The Flash is back! At least the series is back as we get the premiere of Season 7. This episode has a LOT going on, with revelations all around and a very tragic shocker near episode’s end. While there are some minor details that can be picked apart, the overall premiere was outstanding. Wanna know more? Follow us after the jump!
SPOILERS AHEAD! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED
So many Easter Eggs! SO much Flash history! This is a book that you can’t read just once…or twice…or…you get it. We get a FLASH title that centers on the original Wally West, and at the same time foreshadows both the upcoming FLASH WAR and even larger events for the DC universe as a whole! Just as Barry Allen signaled the beginning of the Silver Age, Wally West signaled the REBIRTH of the DCU…and all this mashup of history is coming to a boil with some surprise details and more than one surprise return! Want to know more? Follow us after the jump!
SPOILERS AHEAD!
This episode has SO much going for it…TWO new Rogues for the show, a reappearance of sorts from another Rogue…and that’s not all! This episode gives us Harry…and Harry…and Harry…and…I’ll explain…AFTER the jump!
SPOILERS AHEAD
Ghost stories seem a natural fit with some superheroes. Not so with the Flash. An origin based in science, scientifically trained alter-egos, villains who use technology. Even the “magician” villain, Abra Kadabra, is more of a techno-mage, using highly advanced future technology to carry out transformations that seem like magic to our experience. The closest the Flash mythos gets to the supernatural is the metaphysical nature of the speed force, and even that is described in terms of energy and the nature of space-time.
So it makes sense that for 1998’s “Ghosts” annuals, the Flash story would feature not a traditional ghost, but one tied to the speed force: Johnny Quick, who had vanished into the speed force two years earlier during Dead Heat.
Fan Expo was held in Toronto on August 23-26 this year, and size-wise was quite possibly bigger than ever. I’ve gone every year for about a decade now, but this con was different: I cosplayed for the first time! Nobody who knows me would be surprised that I decided to go as the Top, as I’m probably the Internet’s most diehard Top fan.
I cosplayed on Saturday, which is the convention’s major cosplaying day. And to my great surprise and delight, I met a Heat Wave cosplayer! While I’ve since learned that somebody else dressed as Captain Cold in a previous year, I’ve never personally seen a Rogue at Fan Expo, so it was really great to see one during my first time. And many people seemed quite excited to see Heat Wave (Brando Lars) and I together. We also met up with a couple of Flashes and participated in a photoshoot with other people dressed as DC characters. It was a lot of fun.
Since the Top is not an especially popular character, occasionally I get asked why I like him or people seem to be incredulous that anyone could. I figured it was finally time to write a short essay about it. This isn’t necessarily intended to change other people’s minds about him; of course he has a ton of flaws and I’m well aware he’s not particularly appealing to most people. It’s just an explanation of what I like about him.
I first developed an interest when reading some short biography, which stated to the effect “He taught himself to spin at high speeds, and the spinning increased his intelligence”. Frankly, I was delighted by the sublime ridiculousness of it, and can’t understand why some people consider that aspect of his origin to be a negative thing. I enjoy at least a bit of silliness and light-heartedness in superhero comics, a genre that by definition has some inherent goofiness.
I admire that he’s very much self-made. He taught himself about tops and the physics of rotation, taught himself how to spin, and built all of his own wide-ranging inventions. His genius intellect and psionic powers were unexpected gifts, but also the result of his own achievement (spinning). His repeated escapes from Hell and returns from the dead seem to have been the result of his own cleverness and stubbornness; he decided he wanted to come back, so he went and did it. He has a hell of an ego, but you can see why. Continue reading