Tag Archives: Emergency Stop

Interview: Paul Ryan Talks Flash

Today’s guest post is the second in a series of interviews by Greg Elias on The Art of Speed.

With a Flash resume spanning a presidential election, trips to Hell, living clothes and a cosmic death-race, Paul Ryan’s work on the title is some of the most diverse of any artist to ever pencil those pages.

Starting with issue 119, a crossover with the Final Night mini-series, Ryan was paired with Flash scribe Mark Waid. From the Presidential Race storyline through Hell to Pay, Ryan was present for the return of The Top, Wally’s temporary relocation to Santa Marta and the raging comeback of the undead Rogues.

When Waid took a break from Flash in 1997, well-known writers Grant Morrison and Mark Millar took over for a year’s worth of stories. The tone of the book changed with the reintroduction of temporal challenges, mystical concepts and sci-fi elements reminiscent of the Silver Age Flash, as well as the expansion of more recent tropes like the Speed Force and Wally’s childhood.

Ryan also illustrated Legends of the DC Universe: Crisis on Infinite Earths, by Crisis architect Marv Wolfman, which tells the story of Barry Allen’s time on Earth D.

Previously an artist over at Marvel Comics, Ryan co-created the New Universe series DP7 and spent a notable, lengthy run on Fantastic Four. Most recently, he has illustrated The Phantom comic strip.

Recently collected for the first time, Emergency Stop and The Human Race showcase much of the second half of Ryan’s run on Flash.

Ryan answered our questions via email, revealing some of the process and his favorite Flash.

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Review: Flash — Emergency Stop

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Flash Week continues at Collected Editions with my guest review of Flash: Emergency Stop. The trade covers the first half of the year-long Grant Morrison/Mark Millar run with art by Paul Ryan and covers four stories:

Emergency Stop (Flash vs. the Suit)
Through the Looking Glass (Flash vs. Mirror Master)
Still Life in the Fast Lane (a focus on Jay Garrick)
Three of a Kind: Part Three (a courtroom drama dealing with the aftermath of a Flash/Green Lantern/Green Arrow team-up)

Read the review at Collected Editions, or order the book at Amazon.

Flash Week at Collected Editions

Geoff Johns on the Nature of the Speed Force

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Last Monday, CBR posted a new installment of Geoff Johns Prime, their occasional question-and-answer feature with the writer.

Responding to a question about the new costumes introduced in Flash: Rebirth #5, he talked about the “Emergency Stop” story by Grant Morrison and Mark Millar and how it provided “the first inkling that the Speed Force was more than just gasoline.”

I always thought of the Speed Force as if it were this layer, kind of like the fluid in your joints that allows your bones to move together, and if you think of that as the Speed Force, it’s this fluid between the now and the time stream. It allows the two to co-exist, because the way time exists, it’s not just a line, it’s a sphere. So that fluid coats that sphere and the sphere is the Speed Force. And that sphere touches all reality and it’s full of everything, it’s full of ultimate speed, moving through reality, because time is all relative and it’s full of all scientific knowledge. It’s all knowledge of all eras.

Johns answered several other questions about the Flash, confirming that the Rogues will be heavily involved in the new series (no surprise there) and that their tailor, Paul Gambi, will return.

Another item I found interesting is that the price was a major factor in the decision to scrap the backup stories they had previously announced.

There’s more there about the Flash, plus he answers questions about Blackest Night, Earth One, Smallville and more.

Speed Reading: Kadabra, Death, and the Marks

Death and Rebirth

The Alliterates ponders why dead men (Barry & Hal) tell more tales.

Dan Didio talks death and resurrection in his latest 20 Questions feature.

Where Are They Now?

Mark Waid talks Cyberforce/Hunter-Killer.

Marc Guggenheim (“Full Throttle”) and Michael Green talk about trying to get serialized fiction onto TV…not to mention dealing with religious themes on TV.

Speed Reading: Retro Reviews, Doug Hazlewood, TV Shows and More

The Victoria Advocate profiles Doug Hazlewood.

Comics In Crisis presents Flash v.2 #182 (2002), the Captain Cold Rogue Profile story, among the 10 Essential Bronze Age Comic Stories You Should Read. I’d disagree with the Bronze-Age classification (traditionally, the Bronze Age of Comics ran from the 1970s through mid 1980s, with Crisis on Infinite Earths being a good reference point for DC books), but it’s absolutely a must-read.

X-Man reviews Flash vol.2 #1 (1987), noting how different Wally West was at the age of 20 than he is today. That’s actually one of the things Wallys’ long-term fans like most about the character: that we’ve seen him grow and change naturally, rather than simply be given a personality transplant whenever a new writer shows up.

The Quantum Blog talks about TV shows canceled before their time, including the 1990-1991 Flash TV Series. (Hard to believe it’s been almost 20 years. Seriously, Quantum Leap is having a 20th Anniversary convention this month. I feel old…)

The Worlogog celebrates Weird Silver Age Tales of the Flash.

I haven’t had a chance to listen yet, but Raging Bullets Podcast #152 features Flash’s Rogues with listener guest Mike Simms.

Heritage Auctions will be selling a CGC 9.6 copy of Showcase #4, the comic that rebooted the Flash as Barry Allen, launching the Silver Age (via It’s all Just Comics)

A Journal of Zarjaz Things looks at Flash: Emergency Stop, griping that Grant Morrison’s 9-issue run is split across two trades with the second “padded” out with a 3-parter by Mark Millar. IMO, though, Morrison didn’t write a 9-issue Morrison run — he co-wrote 9 issues of a 12-issue Morrison/Millar run. It would have been less responsible for DC to print only the Morrison issues and leave out “The Black Flash,” which has arguably had more lasting impact on the Flash mythos than the other stories in these trades, good as they are. (It is silly that they left out the first two parts of “Three of a Kind,” though.)