iFanboy has a regular feature where fans send in questions and they answer in the persona of a comic book character. This week featured questions answered by Dazzler. Next week, it’s Ask the Rogues.
Submit your career/relationship/meteorological/psychological/pet care queries to ask@ifanboy.com by Sunday at 5pm EST and the appropriate Flash rogue or rogues (Captain Cold, Mirror Master, Heatwave, Trickster, Weather Wizard) may answer next week!
Heat Wave may have been missing from the Citizen Cold cover, but the Rogue is not missing from Flashpoint. In an interesting counterpoint, both of them are facing a group of hands at the bottom of the cover. Heat Wave seems to have dealt with them a bit differently…
DC announced this title today as part of their gigantic Flashpoint Friday. It’s not clear yet whether this is the 15th miniseries or one of the one-shots (since they also announced Flashpoint: Hal Jordan), or whether DC replaced one of the previously-announced miniseries.
The just-released-today cover for Flashpoint: Citizen Cold #1 features Central City’s new hero facing off against a group of gloved hands and weapons representing the Rogues. Long-time (and even short-time) Flash readers should recognize most of them.
From left to right:
In the main timeline, Geoff Johns has thoroughly established Captain Cold as the leader of the Rogues. It’ll be interesting to see how this dynamic changes in the altered timeline with Citizen Cold as their enemy.
Update: Heat Wave is missing from this cover…but not from Flashpoint!
Written by MARK SABLE
Art by SEAN MURPHY
Cover by JAY FABOK
Don’t miss this untold tale from writer Mark Sable (Grounded, TWO-FACE: YEAR ONE) and red-hot artist Sean Murphy (JOE THE BARBARIAN) bringing the Teen Titans and The Flash’s Rogues Gallery into direct conflict! Two people already died over a mysterious object, and now both teams want it. How much more blood will be spilled to obtain it as this gets deadly personal for all involved?
Update: preview at CBR.
Other speedster appearances this week:
Today’s guest post is by Dave Huang.
One of Flash franchise’s greatest strengths is the diversity of the Rogues. That strength, however, may prove a challenge when being modernized or adapted to film. Whether or not combining origins is a good thing, it certainly is a trend. Every Superman film has presented a Kryptonian threat (kryptonite, phantom zone criminals, synthetic kryptonite, synthetic kryptonian, kryptonian crystals). In Batman Begins, Scarecrow’s formula, Falcone’s involvement, the main threat, and Bruce’s training all trace back to Ra’s. In The Dark Knight, Batman’s escalation begets Joker who begets Two-Face. In updating Spider-Man, radioactivity is discarded in favor of genetics with organic webshooters (one origin for all powers). The list goes on….
How then does one adapt a speedster with enemies from the far future, prehistoric past, and all manner of scientific disciplines?
If past is prologue, one starts with the hero’s origin. The origin of The Flash is a little thematically weak. It’s an accident without purpose or meaning which grants neither chemical nor electrical powers and is unrelated to speed. Random electrified chemicals aren’t enough to rationalize all of Flash’s physics defying feats even in the comics, hence the Speed Force. However, the Speed Force is a little esoteric and geared at the comic book literate, for an adaptation you need something better grasped by general audience. My suggestion?
FTL. Continue reading
This is probably a crazy idea, but it’s something I thought about while writing up my thoughts on Flash #6:
DC should plan for the book to get delayed.
I really like Francis Manapul’s art, and Geoff Johns, when he’s at the top of his game, can be a great writer. I’d rather not lose this team on the book right now. But it’s been a while since The Flash managed to release twelve issues a year. To catch up, they’ve planned a couple of Rogue Profiles before the next story arc: done-in-one issues that tie into the ongoing mythology but focus on a different point of view, namely one of the Flash’s villains. These were great during Geoff Johns’ run on the Wally West Flash series, and I’m glad we’re seeing more.
Meanwhile, the pacing of the series seems a little bit more decompressed than it needs to be. As much as I enjoyed it, “The Dastardly Death of the Rogues” felt like it could have been told as effectively in four or five parts instead of six. Flash: Rebirth definitely could have – it seemed like half of the final issue was epilogue. But six issues is the standard length for a collection, so that seems to be the story length that they’re shooting for.
My suggestion: Make the story arcs five issues long instead of six, and schedule a Rogue Profile in between. Put another artist on the profile, one suited to the villain getting the spotlight. If Geoff Johns is busy, let another writer work from his outline, or hand it outright to someone who understands the current take on the Rogues.
That way, the star creative team is only committed to ten issues a year instead of twelve, and we get some great stand-alone stories that DC can either include with the main story collections or save up for a couple of years and put in a collection as “The Flash: Rogues Gallery.”
What do you think?