Tag Archives: Silver Age

Surprising Flash Fact: Wally West has More Experience than Barry Allen

I had an odd thought while reading The Flash #2* last week. Francis Manapul draws Barry and Iris in a way that makes them look fairly young, and I remembered someone’s remark that the cowl on Wally West’s new costume makes him look older than Barry, even though Wally used to be Barry’s younger sidekick.

Then it hit me: No, Wally isn’t older than Barry Allen (even with time travel) but when you factor in his earlier Kid Flash career, he actually has more experience than Barry at this point!

No, Really!

Wally West became Kid Flash very early in Barry Allen’s Flash career — only six issues into his solo series! Flash vol.1 started with #105, picking up from where the Golden Age Flash Comics left off, and Wally was struck by lightning in Flash #110, back in 1959. He didn’t retire as Kid Flash until very late in Barry’s career, in New Teen Titans #39 — just one year before Barry vanished in 1985.**

So Wally West has been running around for most of Barry’s career plus his own!

Team Player

During his JLA run, Grant Morrison is one of the few writers I can remember really building on the fact that the original Titans grew up as super-heroes. I don’t recall it being a plot point, but Morrison mentioned it in an interview, or possibly one of the Secret Files books, and it clearly factored into his characterization of Wally West. He might not have been as old as Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, but he’d been working with a team longer than they had, and he was a consummate professional.

Wally wasn’t the rookie on the team by any stretch. That honor went to Green Lantern Kyle Rayner.

Of course, neither Wally nor Barry can hold a candle to Jay Garrick, who has been speeding since 1940!

*Yes, I do still plan on reviewing it. It was just a busy week, and for some reason, it’s been hard to sit down and write it.

**These are of course the real-world publishing dates. The fictional DC Universe would use a vague “X years ago” timeline that always seems to change, but usually compresses everything from the dawn of the Silver Age onward into a 10-15–year period.

Speed Reading: Flash Deaths, Sightings, Pricing and More

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Some linkblogging from the past couple of weeks:

Flashy Links

Newsarama interviews Francis Manapul on his work on The Flash.

Comics Bulletin presents the Top 10 Flash Deaths in order of how long they lasted.

A reader at Silver Age Comics discovers that Flash Comics #13 is different on Earth-One.

You’ve probably read about the thief who took Free Comic Book Day a bit too literally and tried to steal a $150 X-Men Omnibus…and was foiled by Spider-Man, two Jedi, and the Flash.

Speaking of FCBD, Chris Samnee has posted a FCBD sketch gallery featuring both Flash and Quicksilver.

Super Heroes

Comics Worth Reading’s Johanna Draper Carlson has some ideas for how to make super-hero comics interesting again

4thLetter’s David Brothers encourages you to focus on the stories, not the canon. Don’t buy something you don’t like just because it’s “important,” and don’t pass up other good stuff because it’s not.

Comics Alliance has a thought-provoking article on the racial implications of running legacies backward.

Grumpy Old Fan ponders the role of secret identities in DC comics from the Silver Age through the present.

Once Upon a Geek also reviews the DC Fandex guide (my review went up on Monday).

Comics in General

Westfield Comics’ KC Carlson explains how to meet artists without being talked about afterward, and offers suggestions for convention behavior.

LIFE has a photo gallery of people reading classic comic books from the Golden Age through the 1980s, including a boy reading Flash Comics in 1949. Nitpick: By 1949, the feature wasn’t about a “college student” with super-speed. Jay Garrick graduated during his origin story. (Link via Xian)

Collected Editions considers an increasingly common problem: the trade you want is out of print.

Multiversity Comics analyzes the impact of the shift from $2.99 comics to $3.99.

Speed Reading

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Two weeks’ worth of linkblogging, so you’ll probably have seen a lot of these by now…

Commentary

Multiversity Comics presents A Crisis of Chronology: The Flash, as well as thoughts on early solicitations in a digital age.

Silver Age Gold presents: I Hate the Flash’s Girlfriend, all about Iris West! Silver Age Comics responds: Ending with Iris.

Art

slaterman23 has a Flickr set featuring vintage-style DC Comics posters (via The Nerdy Bird).

Paxton Holley has found a comic in which Superman Becomes the Flash (Action Comics #314, 1964)

Chris Samnee sketches Flash vs. Captain Cold at C2E2.

Mr. Maczaps presents Death in the form of the Black Flash.

Bobby Timony draws Jay Garrick (also at C2E2).

By now you’ve probably all seen this visual pun on Flash and the iPad using Alex Ross’ art.

The Top Cow Panel at C2E2 has some incredible samples of Kenneth Rocafort’s art from the upcoming Velocity miniseries.

Karl Kerschl’s webcomic, The Abominable Charles Christopher, is coming to print.

The webcomic Comic Critics tackles Greg Rucka leaving DC.

Other

Comic Book Resources has put together a Comics Twitter Directory [dead link]

Cinema Spy considers how the new status quo seen in Flash #1 might influence the Flash movie. [dead link]

San Diego Comic-Con 2010 Flash-related Exclusives

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In case anyone wasn’t aware, one of Mattel’s exclusives for this year’s San Diego Comic-Con or SDCC is going to be Starro The Conqueror. How does this relate to The Flash? Many of you should be aware that Starro, the alien conqueror with the ability to enslave his enemies using starfish-shaped spores, debuted with the Justice League of America in the Silver Age classic, Brave and the Bold #28. As a special bonus to commemorate DC Comics’ 75th Anniversary, Mattel will be releasing Starro with all five members of the original Justice League. Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter, Wonder Woman, Aquaman and of course, our favorite scarlet speedster, The Flash. Take a gander.

Starro Packaging

Starro and the Silver Age Justice League of America

Starro Spores that can only be acquired at the Con.

Unfortunately these guys aren’t going to be released in the DC Universe Classics(or DCUC) line. The exclusive for that line has been revealed to be Plastic Man.

These are instead done in the Infinite Heroes style which is Mattel’s 3.75-inch line of figures. Think DC Universe Classics shrunken down to the size of G.I. Joes. I don’t think the line has been as popular as Mattel had hoped. A lot of this having to do with the quality of the initial figures. Limited Articulation (Which I actually liked for the most part), poor sculpts and sloppy paint apps have plagued this line from the very beginning. The figures have been more plentiful and easier to find at retail than DCUC, but I can’t say how much of this is because of collectors not really wanting them.

These guys don’t look too bad though. Mattel went back to the drawing board a little while ago and the results weren’t terrible. Not perfect by any means but they are heading in the right direction. I have been waiting for a regular version of the Flash released in the Matty Exclusive Crisis on Infinite Earths Infinite Heroes 4-Pack for a while and while I’m not ecstatic that I have to pay 50 bucks for him I’m still happy to have him. Honestly I’m sure they are going to release him as a single card later on, I really just want it now. 🙂

The packaging is probably the coolest part of this set. Well besides the Starro Spores. But you can only get those if you go to the actual con or purchase them after the fact on eBay for what I’m sure will be ridiculous prices. You can’t see it in the pictures but the packaging is set up exactly like the cover of Brave and the Bold #28. Attack of the Show had an exclusive preview of all the Mattel items coming to SDCC, including this set. The awesome set up of the cover is shown in the first video which can be seen HERE. The segment on the Starro set is about 2 minutes and 18 seconds in. This looks so cool, that it may be the one item that I keep MOC (or Mint On Card, meaning unopened and in pristine condition for the uninitiated).

Can’t wait to order these guys. I may go the extra mile for the Starro Spores as they look too freaking cool to pass up. I already have a Starro-possessed Flash Heroclix so it would be kind of cool to have a large scale version of it too. Do any of you guys plan on picking the set up? At SDCC or from Matty later on?

-Devin “The Flash” Johnson

Dead Parents and Super-Hero Origins

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One last WonderCon post!

At the Comic Arts Conference panel on super-hero origins, James Robinson and Steve Englehart agreed that one of the key elements to a good origin is that it includes the hero’s motivation and a hook that readers can relate to. Robinson cited the Silver-Age Flash as missing that compelling motivation: Okay, he put on a costume to fight crime, but why? Why keep going?

Robinson also talked about why so many heroes have dead parents in their past: the fear of losing a parent is something that any reader can relate to. In fact, when someone asked later in the panel how one could create a good origin, Englehart flippantly replied, “Kill their parents?”

Later in the discussion, the moderator asked about retelling origins. Robinson said he was always wary of destroying what was already there, and preferred to try to add new detail around what already works. He cited Geoff Johns’ revised origin for Barry Allen, in which his mother is killed and his father framed for it, as a successful example.

Personally I disagree. It drastically alters the character’s history, and raises questions of why his history hasn’t changed in other ways, but most importantly, it introduces a cliche that wasn’t present in the original version of the story. If you’re going to revise a story, it seems better to remove overused elements than add them.

The same weekend, the New York Times published an article on the role of parents in young-adult fiction: traditionally, the role of a hero’s parents in classic literature was to die, or at least get out of the way, forcing the protagonist into his journey of self-discovery: the orphan’s “triumphant rise.” (via Neil Gaiman)

Yeah, writers have been using this trope for a long time.

Speed Reading: Crimson Art, Morrison, Crisis Interviews & More

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Some Flash-related links I’ve collected over the last few weeks.

ART! — Swan Shadow features Flash and the Crimson Avenger, drawn by Chris Ivy.

NEWS! — MovieWeb interviews cast & crew of Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths, including Josh Keaton, voice of the Flash. CBR interviews Keaton more extensively.

FANDOM! — Once Upon a Geek has located a DC Comics Snuggie. Speed Force’s Devin “The Flash” Johnson found a satirical piece on the Snuggie that also has a DC link!

The Collected Editions Blog recently celebrated its fifth anniversary.

SIGHTINGS! — Former football player Darrell Green just may be the fastest baby boomer alive, claiming to have run a 40-yard-dash in 4.43 seconds on his 50th birthday.

Need winged boots? These reflective clips for cyclists, inspired by Mercury or Hermes, are in @zieglarf’s words, “almost the Flash.”

COMMENTARY! — Multiversity Comics starts a new feature, Crisis of Chronology, by looking at the DC works of Grant Morrison from Animal Man to Final Crisis, including his brief run on The Flash.

IO9’s 75 Books You Should Own For DC Comics’ 75th Anniversary includes Showcase Presents: The Flash Vol.1, reprinting the first few years f the Silver Age Flash: “Why you should read it: To see the style and substance that made a genre live again… and also how old ideas were made contemporary back in those days.”

Essentailly fanfic, but an interesting take on a Flash movie series at Comic Book Movie.