Tag Archives: Delays

Geoff Johns Talks Flash’s Future

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Geoff Johns posted on Comic Bloc this morning about plans for the Flash through 2010. He recommends that Flash fans read Blackest Night , says he’s seen Blackest Night: Flash and goes on to reveal:

  • March sees the release of Flash Secret Files 2010.
  • April features “not one, but two new Flash titles. There have been a few minor top secret alterations that will be revealed soon, I think, about the books.”

Presumably that means The Flash and Kid Flash will both debut in April. The top secret alterations may include a backup feature in Kid Flash, or perhaps an artist change. (I suppose it could mean two Flash books in April and then Kid Flash in May, but that seems unlikely for now.)

He talks a little about the new series:

The first arc of THE FLASH is called THE DASTARDLY DEATH OF THE ROGUES and should be self-explanatory…kind of. 🙂 Other arcs will include MURDER IN GORILLA CITY, THE RETURN OF ### ######## and a brand new Rogue with a power unlike anyone in comics, but perfect for the Flash.

Johns also addresses the delays with Flash: Rebirth, saying it’s “as frustrating for [him] as anyone” and adding that “after much debate, we didn’t want to hand the series over to another artist or spilt up the book.”

There’s a lot more, particularly about Blackest Night: The Flash. He notes that “the ending [of the first issue?] might be my favorite line Captain Cold has ever uttered.”

Stalled With One Issue Left

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A few weeks ago, I mentioned that a lot of the indie comics I read don’t have fixed schedules. In a few cases, it goes beyond that, and the comics are, as near as I can tell, totally stalled — in some cases for years. Maddeningly, there are a few that are stalled just one issue from the conclusion!

Planetary #27 was one of these, but the epilogue issue finally came out last month. I was beginning to wonder whether Ignition City was headed the same way, once it got to three months after the fourth issue, but the last issue finally came out in October.

Currently, I’m waiting for…

Gemini

Gemini #4(Image) This five-issue miniseries from Jay Faerber and Jon Sommariva about a super-hero whose secret identity doesn’t know he’s a super-hero (sort of like that TV show with Christian Slater last year) started off solidly, then quickly went off the rails scheduling-wise. I didn’t even realize how late it had gotten until I looked for it a few days ago and found a reference to the original solicitation: It was supposed to wrap in September 2008! The longest gap was between and (which came out this past July).

Status: The artist is currently working on the issue…along with a bunch of other projects.

Update (March 2011) Still not finished. According to Jay Faerber, “Jon Sommariva has the script, so it’s in his hands now.”

Robert Jordan’s New Spring – COMPLETED! (May 2010)

Robert Jordan's New Spring #1(Dabel Bros.) This 8-issue miniseries adapting the Wheel of Time prequel launched in August 2005, produced by Dabel Bros. and published by Red Eagle Entertainment. After a couple of issues it got to be very sporadic as the studio and publisher started to feud, and it ceased publication entirely after came out in early 2006.

Two years later (summer 2008), Dabel Bros. announced that they would start adapting the main Wheel of Time series, but at the time had no plans to complete New Spring. Finally, in April 2009, they announced that they’d be finishing the miniseries. came out in May, along with a prologue to the new series, then I waited…#7 came out in August… Now there’s just one issue left, but there’s been no sign of New Spring anywhere. For that matter, Eye of the World seems to have stalled after just one issue. Meanwhile, Bleeding Cool has been reporting financial problems — like not paying artists — and Dabel Bros. website has gone offline.

Status: It doesn’t look promising, but then the series has already come back from the dead once. I believe Tor (Robert Jordan’s publisher) has the rights to publish the collected edition. Maybe if Dabel Bros. can’t finish it in miniseries form, Tor can step in, finance the last chapter, and just sell it as a hardcover? I’d certainly buy it.

Update (April 2010): I may be able to cross this one off the list soon. Dynamite (who has taken over Dabel Brothers’ catalog) has scheduled the last issue for June!

Update (May 2010): The final issue of New Spring arrived on May 12, 2010! Dynamite has also relaunched the Eye of the World adaptation.

The Oz/Wonderland Chronicles – COMPLETED! (April 2011)

Oz/Wonderland Chronicles #4 (Preview)(BuyMeToys.com) Simple premise: Alice from Alice in Wonderland and Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz have grown up and left behind the worlds they think were simply childhood fantasies, and are now roommates in (IIRC) Chicago (Their other roommates include Wendy from Peter Pan and an obvious analog of Susan from the Narnia books). Of course, their pasts were real, and now they’re being called upon to return to those worlds and help them. The four-issue miniseries was coming out about once a year starting in 2005, but it’s been at least two years since issue .

Status: They released a preview of at Chicago Comic-Con this year, and the website says it’ll be out “early 2010.”

Update (June 2010): I’ve found several stores listing an August 25, 2010 release date, but the official website doesn’t say anything. We’ll see.

Update (April 2011): The fourth issue finally came out on April 13, 2011 — three years after the previous issue and six since the first. Meanwhile, they launched a sequel, “Jack and Cat Tales,” before they actually finished the first series.

One Week to Flash: Rebirth #5, Dan Didio Talks Delays

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Flash: Rebirth #5So, who remembers what happened in Flash: Rebirth ? 😀 All joking aside, it looks like we’ll finally get the next installment of the story in just over a week. Not only does DC still list Flash: Rebirth with a November 18 date, it’s on also on Diamond’s upcoming releases list for books shipping next week. It’s extremely rare for anything to slip once it appears on that list (though I have seen it happen occasionally).

Here’s what the miniseries’ schedule looks like at this point:

Issue Orig. Date Actual Date Gap Delay
Flash: Rebirth #1 April 1 April 1 3 months* On time
Flash: Rebirth #2 May 6 May 6 5 weeks On time
Flash: Rebirth #3 June 10 June 10 5 weeks On time
Flash: Rebirth #4 July 22 Aug. 26 11 weeks 5 weeks
Flash: Rebirth #5 Aug. 26 Nov. 18 12 weeks 12 weeks
Flash: Rebirth #6 Sep. 30 Dec. 23** 5 weeks 12 weeks

*Since Flash v.2 #247

**Well, currently-scheduled date, anyway.

All signs point to the next mini-series, Blackest Night: The Flash staying on track. Especially when you factor in Dan Didio’s comments on scheduling in his latest 10 Answers column:

…A lot of times the story drives how the books are produced. Certain books we have a certain level of leeway with because of how they fall within the rest of the DCU continuity. Books like Flash: Rebirth, books like Superman: Secret Origin, had long lead times and they still ran into some problems toward the end. But because of the consistency of the look and the consistency of the team and the consistency of the vision of that material, we’re willing to wait for those books because they don’t have an impact on other series that are rolling out at that time. [emphasis added]

But when we have other books like Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps, it’s essential for them to come out in conjunction with Blackest Night, and for those, we know to plan differently.

Both sides — Rebirth not holding up the rest of the DCU and Blackest Night: Flash needing to sync up with Blackest Night — would seem to factor into the decision to keep the Johns/Kolins miniseries on schedule even though it means launching before Rebirth ends (whenever that ends up being).

Just think: in a few weeks, the Flash franchise should be back on track!

Flash: Rebirth #5 Now Due November 18

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Flash: Rebirth #5It looks like Flash: Rebirth #5 won’t be out next week after all. Reader Perplexio wrote in to point out that DC’s website now shows a release date of November 18.

The funny thing is, I checked it two hours ago and it still said November 11. It’s starting to feel like I should check it on an hourly basis!

No change on the release dates for Flash: Rebirth or the first two issues of Blackest Night: The Flash.

The current schedule looks like this:

Flash: Rebirth #5 November 18, 2009
Blackest Night: The Flash #1 December 2, 2009
Flash: Rebirth #6 December 23, 2009
Blackest Night: The Flash #2 January 13, 2010

It’s beginning to look less and less likely that Flash: Rebirth will finish this year. With no comics shipping the week of December 30, even a one-week slip on issue #6 will push it into January.

Keeping Comics on Schedule

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By now the delays on Flash: Rebirth -6 have become legendary. But the book is hardly alone. Just this week, I picked up issues of Dynamo 5 and Ignition City that, despite the series starting on a monthly schedule, came out several months after the previous issue. In fact, a lot of the independent comics I read don’t seem to have a strict schedule. Rather than soliciting them monthly and then rescheduling them the way DC often does, they seem to solicit them as they’re ready.

On the plus side, it’s less frustrating for the reader who doesn’t see a particular issue get scheduled, then delayed repeatedly. On the minus side, the reader has no clue when to expect more.

Solutions

If the goal is to keep a book to a regular schedule, some of the ways I’ve seen to keep it from falling behind include: Continue reading →

Answering Questions from Searchers

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Every once in a while I see something in the search terms that people have used to reach this site that makes me wish I could contact them and answer their questions. So I figured I’d try something new: The following are questions (or implied questions) pulled from this week’s site statistics.

Interestingly enough, they settled into three broad categories.

Costumes

What does Wally West’s new costume look like? (There are lots of variations on this one!)

Short answer: We haven’t seen it yet. But according to Geoff Johns, Ethan Van Sciver’s design is “Very clean, very familiar, yet unique!”

What is the difference in the Flash costumes?

  • Barry Allen: belt is straight across, boots always have wings, eyes are always visible (well, except in this week’s Brave and the Bold issue).
  • Wally West: 1986-1991: same. 1991-2009: belt is V-shaped, boots sometimes have wings, eyes sometimes covered, costume is sometimes shiny.

Jay Garrick, of course, has a completely different costume with blue pants, red boots, no mask and a silver helmet.

How to make a Golden Age Flash costume. (Several variations on this, also.)

Here’s a two-part series describing exactly how to do it:

Future of the Flash

Will Flash Rebirth ever finish? (Yes, that’s exactly how it was phrased.)

Yes. The next issue is scheduled for November 11, and the whole thing should wrap up on December 23, 2009. The schedule could still slip, of course.

Why is Flash Rebirth being delayed?

Artist Ethan Van Sciver has accepted at least some of the blame for being a slow artist. He intended Flash: Rebirth as a project that would help him learn to draw faster.

Will Wally West be back in 2010?

Yes. Wally West will star in a second feature in the new Flash comic book, written by Geoff Johns and drawn by Scott Kolins.

More immediately, he will appear in both Blackest Night: Flash and Blackest Night itself, alongside Barry Allen.

Powers

Who is the fastest Flash?

Whoever’s currently starring in the main book.

How Flash got super speed.

Lab accidents, mainly. Jay Garrick inhaled chemical fumes (originally identified as “hard water,” but later sometimes identified as “heavy water,” which still doesn’t make sense, but radioactivity makes a little more sense than high mineral content). Barry Allen was struck by lightning and simultaneously splashed with chemicals. Wally West was struck by a repetition of Barry’s accident.

What force is involved in lightning flashes?

Electromagnetism.

Is it possible to run as fast as a speed force?

I’m not entirely sure what this question is asking.