Hey Speed Readers,
About a month ago DC Entertainment (formerly known as DC Comics) announced that they would they be rechristening their collectible products line, previously known as DC Direct, with a new brand dubbed DC Collectibles. Not only that but they pledged to make it easier for those without a Local Comic Shop (like I) to purchase their entire products line via their own e-commerce online shop known as ShopDCEntertainment.com. The site is finally live!
The Collected Editions blog has been reviewing the Flashpoint trades over the past week. The tie-ins were collected in five trade paperbacks, grouped around one of DC’s big five characters, titled The World of Flashpoint Featuring…
The miniseries less directly related to the major characters were spread around the other books, some thematically and some apparently at random, but the Flash collection is actually filled with stories focusing on Flash characters: Citizen Cold, Kid Flash Lost, Reverse-Flash, Legion of Doom (starring Heat Wave) and Grodd of War.
The site has also put together a Flashpoint trade reading order.
Monday’s post about how Wally West’s dynamic character makes him harder to reboot than Barry Allen got me thinking about something Geoff Johns said to Hero Complex when he took over the book back in 2009:
But you look at what the theme of Flash’s book has been for the last 200-something issues with Wally West and it’s been about a man trying to fill someone else’s boots. It doesn’t really have anything to do with speed. I mean, it has something to do with speed, but it was not totally what the book was about. The new Flash that I’m doing is all about speed.
At the time, I found it disingenuous because Geoff Johns wrote six years of that run himself, and he could have focused more heavily on speed with Wally West if he’d wanted to. And I found it worrying because he felt Wally’s defining characteristic was wanting to be like Barry Allen. Not the journey of becoming a hero, not learning to be an adult, but specifically trying to be someone he’s not.
But now I find the quote even more annoying, and here’s why:
Geoff Johns’ Flash, from Rebirth through Flashpoint, is not all about speed. It’s not even about hope, as suggested in Blackest Night.
It’s about a man so driven by grief that he nearly destroyed the world. Not even through speed, but through time travel.
The great over-arching Flash story from 2009-2011 might have been more appropriate for Booster Gold or Rip Hunter. (Or maybe Green Lantern/Hal Jordan, considering that it sounds a little like Emerald Twilight and Zero Hour when you break it down that far.)
Oh, well. Time to chalk it up as one more missed opportunity from that run, and Move Forward.
In this clip from Comic Book Club, Kevin Conroy says he’s working on an animated version of Flashpoint.
Oh I just, just last night, I recording a new animated movie…that features The Flash, it’s more about The Flash, but Batman is in it as well. It’s a Flash…Flashpoint! Flashpoint? I think it’s Flashpoint.
As ComicsAlliance points out, there’s been no official announcement past Superman vs. the Elite (which, though it won’t be released until summer, is finished — I saw it at WonderCon last month).
It’s an odd choice for a Flash film until one remembers that Warner Bros. is utterly focused on Superman and Batman, and Flashpoint is a Flash/Batman team-up story. Chances of getting a truly solo Flash animated film are slim for now.
And while it might seem strange to do a stand-alone movie based on a crisis reboot, I think the timeline of when things happened (JMS states that the reboot was given the green light after Superman: Earth One sales figures hit) shows that Flashpoint wasn’t originally intended as a universe-wide reboot so much as it was a story about fixing a broken timeline. Take out that splash page in #5 and change the costumes in the last three or so pages, and it works just fine as a stand-alone story.
So, what do you think: Is this the Flash story you want to see?
Flashpoint: The World of Flashpoint Featuring the Flash
Written by SEAN RYAN, STERLING GATES, ADAM GLASS and SCOTT KOLINS
Art by IG GUARA, OLIVER NOME, RODNEY BUCHEMI, JOEL GOMEZ, SCOTT KOLINS and JOSE MARZAN JR.
Cover by ARDIAN SYAF and VICENTE CIFUENTES
On sale MARCH 21 • 256 pg, FC, $17.99 US
Don’t miss this Flash volume collecting GRODD OF WAR #1, KID FLASH LOST #1-3, LEGION OF DOOM #1-3, REVERSE FLASH #1 and CITIZEN COLD #1-3.
I’ll say one thing for DC’s Flashpoint collection strategy: they actually managed to put all the Flash-related tie-ins in one book, without adding too much unrelated material (like tossing Frankenstein and the Creatures of the Unknown in with the Flashpoint/Green Lantern collection).
Grodd of War obviously focuses on Gorilla Grodd, who in the Flashpoint universe has taken over Gorilla City and subsequently conquered the entire continent of Africa.
Kid Flash Lost follows the main DC Universe’s Bart Allen, trying to fix the changes to history before they catch up to his home era and make him disappear as well.
Legion of Doom is a brutal prison break story focusing on Heat Wave, who has gone beyond pyromania to full-on psychosis psychopathy.
Reverse Flash stars Professor Zoom, though it’s only tangentially related to Flashpoint in that it looks at the main DCU’s Zoom trying to change history.
Citizen Cold features a Captain Cold who uses the mask of Central City’s resident hero to hide his criminal past, and the parallel efforts of reporter Iris West and the city’s resident super-criminals to take him down.
Order it from Amazon for next week or buy it at your local comic shop tomorrow!
The big DC Comics event of 2011, Flashpoint, is out in trade paperback this week ($14.99). Barry Allen wakes up powerless in a world he doesn’t recognize, a world on the brink of war between human and superhuman nations alike. To save the world, he’ll team up with Batman to learn who changed history and how to put it right — but this Batman isn’t who he expects to meet beneath the cowl.
Of course, the conclusion of Flashpoint led directly into the reboot of the DC Universe into the form of the New 52.
The Geoff Johns/Andy Kubert miniseries was previously collected in hardcover last fall.
The various tie-in miniseries and specials will be collected in five trade paperback volumes starting next week. World of Flashpoint Featuring the Flash ($17.99) arrives in stores March 21, and collects Grodd of War, Kid Flash Lost, Legion of Doom, Reverse Flash and Citizen Cold.
Order at Amazon for delivery next week, or buy it in your local comic shop today!