can certainly make violence very effective (or ineffective, depending on who the fast one is), and has many practical uses, what do most people think about when they think of the Flash?

Running.

That’s not battle. That’s not a fighting technique (discounting Baroness Blitzkrieg, anyway). That’s adventure.

Sure, adventures often involve fighting, or death-defying stunts, or overcoming a powerful villain of one sort or another. But the violence isn’t the point of the adventure — it’s an element of risk.

I said last week that I liked the idea of Barry as an interdimensional detective, and I do — in the sense that I want to read about him solving bizarre crimes. But I don’t want to see it turn into Powers. I’m already reading Powers, and I want something different from The Flash.

I’d like to think that Geoff Johns, as he brings to an end the story of Superboy Prime in Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds and gives us the final word on death in the DC Universe in Blackest Night, will keep The Flash (post-Rebirth) more about adventure than about death and dismemberment.

Silver Age Milestone Sells for $180K

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Showcase #4Heritage Auctions reported today that a copy of Showcase graded at CGC NM+ 9.6 sold for almost $180,000 at auction, making it “the single most-expensive Silver Age book in history.” In an earlier post, Heritage Auctions stated that this was the best-preserved copy of the issue known.

At the time the book was published, superheroes — and comics in general — had fallen out of favor. Showcase introduced the world to a revamped Flash. Jay Garrick and his Mercury-inspired costume were gone, replaced by the more modern Barry Allen. The success of the Flash led to an ongoing series, as well as space-age reboots of Green Lantern, the Atom, Hawkman and others, ushering in a new superhero boom.

In fact, the issue is often cited as the start of the Silver Age of comics. (Other contenders are the first appearances of the Martian Manhunter and Captain Comet.)

Barry Allen: Metatemporal Detective

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Another interview with Geoff Johns, this time at Scripps News.

The stuff I really want to focus on is with Barry Allen as a crime-solver. But his crimes are on the crazy ’60s-physics level. A murder could span across dimensions or ancient cities or crazy places that are real cities. Or he could find a body where the crime is unsolvable through normal means, and kinda taking that “CSI” approach but putting it on a greater scale of wonder and scope and the DC Universe itself….He solves crimes that are unbelievably bizarre and unexplainable. And they take him to different places and strange foes and bizarre criminals.

The interviewer compares it to CSI: 52.

This sounds like the kind of book I’d be interested in even without the Flash. And when Geoff Johns eventually leaves, Grant Morrison would be the perfect choice to follow him — I like the way he wrote Barry in Final Crisis, and he showed in his 9-issue run back in the 1990s (reprinted in The Flash: Emergency Stop and next month’s Flash: The Human Race) that he can write crazy sci-fi adventure starring the Flash.

Read the rest of the interview.

(Title shamelessly taken from Michael Moorcock’s short story collection, The Metatemporal Detective.)

Geoff Johns: Building a Mystery

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IGN interviews Geoff Johns about Flash: Rebirth, Blackest Night and Superboy. He’s still being really cagey about Flash: Rebirth, since it’s “about the greatest crime ever committed against the Flash family and a mystery doesn’t start with the answers, it ends with them.” But a few items that stood out:

I want to explore regarding Barry’s time before he became the Flash. There hasn’t been a whole lot done, if anything, about what Barry did before he was the Flash and what Central City was like before the Flash was around. That’s going to be something I’ll be exploring in the future.

It’s been a few years since I’ve read most of the Barry issues, but yeah, I seem to recall there was very little of Barry’s pre-Flash career as an adult. Readers learned more about his childhood in Fallville, his friendship with Daphne Dean, his comic book collecting and fascination with the Golden Age Flash than about how he met Iris or ended up working for the Central City Police Department. The book that did go into it was Mark Waid’s The Life Story of The Flash, which dealt with how Barry ended up in criminology, how he and Iris met and got engaged, etc.

As far as various character cameos in the first two issues:

There’s stuff going on with all of the Flash’s enemies and allies….every villain that appears there are plans for. Seeds sown. Like Black Hand in Green Lantern: Rebirth. There’s a long race ahead of us.

So Geoff Johns has long-term plans for The Flash. And since he’s Geoff Johns and not Grant Morrison, chances are DC will actually follow through with them and not try to sweep them under the rug as soon as his book is over. (Though to be fair they do seem to be following through on Morrison’s Batman arc, at least.)

At this point, it sounds like a virtual certainty that Geoff Johns will be writing the inevitable ongoing series that will follow Flash: Rebirth. This is probably a good thing, though at this point I want to see where Rebirth goes before calling it.