Hey all,
Blue Lantern Flash arrived a little bit ago and I finally got around to taking some pictures of the figure mint on card, loose and alongside some alternate versions of the figure. First the mint on card pictures:
Welcome to the final installment in our 15-part series of annotations on “The Death Of Iris Allen”! Halved by our two-part interview with author Cary Bates, previous issues can be found here! Links to artwork and research are included throughout this post.
UP TO SPEED: Trapped aboard a runaway time-machine with the murderous Professor Zoom, Flash has chosen to take on the flow of time himself in a desperate attempt to avoid certain doom…
Speed Force contributors Devin “Flash” Johnson and Greg Elias take a look at last week’s Flashpoint: Reverse Flash one-shot, written by longtime Flash artist Scott Kolins and illustrated by Joel Gomez, with colors by Brian Buccellato.
Check out the comments after the jump…
Awesometoyblog.com announced earlier this week that an exclusive Flashpoint Edition Professor Zoom will be available at San Diego Comic Con 2011. Just like the exclusive White Lantern Flash released at C2E2 and Wondercon, this figure will be distributed by popular pop culture T-Shirt company, Graphitti Designs and will be limited to 4000 pieces (fairly big leap from the 1000 available for White Lantern Flash).
Well, here it is, the supposedly final issue of The Flash. So how does it read? And how does Geoff Johns & Francis Manapul’s brief 12-issue run hold together?
This one’s better than the previous issue, with a super-speed battle, revelations about Professor Zoom, the Speed Force, Flashpoint and Kid Flash, and even the background between Barry Allen and Patty Spivot. Scott Kolins’ art looks better as well — whether he had more time, or whether the super-heroics is just better suited for his current style, I couldn’t say — and Francis Manapul’s cover (revealed just yesterday) is great.
Still, the whole “Road to Flashpoint” arc feels like something’s missing. The biggest problem, I think, is that everything from Flash: Rebirth to this point was supposed to be a steady build toward Flashpoint, but the combination of slowly-paced long storylines and publishing delays meant that instead of progressing from A to B to C to D to E to Flashpoint, we instead spent a lot of time on A and then a lot of time on E without actually following the steps to get there.
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think maybe making a clean break at this point and starting fresh after Flashpoint is exactly what the book needs.
A bit about the art:
I mentioned that I liked Kolins’ art better in this issue than last. One sequence that stood out was the way he portrayed Zoom and the negative speed force. It looked more like flowing energy streams within Zoom’s body than the usual lightning leaking around it, which was a nice change, and a good way of showing that Thawne was using the powers differently. Still, I miss the background details that Francis Manapul works into his art, like the fire extinguisher behind someone who’s still carrying a flame.
Further discussion will require SPOILERS! Continue reading
Comic-book futures are constantly changing. We’ve seen four* major versions of the Legion of Super-Heroes, many different “true” versions of the near future, and a half-dozen variations on the eras that brought us villains like Abra Kadabra and the Reverse-Flash. Given the latter’s newfound obsession with changing history in Flash: Rebirth, it seems highly appropriate that his origin tale rewrites itself repeatedly over the course of the issue. It’s fascinating to watch the twists and turns as his life starts down one path, then stops, backs up, and takes another.
