Welcome to the third entry in our breakdowns of Flash stories by Cary Bates! We’re counting down to the July 20th release of Showcase Presents: The Trial of the Flash.
UP TO SPEED: Last week, we saw the Flash and three Central City “V.I.P.’s” at the mercy of the Clown! Meanwhile, Barry Allen was dealing with the onset of Dr. Nephron’s controversial criminal-rehabilitation procedures, and the growing frustrations of his wife!
At the WonderCon DC Nation panel, DC announced a series of one-shots coming this summer called “Retro-Active.” Each set features three one-shots set in 1970s, 1980s and 1990s continuity re-uniting the characters with the creators most associated with of classic runs from that era.
The Flash issues will be written by:
Each issue will feature 26 pages of new story and 20 pages of reprinted material and will run $4.99. No word yet on artists or release dates. Other characters announced include Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, and the Justice League of America.
It’s odd that they’ve broken up the Waid/Augustyn team. Given that Waid has expressed willingness to work for DC again, I figure this means one of two things:
Source: CBR coverage and Newsarama coverage.
Update (Monday): DC has released the logos and writers for the event.
Most Flash readers, if they know about Cobalt Blue at all, know him as a new character introduced in the second half of the Mark Waid/Brian Augustyn run on The Flash in 1999. They might know that his link to Barry Allen was hinted at in The Life Story of the Flash and the first Flash Secret Files (both 1997), or that two Cobalt Blues appeared in the 1997 Speed Force special.
But Cobalt Blue’s origins can be traced all the way back to 1980!
Let’s return to the Bronze Age of comics. Continue reading
Welcome to the second entry in our breakdown of Flash stories from the late 1970s and early 1980s, leading up to the July 20th release of “The Trial of the Flash”!
UP TO SPEED: Last week we looked at Flash #270 and the introduction of the mysterious Clown, who seemed to have gotten the best of Barry Allen. We also witnessed the birth of Dr. Nephron’s prisoner rehabilitation program, a female fan out to “ensnare” our hero, a jilted Iris Allen, and a heroin smuggling operation based in Barry’s crime lab!
This week, we’ll review the events of issue 271.
Welcome to the first installment in our analysis of the soon-to-be-reprinted “Trial of the Flash”, and related Flash storylines!
Arguably the most praised and vilified pre-Crisis Flash tale, the Trial story was written by Cary Bates, began in 1983 and ran through the title’s cancellation in 1985. With seeds in stories from as far back as 1979, the Trial was essentially the collision of years of Flash plot threads. These stories are some of the earliest examples of long-form, soap-opera style writing in DC Comics.
Today’s guest post is by Lia and was originally posted at The Rogues Kick Ass.
There are a number of reasons why I dislike Geoff Johns’ treatment of the Golden Glider (Lisa Snart), and it’s primarily because he makes her weak. Originally, she was an angry, vengeful character — a woman so angry about her boyfriend’s untimely death that she sought revenge on the Flash for purportedly killing him. It was her sole reason for becoming a villain, as she’d had no criminal record prior to the Top’s death and originally wasn’t interested in theft. For example, in Flash v1 #250 she vowed “No more skating for me…not until Roscoe’s death is avenged! And that means — get the Flash where it hurts the most!”
All her early appearances depicted her as viciously obsessed with making the Flash suffer just as she had, to the point of being defiantly willing to kill herself to fulfill this revenge. When the Flash bluffed about killing her to save his family from her scheme in Flash v1 #257, she declared “Then I’ll die — gladly! Without my beloved Roscoe, I have only one thing to live for anyway — vengeance! And with that accomplished, I’ll perish in peace — knowing you will be mourning as I have mourned — three times over!” There were in fact quite a few instances of her declaring hate for the Flash and her intent to get revenge. She was a strong and forceful person, if not a particularly pleasant one.