Tag Archives: Humor

Photo: Flash on a Segway – Only at Comic-Con

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This morning, my Flash/SDCC Twitter search erupted in comments about the Flash speeding around San Diego on a Segway. It wasn’t long before someone posted a photo. Photographer @NandoVel writes:

Flash on a Segway. I don’t know if that means he’s Flash-ier or just lazy.

The goofy moments like this are always the ones that stand out most for me. I’m really looking forward to actually being on-site tomorrow.

Update: Here’s another shot, this one from @mattkindt.

In other SDCC news, Flash artist/writer Francis Manapul has posted his signing schedule for the con.

What If…Lord of the Rings had been an “Event” Comic?

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A local movie theater has been running special screenings of the extended-edition Lord of the Rings trilogy over the last few weeks (almost certainly in connection with this week’s Blu-Ray release). I just watched Green Lantern, another movie in which a ring figures prominently, at the same theater. And of course we’re knee-deep in Flashpoint. The stories collided in a mental three-car pile-up during an afternoon running errands, and I started thinking: What would The Lord of the Rings have been like as a modern “event” comic book like Final Crisis or Blackest Night?

  • The Hobbit would have been subtitled, “Countdown to Lord of the Rings,” and continuity wouldn’t have lined up quite right with the main series.*
  • The core story would have been six volumes, with the first three shipping on time, and increasing delays for volumes four, five and six.
  • We would have seen side stories and flashbacks in specials or miniseries such as “Lord of the Rings: War in the North,” “Lord of the Rings: Arwen’s Story,” “Lord of the Rings: Faramir’s War” and “Lord of the Rings: Balin’s Last Stand.”
  • The first issue of the main series would have been accompanied by plastic replicas of The One Ring. The first issue of each tie-in miniseries would have included one of the rings given to elves, dwarves, or men.
  • To fill the gaps in the schedule, they would have added additional character specials like “Lord of the Rings: The Adventures of Tom Bombadil” and “Lord of the Rings: Radagast the Brown.”
  • The main series would have ended with destroying the ring, and a group of follow-up miniseries would have detailed “Lord of the Rings Aftermath: The Scouring of the Shire”, “Lord of the Rings Aftermath: The Greening of Isengard” and “Lord of the Rings Aftermath: Quest for the Entwives”
  • “Bow and Axe,” an adventure-comedy-buddy series starring Legolas and Gimli, would be the most successful of several ongoing spinoffs. “Settlers of Mordor,” on the other hand, would be canceled after just a few issues.

And then there are all the alternate-universe stories that would show up several years down the line, set in a world in which they failed to destroy the ring.

So…what do you think would have changed?

*Actually, this one really did happen. In the original edition of The Hobbit, Gollum gives Bilbo the ring as the prize for winning the riddle contest. By the time Tolkein got to The Lord of the Rings, that completely contradicted the ring’s effect on its bearers. He revised The Hobbit so that Bilbo finds the ring on his own, then wrote into LOTR that Bilbo had lied in the first edition to make himself look better.

Flash Facts: Cobalt Blue

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Cobalt is an element obtained from the smelting of metallic ores such as cobaltite, copper, and nickel. The smelted form is a hard silvery metal with magnetic properties.

Cobalt-based blue pigments have been used since the Bronze Age (3000 BC) for glass, ceramics, jewellery, and paint. In modern times, the element is also used as part of a superalloy metal (which is a combination of metals) for diverse items like prosthetics, batteries, jet engines and turbines. A radioactive isotope of cobalt is commonly used in medical tests and to sterilize food and equipment.

Cobalt Blue is the name of a deep blue pigment used in ceramics, paint, glass, and even ophthalmology filters. It’s made from cobalt salts of alumina, and its popularity is in part due to its stability (meaning it doesn’t degrade or break down quickly). However, it’s toxic if ingested, much as I’d imagine Malcolm Thawne to be.

Cobalt Blue Tarantula

The Cobalt Blue tarantula is a spider species native to Myanmar and Thailand, notable for its iridescent blue legs, speed, and aggression. Somehow…this seems fitting. This site describes them as “a psychotic, high-strung burrowing species”, which makes them seem even less appealing.

There are many similarities between a blue tarantula and Malcolm Thawne: one is despised by most people and looks ridiculous. The other is a spider.

Fake Flashpoint Teasers

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Inspired by last week’s one-line Flashpoint teasers, @Speedstersite started posting jokes marked #FakeFLASHPOINTTeaser on Twitter. Others joined in.

Here are some of my favorites:

  • SpeedsterSite: Turns out, hard water is just ice, nothing more.
  • SpeedsterSite: He absolutely refused to see Zorro that night
  • collecteditions: No one escaped the Manhunters.
  • collecteditions: He never much liked fish; she never much liked Curry.
  • collecteditions: The Graysons never worked without a net.
  • ryanoneil: Jor-El wasn’t actually a rocket scientist.
  • DougG_ATL: Hippolyta is a terrible sculptor
  • DougG_ATL: Superboy Prime, try this Xanax.
  • TheLastIslander: Bart Allen is secretly the time trapper. (More of a fake spoiler than a fake teaser, but at this point, who hasn’t been the Time Trapper?)
  • BlueTyson This story is actually good! (Ouch!)
  • JCorduroy Greedo shot first. (So that explains it!)

My own humble contributions:

  • He never lost his eye.
  • He would’ve gotten away with it, if it weren’t for those darn kids.
  • They caught the radioactive spider before it could bite anyone.
  • Nephew? What nephew?

You can find the rest on Twitter at the #FakeFLASHPOINTTeaser tag.

But Twitter isn’t the only place people were doing this. Over at the CBR forums, posters were making their own banners in the same spirit.