Devin “The Flash” Johnson sent in these photos of himself in different Flash costumes, worked into the form of comic book covers.
(Click each image to enlarge)
He also sent in this image, featuring some topical humor: Continue reading
Rounding up a week of links:
Major Spoilers has the Top 300 Comics for August 2009, and Flash: Rebirth #4 is #14. They’re also holding a costume contest.
Dan Didio’s latest 20 questions explains how Geoff Johns & Francis Manapul moved from Adventure Comics to The Flash. He adds, “my goal now is to get those guys going on Flash as soon as possible.”
High Five! Comics lists their top ten second-string couples, featuring both Barry & Iris Allen and Ralph & Sue Dibny. Their latest Things I Learned From Comics feature covers How to Gain Superpowers.
Collected Editions has updated their DC Comics Trade Paperback Timeline and moved to its new, post-GeoCities home.
The Onion brings the “news” that melting ice caps are exposing hundreds of secret arctic lairs. Does anyone remember whether Dr. Impossible had one?
Noah Van Sciver continues his comic-strip Flash: Rebirth Recaps with issue #4.
We Are Movie Geeks has made a list of five projects for DC Entertainment to jump on, starting with the Flash.
And finally, Crimson Lightning has the results of the casting poll. Fans cast Neil Patrick Harris as the Scarlet Speedster. Next up: Who’s your favorite Reverse Flash?
Comic Cavalcade was an anthology series that ran from 1942 until 1954, publishing super-heroes and other adventures for the first six years. Wonder Woman, the Flash, and Green Lantern were the headliners. DC has reprinted the first three issues as The Comic Cavalcade Archives, Vol. 1. (At 100 pages per issue, it’s still a pretty big collection!) I bought a copy, mainly for the Flash stories, and it finally arrived yesterday.
I read a few of the stories this afternoon, and these panels from the Green Lantern story in issue 1, “The Adventures of Luckless Lenore,” made me laugh out loud.
Green Lantern’s sidekick, Doiby, has been trying to romance Lenore, whose “bad luck” seems to be engineered. At this point he’s been captured. I didn’t even notice the name of the bar the first time through, it was the menu that caught me off-guard. Continue reading
One of the characters I encountered early in my exploration of Golden Age Flash stories was Ebenezer Jones, the Worry Wart. In fact, All-Flash #24 (1946) was one of those first two GA Flash books I bid on just to see if I could win. The story in that book referred to previous meetings. If it had been the Silver Age, it would have included a helpful editor’s note telling me “See issue #X,” instead of just a recap.
As I kept watching auctions and looking on sites like the Grand Comics Database, I identified at least two more appearances. I finally tracked down the last of the three in March, and was able to write up a bio of the character.
Who is the Worry Wart? In short, he was an ordinary man who had a case of anxiety so bad it was contagious.
There’s an odd subtext to the character’s stories, though. The reason he returns to Keystone City is that the Flash had previously set him up with a supply of “happiness pills,” which had run out. In Flash Comics #76 (1946), Ebenezer Jones deliberately overdoses on the happiness pills, causing a euphoric delirium just as contagious as his anxiety.
Looking back on this from 2007, it’s hard not to think of it in terms of the vast numbers of people today taking medications for depression or anxiety. Not to mention people who abuse prescription medications. Or just people who abuse drugs. There’s a disturbing drug-dealer vibe in that panel.
It gets better, though. In the Worry Wart’s first appearance, in All-Flash #15 (1944), the Flash makes him a serum to counteract his anxiety:
Yes, that’s right. The Flash gives him a bottle, and he drinks his cares away. No subtext here!
Originally posted at K-Squared Ramblings.
Last night I logged into Twitter and found myself in the middle of a storm in which people were posting joke names for speedsters. It all started when Geoff Johns posted the following:
Well, people went with it! You can read them all at #newspeedsters until the posts drop off of Twitter search’s radar in a few weeks. Some of my favorites:
Stephen Wacker chimed in with a number of characters based on people in the comics industry.
And here are my own humble contributions:
I’m not entirely sure who started it, but on Friday morning a lot of comics fans and pros on Twitter were posting joke titles with the #failedeventcomics tag. Here are my contributions.