Tag Archives: Dan Didio

Brightest Day: The Flash (and Flash #1 Cover)

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After the Blackest Night comes the Brightest DayDC has announced over at The Source that DC will be following Blackest Night with Brightest Day, a yearlong, 26-issue biweekly series by Geoff Johns and Peter Tomasi that’s being described as “DCU: Rebirth.” Like Blackest Night, it will tie into just about everything, with some series (including the two Green Lantern books) getting a “Brightest Day” Banner…including The Flash.

I think it’s safe to say this is the cover for The Flash #1.

Dan Didio explains:

We’ll be launching the new FLASH ongoing series, by Geoff and Francis Manapul in April with a BRIGHTEST DAY banner, and there will be several more titles utilizing it come May and June.

With this book, Geoff and Francis are really bringing Barry Allen back into the spotlight and cementing him as the premiere Flash in the DCU in his own monthly. It’s no secret that I’ve been waiting a long time to see this. I’ve always been a huge Barry fan, and I can say that Geoff and Francis are reinvigorating him as a character in much the same way Geoff did with Hal Jordan. Should be fun.

Well, you can’t say they aren’t giving the new series a major push. (Now I’d really like to see numbers on Blackest Night: The Flash.)

I’d like to believe that Brightest Day represents the long-promised, well, brightening of the DC Universe we were told would happen after Infinite Crisis, but if Flash is a major component, and it’s going to be all about murder mysteries, I’m a little concerned. On the other hand, Pushing Daisies had a new murder mystery each week, and still managed to be a light-hearted comedy, so who knows?

Here’s hoping Brightest Day will live up to its name!

Update: The news on Brightest Day: Titans seems to suggest that Brightest Day will be continuing the grim-n-gritty approach that DC has taken from Identity Crisis onward.

Update 2: IGN interviews Geoff Johns about the project.

Flash in 2010=100% Barry Allen – Kid Flash Series & Wally West Backups Canceled

So…DC’s latest 20 Questions with Dan Didio video has some bad news for fans of the extended Flash family. He answered my question about the Flash and Kid Flash books, explaining that they’ve decided to go back to “the original game plan” and focus on a single Flash book starring Barry Allen.

Wally West’s backup stories, by Geoff Johns & Scott Kolins? “On hold.” [Edit: This may be the result of DC restructuring the second features.]

The Kid Flash book by Sterling Gates? “On hold.”

He goes on to say, “Your Flash fix will be Barry Allen, pure and simple, for 2010.”

Warning: Rant Ahead

Edit: The rest of this post is a rant, bashed out in the heat of the moment immediately after watching that video. If I’d had the sense to wait until I’d cooled down, I wouldn’t have written it.

To clarify what I did write, it’s not just that Barry’s getting the limelight that has me pissed off. I’ve had a year and a half to get used to that. What really has me steamed is that DC announced ongoing stories starring Bart and Wally, then changed their minds and yanked that away.

I picked up Flash: Rebirth hoping that it would convince me to like the idea of new Barry stories. It hasn’t. If it had, this news would have still been disappointing, but wouldn’t have gotten me so angry.

Anyway, onto the original post…

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Kid Flash & Max Mercury

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Dan Didio let slip some more information about the upcoming Kid Flash series in his latest 10 Answers column at Newsarama. First he reminded readers that Geoff Johns and Sterling Gates will be working closely together to keep the Flash and Kid Flash books linked, similar to the way Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps have been linked. Then he added something that fans of the Impulse series may find appealing:

You’ll still see the dynamic between Kid Flash and Max Mercury, if I’m not mistaken. And I think that’s new information, so you did get something out of me. But Max will be featured in this series as well. So if somebody’s a fan of Impulse, they’ll get that relationship back in the Kid Flash series. Because of the Max/Bart relationship, I think they’ll be very pleasantly surprised about what the plans are for the book.

This book is sounding better and better! Only two one more question:

  1. Who will do the art?
  2. When will it launch?

I suspect the artist hasn’t been finalized yet, though they could be waiting until they get closer to a firm launch date. And on that score, “About a month after Flash” is certainly more specific than certain other series (*cough* Zatanna *cough*) have gotten, but it’ll be nice when DC can give us a firm “April 2010” or “May 2010.” Edit: As Andrew points out, Dan Didio does indicate that the book will be launching in May 2010.

Speed Reading: Sketches, Schedules, Collections and More

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Some linkblogging for the weekend…

Artists and a Publisher

Karl Kerschl shares a sketch of Iris West he did while in Italy.

Francis Manapul shares a black and white version of his variant cover for Blackest Night: The Flash #3.

Dan Didio talks to CBR about a number of things including Flash. He reiterates some of the reasons they let the book fall behind rather than put a new team on it to bring it out quickly, like they did with Final Crisis:

That ran with some delays, but at the end of the day we looked at the full package of how that will look as a book, and we wanted to maintain consistency all the way through. The events of that book weren’t essential to what happens with the Flash in “Blackest Night.”

Nothing new. In fact he said more or less the same thing a couple of days earlier to Newsarama. Interestingly, he describes the new Flash series book as spinning out of Blackest Night. Whether that’s simply in publishing terms, or in story terms as well, is not clear.

Fan Commentary

The Flash makes IO9’s 10 Favorite Faux Deaths In Science Fiction. If you want to get technical, it’s really their 12 favorite fake/reversed deaths, because the Flash entry includes Barry Allen (Crisis on Infinite Earths), Wally West (Infinite Crisis) and Bart Allen (Flash: The Fastest Man Alive). Or maybe 13, since it’s got both Phoenix and Jean Grey.

Collected Editions compares the Final Crisis and Blackest Night collections.

The Flash in New Frontier makes Comics Should Be Good’s 313th cool comic book moment. They’re also accepting nominations for a top 100 comic storylines poll.

Other Stuff

Comic Wallet is selling wallets made from pages of Flash: Rebirth.

A bit off-topic, I’ve been running a photo blog, updating three times a week, mostly with shots from around the Orange County, California area. I’ve also reviewed The Gathering Storm, the new Wheel of Time novel that kept me away from the computer for a week.

Speed Reading: B&B, JLA Monopoly, and More

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Some linkblogging for the weekend…

Fortress of Baileytude starts JSA Week by declaring that Jay Garrick is the Man.

Once Upon a Geek looks back at a Justice League Monopoly board game from 1999.

For the ladies: A Comic Blog starts off their Top 10 Sexiest Comic Guys list with Wally West.

Joey Cavalieri talks about the Battle of the Bulge and Brave and the Bold #28, this week’s J. Michael Straczynski/Jesus Saiz team-up between the Flash and the Blackhawks. IGN reviews the issue.

Billy Tucci talks about his Flash/Superman race in this week’s DC Universe Halloween Special.

Dan Didio talks about legacies and characters growing up in his latest 10 Answers column.

Dan Didio Talks Kid Flash Launch: April or May

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In the latest 10 Answers with Dan Didio (it’s now 10 questions every week instead of 20 questions every 2 weeks), Dan Didio answers some questions about the upcoming Kid Flash series being written by Sterling Gates.

Launch date: “somewhere around April or May of next year. It will launch about a month after the launch of the new Flash book.” Note: Last we heard, Flash was going to launch in March 2010, which would place it a month after the planned end of Blackest Night: Flash

Artist: “I’ve got a couple of artists who are under consideration,” but right now they’re focused on coordinating stories.

He also reiterates what Geoff Johns has previously said about the Flash and Kid Flash books being aligned much in the same way that Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps are aligned.

There are, of course, 9 more questions and answers in the original article, including some interesting remarks on solicitations and spoilers.

(Thanks to @SpeedsterSite for the link)