Tag Archives: Rogues

Speed Reading: Archenemies, SBP, CFJ, Smallville, Art, and More

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Some weekend linkblogging.

Commentary

The Speedster Site Forum wants to know: Who do you consider the Flash’s archenemy?

The Weekly Crisis posts thoughts on comics for November. Regarding Superboy Prime’s upcoming appearance in Adventure Comics #4 (a Blackest Night tie-in), Ryan says, “The only way this won’t make me even more annoyed with the end of Legion of Three Worlds is if the Superboy Prime scenes are actually just him ranting on message boards.”

ICv2’s Confessions of a Comic-Book Guy discusses two events in Justice League: Cry For Justice #2: one now infamous among comics discussion circles, the other the less-commented-on off-panel killing of Jay Garrick’s three dimwitted sidekicks.

Update: IO9 talks to Mark Waid about The Unknown, science, and death, and has the first issue online for free. The Unknown has been an excellent miniseries, and I’m really looking forward to the conclusion on Wednesday.

Art

Photon Torpedoes looks at the use of ghost images to show the Flash’s speed in Blackest Night.

Adventure Comics artist Francis Manapul has posted photos of several convention sketches he’s done this year, including the Flash and Kid Flash! Elfgrove posts a scan of another Francics Manapul Kid Flash. Update: Manapul has posted a follow-up with more sketches after asking fans to send in their scans.

Update: Former Impulse artist Craig Rousseau shares a sketch of Bart Allen.

Television

Geoff Johns drops a hint about his upcoming Smallville episode, “Society:”

The Justice Society will be heroes that come out of ‘retirement’ to see how the current generation operates. Can’t say much more than that right now. Sorry! 🙂

Superhero Shows spotlights the Flash’s TV appearances in cartoons and live-action, from the early Filmation cartoons of the 1960s through to recent appearances on Smallville and Batman: The Brave and the Bold.

Conventions

Long Beach Comic-Con (October 2-4) is running a “Why Long Beach?” series on life outside the convention. So far they’ve posted nearby attractions and a restaurant guide.

Please help identify these Unknown Cosplay Characters from various conventions! I’ve got a few of my own photos in there of people who had interesting costumes, but I still have no idea who they were dressed as!

Speed Reading: Bow Ties, Variant Covers, and Top Villains

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I’m working on a round-up of reviews of Flash: Rebirth #2, but that’s taking a while. For now, here’s some general Flash linkblogging.

Current Events

The webcomic Comic Critics takes on Wardrobe Origins. (If you’ve read Flash: Rebirth #2, you can probably guess where this is going.)

Major Spoilers’ Stephen is impressed to see DC unveil a variant cover he actually wants.

Star Clipper looks at Flash: Rebirth in the context of reviving a failing franchise.

CBR talks to Mark Waid about the “24/7” arc in Spider-Man.

Edit: Just after I posted this, I saw this scan of Tiny Titans‘ Battle for the COW joke.

The Tops

Flash Comics #1The Judge declares Flash Comics #1 to have the Best.Cover.Ever.

POP puts Professor Zoom on its list of 25 coolest comic book villains.

IGN’s Top 100 Comic Book Villains of All Time includes Shade at #89, Mirror Master at #79, Zoom at #37, Gorilla Grodd at #35, Professor Zoom at #31 [Update:] Captain Cold at #27. (At this time, the top 30 20 is not up yet.)

Speed Reading: Rebirth Tuesday Two

Barry Allen is back and it's the worst thing that could ever happen To himBuzz on Flash: Rebirth is reaching a fever pitch in the last day before release! I usually do one of these link posts each week, and here I am at three in the space of two days!

Geoff Johns has posted a new promo poster (right) for Flash: Rebirth.

Wally West has defeated Superman in the CSBG character poll, moving him into the Final Four. (Hey, better than being a Cylon!)

Somehow I forgot to link to Crimson Lightning’s cover of the week last Friday, featuring another Return of Barry Allen.

IO9 contrasts Flash: Rebirth with Irredeemable, with Barry Allen and Irredeemable‘s lead representing opposite ends of the superhero spectrum.

Green Lantern Spotlight profiles Barry Allen to kick off Flash Month.

Great Caesar’s Post wants to see more Flashes coming out of Flash: Rebirth.

Monty’s Mix Tape at iFanboy has a round-up of the Rogues’ latest adventures on Twitter (CaptainCold, WeatherWizard, MirrorMaster, and HeatWaveMick).

Blog@Newsarama’s J. Caleb Mozzocco, in the latest ‘Twas the Night Before Wednesday, isn’t impressed with the concept behind Flash: Rebirth, saying that the solicitation’s promise of a dead speedster “reinforc[es] [his] belief that all DC comics are either about 1) Continuity futzing, 2) Dead characters coming back to life, or 3) Live characters dying.” Of course, Flash: Rebirth looks to be about all three.

On the other hand, (the) David Press lists Flash: Rebirth #1 among this week’s Must-Have Comics.

Download Squad considers: If Web Browsers Were Super Friends, concluding that the Flash would be Chrome. (via noscans_daily) “Chrome is getting faster all the time. Gadgets aren’t required when you can zip through labyrinthine web page code at mind-blowing speeds…. Some people don’t like what’s going on with his costume, what with the little tabs right at the top of his head.”

Future Rogue

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Over at Speedster Site, West spots a Flash-related item in Gerry Conway’s Newsarama interview on his upcoming miniseries, The Last Days of Animal Man. The book takes place 15 years in the future and features two new villains, including:

The other character is a woman called Prismatik, and she is the illegitimate daughter of Evan McCulloch, the Mirror Master. So she has her own axe to grind, both as a person and against Buddy.

Speed Reading: Retro Reviews, Doug Hazlewood, TV Shows and More

The Victoria Advocate profiles Doug Hazlewood.

Comics In Crisis presents Flash v.2 #182 (2002), the Captain Cold Rogue Profile story, among the 10 Essential Bronze Age Comic Stories You Should Read. I’d disagree with the Bronze-Age classification (traditionally, the Bronze Age of Comics ran from the 1970s through mid 1980s, with Crisis on Infinite Earths being a good reference point for DC books), but it’s absolutely a must-read.

X-Man reviews Flash vol.2 #1 (1987), noting how different Wally West was at the age of 20 than he is today. That’s actually one of the things Wallys’ long-term fans like most about the character: that we’ve seen him grow and change naturally, rather than simply be given a personality transplant whenever a new writer shows up.

The Quantum Blog talks about TV shows canceled before their time, including the 1990-1991 Flash TV Series. (Hard to believe it’s been almost 20 years. Seriously, Quantum Leap is having a 20th Anniversary convention this month. I feel old…)

The Worlogog celebrates Weird Silver Age Tales of the Flash.

I haven’t had a chance to listen yet, but Raging Bullets Podcast #152 features Flash’s Rogues with listener guest Mike Simms.

Heritage Auctions will be selling a CGC 9.6 copy of Showcase #4, the comic that rebooted the Flash as Barry Allen, launching the Silver Age (via It’s all Just Comics)

A Journal of Zarjaz Things looks at Flash: Emergency Stop, griping that Grant Morrison’s 9-issue run is split across two trades with the second “padded” out with a 3-parter by Mark Millar. IMO, though, Morrison didn’t write a 9-issue Morrison run — he co-wrote 9 issues of a 12-issue Morrison/Millar run. It would have been less responsible for DC to print only the Morrison issues and leave out “The Black Flash,” which has arguably had more lasting impact on the Flash mythos than the other stories in these trades, good as they are. (It is silly that they left out the first two parts of “Three of a Kind,” though.)

More Silver-Age Flash Reprints Coming: Chronicles and Rogues

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Flash Chronicles Vol 1Collected Editions has spotted two more Flash books coming this year: Flash Chronicles Vol. 1 and Flash vs. The Rogues, coming in September and November respectively.

The Flash Chronicles looks to be picking up on the format pioneered by the Batman Chronicles and Superman Chronicles: starting from the beginning, reprinting the stories in chronological order in trade paperback form.

Well, mostly: judging by the Carmine Infantino credit, and the fact that the Green Lantern Chronicles are starting with Hal Jordan, they’re probably starting with the Silver Age — 15 years after the Flash first appeared. And re-reprinting the same stories that have already been reprinted in the Flash Archives series and Showcase Presents: The Flash.

Every time DC changes to a new format for their reprints, they start over in the same place. It’s maddening. It’s as if, instead of releasing full seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation and subsequent series, Paramount had released season one on VHS, then went back and released the same season on DVD, then gone back and released the same season on Blu-Ray, never getting to later seasons of TNG…or to the original series.

How about reprinting some more Golden Age Flash stories, DC? I’ll happily pre-order The Golden Age Flash Archives Volume 3 the moment you solicit it!

As for Flash vs. the Rogues, my best guess as to content would be collecting the stories from Barry’s run in which the Rogues teamed up against their speedy nemesis. Stories like “The Gauntlet of Super-Villains,” “Stupendous Triumph of the Six Super-Villains,” and “If I Can’t Rob Central City, Nobody Can!”