Tag Archives: Scott Kolins

This Week (July 14): Magog, Black Lantern Corps

I’ve gotten out of the habit of putting together the full “Out this week…” posts except when a new Flash issue is out, mostly because of the time it takes (more than you’d expect, especially if I include images), but Jesse reminded me that this week’s issue of Magog features Flash Wally West…in a cover appearance, no less!

Also this week is the collected edition of Blackest Night: The Flash!

Magog #11

Written by SCOTT KOLINS • Art and cover by SCOTT KOLINS

The Psy-cho Twins are seeing flashes of the future, and for Magog that appears to mean KINGDOM COME! In part 1 of a 5-part* story written and illustrated by Scott Kolins, Magog races across the U.S./Canadian border to stop an experiment gone wrong at S.T.A.R. Labs, and it becomes clear he’s witnessing the birth of N-I-L-8, a major player from KINGDOM COME!

Note: I told myself that my days of picking up every random appearance by my favorite character were over, but (a) it’s Scott Kolins, (b) I doubt we’re likely to see Wally much of anywhere else until Flashpoint, and (c) Jesse reports that it’s got Tina and Jerry McGee in the issue as well.

*DC canceled the book with issue #12. Instead of finishing in the pages of Magog, the story will wrap up in Kolins’ JSA Special in September.

Blackest Night: Black Lantern Corps Vol.2

Written by JAMES ROBINSON, GEOFF JOHNS & GREG RUCKA • Art by SCOTT KOLINS, NICOLA SCOTT, EDDY BARROWS & RUY JOSE • Cover by RUDOLFO MIGLIARI

The Flash, Wonder Woman and the JSA come face to face with their greatest foes and long-lost loved ones, newly undead as evil Black Lanterns, in this collection of three 3-issue BLACKEST NIGHT miniseries:

  • Blackest Night: Justice Society of America
  • Blackest Night: The Flash
  • Blackest Night: Wonder Woman

240pg. · Color · Hardcover · $24.99 US

Order from Amazon (shipping next week) or buy it at your local comic shop today!

Note: Volume 1, featuring the Blackest Night Superman, Batman and Titans miniseries, is also out this week.

Guggenheim & Kolins Put the Jay in JSA

7 Replies

DC announced that Marc Guggenheim (Flash: The Fastest Man Alive — Full Throttle) will be taking over Justice Society of America after its crossover with the Justice League finishes. In an interview with CBR, Guggenheim says:

Jay Garrick will be the center of the universe here. Whether he turns out to actually be mayor, well, you’ll have to continue to read the book. I think it will be interesting to watch Jay evolve and grow as a character.

Shane Davis will provide the covers. The interior artist hasn’t officially been announced, but Guggenheim tells Newsarama, “I’m equally thrilled to be working with Scott Kollins.”

Update: Newsarama interviews Guggenheim on the move: He’d been in talks to do an “inventory arc” for JSA, and then Bill Willingham left and the editor asked him if he wanted to take over the series. (I find it interesting that where, in the old days, they’d do an inventory story, or an inventory issue, in case the book was running behind…now they seriously talk about an “inventory arc.”)

Update (July 19): DC’s October solicitations confirm Scott Kolins as the new artist.

Tip of the shiny hat to Wayne Lippa for spotting the Kolins reference.

Flash #4 Variant Cover by Scott Kolins

5 Replies

DC has posted seven upcoming variant covers at The Source, including Scott Kolins’ take on The Flash #4.

Unless you count the unfinished cover used to solicit Flash: Rebirth #6, This is Barry Allen’s first unmasked cover appearance in a year and definitely the first since the relaunch. I like the sign’s homage to the classic Robert Kanigher/Carmine Infantino team from the dawn of the Silver Age.

I’m really starting to wonder how long DC plans to keep releasing these 1:10 variants. They’ve got one listed all the way out through the current solicitations for issue #6. Since none of the alternate covers we’ve seen so far have anything to do with the story, I suspect DC just asked a bunch of artists to draw a Flash cover and they’ve been working through the set.

The Flash #4 ships either July 28 or August 4. Diamond reported a delay last month, but that change has dropped off their shipping updates list, and DC’s website still shows the July 28 date.

Johns, Manapul & Kolins Talk Flash, Blackest Night & Brightest Day

2 Replies

Friday afternoon linkblogging: a trio of interviews to go along with the Flash #1 relaunch.

Geoff Johns

First, Geoff Johns Prime has the writer answering questions about Brightest Day and The Flash. Some items that stand out:

We don’t want anyone to have to buy a lot of DC books, we want you to. Our job is to tell great stories that can stand alone and also be part of a bigger whole. That’s what the DC Universe is. The Flash is probably one of the most accessible books I have written, but it fits into the bigger tapestry of the DCU.

Johns also explains that these are new stories, written for Barry Allen, not unused Wally West stories. He has a bunch of those that he never got to use since he left the book before he ran out of ideas, but they’ve “been put away for now.” He also confirms that there will definitely be a Flash/Green Lantern crossover at some point — something that should surprise no-one.

Francis Manapul

CBR interviews Francis Manapul about his work on The Flash.

At the beginning, I was digging what Ethan [Van Sciver] was doing with tons of lightning and stuff like that. So, I used some of that at the beginning, but I found more and more that, the deeper I get into the pages, the more I enjoy the multiple images the way Carmine did it. So, I’ve been doing a lot of that. It’s actually been advantageous being able to do the watercolor [effect on] my own work, because the way I would draw the trail of images where he was running from, I’m able to draw on a lighter scale.

He adds: “the goal is that with every issue, you’re going to see the Flash do something completely different, in terms of showing his speed, that you haven’t seen before.”

Scott Kolins

Speedster Site interviews Scott Kolins about Blackest Night, DC Universe: Legacies and The Flash. He talks about designing the Black Lantern Reverse Flash, drawing Wally’s new costume and Barry’s Blue Lantern uniform, and how Blackest Night: The Flash compared to Final Crisis: Rogues’ Revenge.

Kolins was also asked about the Wally West backup stories he and Geoff Johns were going to do:

DC of course recognizes how important Wally is and has been for the Flash fans and the co-feature idea was one of the ways they wanted to make use of him. -But then they had another idea – a possibly better idea. The reader is the ultimate judge, but it’s all done with the best of intentions. I’ve been working long enough to realize that plans change as the company endlessly searches for new and better ideas.

I’m curious about this “possibly better idea” now, and more hopeful about it than I would have been on Tuesday.

Review: Flash Secret Files and Origins 2010

27 Replies

More precisely, the book is Flash: Secret Files and Origins 2010 #1. (I’m always faintly amused at the tendency of comic book publishers to slap a big “#1” on the front of an obviously one-shot issue.) Like most of DC’s Secret Files books, this is made up of a lead story and a series of profile pages.

Lead Story

“Running to the Past” by Geoff Johns and Scott Kolins was a fairly standard Flash story. It doesn’t really stand out as particularly good or bad, but it serves as an introduction to Barry Allen, his primary motivation (the retconned-in death of his mother), and the sometimes lonely life of a speedster.

There are some nice moments, like the sequence of panels early on in which Barry hits a light switch, pours himself a glass of water, and then the light comes on (though if you think about it, that only makes sense if the water is sped up too).

Oddly, while the whole story is drawn by Scott Kolins, the epilogue featuring the Rogues looks vastly different. It really highlights something I’ve mentioned before, which is how well-suited his art is to the Rogues.

It is a Barry Allen story, first and foremost, though the rest of the “good guy” speedsters show up briefly. I didn’t really expect anything beyond that, but the solicitation text suggested that Wally West and Bart Allen might be more involved, and I’m sure there are people out there for whom that will be a factor in whether they pick up the book. Perhaps DC planned bigger roles or a second story, back when they still planned a series of backup stories featuring Wally and a Kid Flash book featuring Bart, but if so, it didn’t make it to the finished product.

Continue reading →

“Hot” Iris

16 Replies

With the release of the Flash #1 preview, there’s been renewed talk about Iris Allen’s youth. After all, she lived long enough in the future to have children, watch them grow up, and have grandchildren, and when she came back with Bart, she looked visibly older: graying hair, crow’s feet, etc.

The question came up a lot when Flash: Rebirth launched last year, and I recall Ethan Van Sciver mentioning in one of his podcast interviews that he tried to draw her somewhat older, but that she and Barry didn’t look right together, so he and Geoff Johns decided to make her look closer to his age.

Now, there are a lot of reasons one can give for her looking 30 instead of 50 or 60: better medical care in the 31st century, the fact that she’s been transplanted into a new body at least once (don’t ask!), and the suggestion made in Flash: Rebirth #5 that exposure to the speed force keeps people young. This had actually been established before with Jay and to a lesser extent Joan Garrick.

Of course, it doesn’t explain why Iris would appear older in Flash vol.2 and Impulse, then younger in Flash: Rebirth and Flash vol.3, but since then, DC has established Superboy Punches, the “New Earth” rearrangement of history in Infinite Crisis, and Flash: Rebirth‘s alterations of Barry Allen’s past — including how and when he and Iris met.

But let’s not forget: When she returned after an extended absence during Geoff Johns’ run on Wally West’s series, Iris made her entrance looking like this: Continue reading →