Tag Archives: Flash: Rebirth

DC Universe at Comic-Con: Big Flash News UPDATED

AARGH! Liveblogging failed. Lots on Twitter. BIG news: Geoff Johns on Flash ongoing after Blackest Night: Flash, Sterling Gates on Kid Flash ongoing.

Update: Now that the day’s tweets have been imported, here’s my full running commentary on the panel.

  • Inkpot award to Bob Wayne
  • SDCC is like “longest Thanksgiving dinner ever” – con staffer
  • Flash:Rebirth – bunch of Flashes behind him on final cover
  • GEOFF JOHNS ON FLASH ONGOING!
  • Some costume changes & a new speedster by end of Flash:Rebirth
  • Sounded like Flash ongoing starts after Blackest Night:Flash. They’re all Geoff Johns-written.
  • Troia, Batman, Hal &…Monel w/ S symbol In JLA.
  • Good Dr. Light vs Black Lantern evil Dr. Light
  • Guessing Batgirl’s ID: Stephanie Brown? DD: “No spoilers here.”
  • DCU panel info is coming fast & furious – hard to keep up
  • Titans’ new leader…let’s just say it’s not Wally as rumored on ComicBloc.
  • GS: WW to renounce Amazons & become more of a super-hero than ever
  • Sterling Gates on Kid Flash series!
  • Rainbow Raider will be a Black Lantern. GJ: “I guess he’ll be the Black & White Raider.”
  • C’mon, random fanboy…wait till you see the new writer’s work before begging Geoff to come back to Teen Titans.
  • Question cosplayer at mike: “I have a question…”
  • DD on renumbering books that have been relaunched: content more important than number on cover, low numbers may bring in more new readers.
  • Geoff Johns: artist lined up for Flash ongoing, can’t talk about it yet. [Edit: GJ adds that he can only say the artist is “awesome.”]
  • Fan requests a Snapper Carr & Jimmy Olsen team-up in Brave & the Bold.

See Also: Comic-Con 2009 Complete Index

Bigger than Flash: Rebirth

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Newsarama’s Vaneta Rogers interviews Ethan Van Sciver about Blackest Night and Flash: Rebirth. I found one segment particularly interesting:

Flash is the same way [as Green Lantern]. Throughout 60-70-some years of DCU history, there have been lots of little pieces and hints and clues about what the speedsters are or where they come from or what they mean. A plucky couple of creators could get together and put those clues together to mean something much bigger. And that’s what we’re attempting to do.

So Flash: Rebirth is what Green Lantern: Rebirth was in the sense that we’re trying to get all of our ducks in a row here and prepare for the much, much bigger story that will come from it. And that’s got to include every single Flash character.

I find this interesting for a couple of reasons.

The first is that linking all the speedsters together and examining what’s behind their existence is exactly what Mark Waid did with the speed force back in Terminal Velocity and Dead Heat. So in a sense, what he’s talking about has already been done.

The second is that there definitely are further implications to the power of speed, particularly when time travel is added to the mix. There’s that “Green Lantern is to Space as the Flash is to Time” analogy that Geoff Johns made a while back. There’s the nature of Zoom’s powers as a shifting timeline that mimics super-speed — a theory which had been tossed around by fans as an explanation for the Flash’s own powers. And then there’s the suggestion in the novel Flash: Stop Motion that super-speed is simply one aspect of a power based on quantum mechanics.

And of course the implication that they have a big story planned for the future that involves the entire Flash family.

Also, regarding the upcoming Flash: Rebirth #4:

Major heroics and fireworks on the part of Jay Garrick and Bart Allen, who have never been made to look this kick-ass before. They’re going to really get their moment to shine in Issue #4. It’s fantastic stuff. It’s a big action issue. It’s good. It’s scary.

Speed Reading: Interviews and Flashbacks

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Some Friday morning linkblogging…

Creator Interviews

Remember that interview with Carmine Infantino last week? The legendary artist was unhappy about how he was portrayed in the article, and has fired back a complaint at the interviewer. The Beat has the whole story.

CBR goes in-depth with Ethan Van Sciver, talking with the artist about everything from Cyberfrog and Impulse to Green Lantern: Rebirth, Blackest Night, and Flash: Rebirth.

The Half Hour Wasted podcast devotes its latest episode to Ethan Van Sciver. Despite the name, it’s actually over two hours long, and the artist talks about topics as varied as his recent trip to South Africa, balancing previews against spoilers (apparently none of the solicited covers for Flash: Rebirth issues 4-6 are the “real” cover — I’m guessing that the cover for #5 is mostly the same image, only with Professor Zoom instead of the Black Flash), redesigning Sinestro, and much, much more.

CBR presents the second monthly Geoff Johns Prime question-and-answer column.

Marc Guggenheim will attempt to re-imagine the campy Battlestar Galactica spin-off Galactica 1980 as a comic book.

Flashing Back

Comics in Crisis has Attack of the Cartoon Heroes part 2, including a Justice League clip.

Castle Vardulon presents: the amazing single-sentence continuity error from Flash v.1 #133.

Comics Should Be Good looks at DC’s June 1965 covers, including Flash v.1 #153, featuring Professor Zoom and the Mightiest Punch of All Time!

Silver Age Comics looks back on Neal Adams’ Brave and the Bold run, including his take on guest stars like the Flash.

More

A nifty series of superhero illustrations, with several nice Flash pieces in part 2.

Blog@Newsarama has an interesting idea: What if the JLA membership were chosen by DC’s sales rankings?

Flash: Rebirth Ranked #10 for June, Still Over 80K

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IcV2 has released sales estimates for June, and Flash: Rebirth #3 is still in the top-ten…but only barely, edged out by the start of Captain America: Reborn and a zillion Dark Avengers books.

Issue Rank Units Sold Change
Flash: Rebirth #1 (of 6) 2 102,429 +286.6%
Flash: Rebirth #2 (of 6) 4 86,183 -15.9%
Flash: Rebirth #3 (of 6) 10 83,086 -3.6%

From what I understand, it’s typical for a miniseries to drop sharply from #1-#2 and then slowly over the course of the series, so this is probably not unexpected. It’s also worth noting that the drop in rankings from #4 to #10 seems steeper than it actually is, since overall sales for June went up. And it’s still the fourth-highest-selling Flash issue of the decade, after Flash: The Fastest Man Alive #1 and the first two issues of Flash: Rebirth.

Down near the bottom of the chart, DC also managed to sell another 6,405 copies of issue #1 “variant edition,” presumably the third printing. I understand DC is actually planning a fourth printing of the book, possibly unprecedented in the history of The Flash. No word on whether any subsequent issues will be reprinted prior to next year’s hardcover collection.

Speed Reading: What If? Cool Moments, and Death

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More linkblogging! This rounds out a week’s worth of Flash-related pages I’ve stumbled across.

Kid Flash has a cameo up in this Adventure Comics #1 preview over at The Source.

Robot 6’s Grumpy Old Fan considers several major creative decisions by DC over the last 25 years, including making Wally West the Flash after Crisis on Infinite Earths, and considers what might have happened if they’d gone differently. In the case of the Flash, if they’d gone for a new, unrelated character instead of Barry’s former sidekick, the 90s focus on legacy characters might never have happened.

Four Color Media Monitor dissects interviews on Flash: Rebirth and Barry Allen given by Dan Didio and Geoff Johns, comparing their statements to the miniseries’ emphasis on death.

Comics Should Be Good highlights another Cool Comic Book Moment from The Flash detailing a pivotal moment from Flash vol.2 #78 — second-to-last chapter of The Return of Barry Allen.

Flash: Rebirth #4 Delayed

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Flash: Rebirth #4DC has quietly rescheduled Flash: Rebirth #4 from July 22 to August 5 — a two-week delay for a book that was already scheduled at six weeks after the previous issue. No indication why, but DC did change the book from a 5-issue miniseries to a 6-issue miniseries. Even if Johns and Van Sciver were aiming for 6 issues from the start, it wouldn’t surprise me if they had some restructuring to do on #4.

So far, the schedules for issues #5 and #6 haven’t changed, so we could still see the series wrap by the end of September.

On a personal note, there’s a bit of a silver lining for me, since the original date was the zeroth day of Comic-Con International. I’d been trying to figure out the best way to buy the book, read it twice, and write up a full review on the same day that I’d be driving down to San Diego and attending Preview Night.

Update July 15: DC’s website now shows Flash: Rebirth #4 with a release date of August 12. That’s a full 3 weeks after the original release date, and a full 2 months after the previous issue. At this point it seems likely that issues 5 and 6 will be pushed back as well.

Update August 24: It’s coming out this week.