Tag Archives: The Human Race

Trade Contents Confirmed: Mercury Falling and The Human Race

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The newsletter DC Comics Direct Channel #914 identifies the contents of the upcoming Flash Presents: Mercury Falling and Flash: The Human Race trade paperbacks.

May 2009: Flash Presents: Mercury Falling (Todd Dezago, Ethan Van Sciver) will collect Impulse #62-67. That covers the 5-issue story arc itself as well as the one-issue epilogue guest-starring the Justice League, Justice Society and Young Justice.

June 2009: Flash: The Human Race (Grant Morrison, Mark Millar, Paul Ryan, Pop Mhan) will collect Flash v.2 #136-141 and a story from Secret Origins #50. The Flash issues cover both “The Human Race” and “The Black Flash.”

The Secret Origins story is undoubtedly the retelling of the classic “Flash of Two Worlds,” (Flash v.1 #123) in which Grant Morrison figured out how to incorporate the parallel-world story into a single-world setting. Unless I’ve forgotten something, this volume and Flash: Emergency Stop will cover all of Grant Morrison’s Flash solo work.

It also lists the Final Crisis hardcover coming out in June, along with the Final Crisis Companion trade paperback, which includes all the FC one-shots (including Superman: Beyond, which started as a one-shot that just got too long.) No word yet on when Final Crisis: Rogues’ Revenge will be collected, but there are supposed to be more summer 2009 announcements later this week.

“The Human Race” Finishes Collecting the Morrison/Millar Run

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More Flash news from Collected Editions: Fall 2009 will also see the release of the trade paperback, Flash: The Human Race. No doubt this will collect Flash #136-141, containing “The Human Race” (Grant Morrison & Mark Millar, with art by Paul Ryan & John Nyberg) and “The Black Flash,” (Mark Millar with art by Pop Mhan & Chris Ivy), rounding out the Morrison/Millar run on The Flash starts with January’s release of The Flash: Emergency Stop.

Frankly, I’m surprised they went with “The Human Race” as the title. I think “The Black Flash” is a more well-remembered (and well-regarded) story, particularly given the character’s recent appearances in The Flash: The Fastest Man Alive — Full Throttle.

Now if DC will just start filling in some of the missing stories from the Mark Waid/Brian Augustyn run…

Update: Amazon now shows a release date of June 9, 2009.

Morrison/Millar Run on Flash to be Collected

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Updated: See end of post! Back in 1997, Mark Waid took a break from writing The Flash so he could work on JLA: Year One.  Final Crisis scribe Grant Morrison and Civil War writer Mark Millar stepped in for a year, co-writing issues #130-138, with Millar writing #139-141 solo.  At the end of the year, Waid and Brian Augustyn returned with the epic “Chain Lightning.”  To date, none of the Morrison/Millar run has ben collected.

The stories had a much more sci-fi take on the character than had been seen since the Silver Age, and included:

Emergency Stop (#130-132): The Flash finds his own dead body, sent back in time from the future, and has to solve his own murder.  Introduced The Suit, the ultimate super-villain costume that came to life, draining those who wore it.

Flash Through the Looking Glass (#133), battling the Mirror Master.

Still Life in the Fast Lane (#134): A spotlight on Jay Garrick, the original Flash, as he fills in for an injured Wally West.

Three of a Kind (#135): Part of a crossover with Green Lantern and Green Arrow, in which the youngest members of the Justice League try to take a vacation…only to find a trio of super-villains is on the same cruise.

The Human Race (#136-138): Wally must compete in a galactic race against his childhood imaginary friend, Krakkl of the planet Kwyzz.  If he loses, Earth is destroyed.  If he wins, Krakkl’s homeworld is destroyed.

The Black Flash (#139-141): Death comes to everyone, even speedsters… but this time, Death takes the wrong target.  Introduced the Black Flash, who featured prominently on the cover of last year’s cover for Flash: The Fastest Man Alive #13 (remember those Dead Flash Covers?).

Now, eagle-eyed Comic Bloc poster Lee H has spotted The Flash: Emergency Stop on Amazon, coming in January 2009.  There’s no official word yet, and the Amazon listing doesn’t include a page count, so it’s not clear how many of the issues will appear.  We may find out soon, however: tomorrow DC will announce solicitations for September, and they usually include upcoming collected works as well.

Update (June 20): Collected Editions reports that the book does include “The Black Flash.” Whether that means the entire run is included, or just the first and last arcs, remains to be seen.

Update: It turns out that the 12-issue run is being split across two trades, Emergency Stop and The Human Race. “The Black Flash” appears in the latter.