Tag Archives: Toys

Super Powers 25th: The Flash!

Super Powers 25th Anniversary!

25 years ago, Kenner launched a line of DC super-hero action figures under the name Super Powers. Today, Crisis on Earth-Blog unites fourteen sites in celebrating this landmark toy line. In particular, check out Crimson Lightning’s week-long coverage, starting with a review of the Flash mini-comic. (“Mini-comic,” you ask? Read on!)

The Super Powers figures were 6″ toys with a twist — sometimes literally. They really were action figures. Each figure would perform an action if manipulated, usually by squeezing the arms or legs. Squeeze Superman’s legs and he’d throw a punch. Hawkman’s wings would flap. Robin would do a karate chop, and Wonder Woman would lift her bracelets to block bullets. If you squeezed Red Tornado’s arms, his lower body would spin.

Naturally, if you squeezed the Flash’s arms, he would run.

Mini-Comics

Each figure starred in his (or her) own miniature 16-page comic book, around 4 inches high. To keep things readable they typically had only one or two panels per page. Villains and other heroes were pulled from the rest of the toy line, along with a couple of playsets and vehicles.

The Flash (Barry Allen) appeared in four of the mini-comics.

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Speed Reading: Gearing Up for Wednesday Comics

Wednesday Comics

The Weekly Crisis wants to know: Will you be buying Wednesday Comics?

Karl Kerschl is running a contest: He’s hidden an image of The Abominable Charles Christopher in a panel of the Flash story in Wednesday Comics (he’s not saying which week). When you spot it, email him a photo of yourself pointing to the yeti, and you’ll be entered in a drawing for an original sketch.

When Worlds Collide’s Timothy Callahan is wildly enthusiastic about the series, and compares it to Solo. He also notes that the reasons he liked Solo and is looking forward to Wednesday Comics — get a bunch of top-tier artists and writers and let them loose on DC’s characters — is exactly why Solo sold so poorly.

Speaking of Solo, I didn’t buy every issue, but I did pick up three or four. I bought the ones by artists I wanted to read. Darwyn Cooke, Sergio Aragonés, I forget who else.

Speed Reading: Rebirth, Weapons, Action Figures and More

Entertainment Weekly’s Popwatch asks whether Flash: Rebirth and Secret Warriors are the two best-written super-hero titles on the shelves right now.

FlushRush lists Captain Cold’s cold gun among the Top 20 Comic Weapons [dead link].

Transforming Seminarian contemplates the religious implications of comic-book resurrections.

POE Ghostal reviews the DCU Classics Kid Flash action figure.

Dan Didio talks World of Krypton and Flash: Rebirth at the Washington Post’s Comic Riffs.

Funnybook Babylon compares storytelling vs. model building in the context of Green Lantern and Flash: Rebirth.

Jim Beard reports that Flash Companion editor Keith Dallas is working on a “big” project for Two Morrows.

Speed Reading: Silver-Age Guest Stars, Action Figures, Van Sciver and More

Victoria Wayne comments on Captain Boomerang’s first appearance

Crimson Lightning has finished reviewing the entire 1990-1991 Flash TV series, and now presents a round-up of Live Action: The Worst.

Silver Age Comics looks at Barry Allen’s childhood sweetheart, future actress Daphne Dean, as The Other Woman. (She returned a few times in the Bronze Age, including the 4-part story that introduced the Golden Glider.)

Newsarama has a video interview with Todd Dezago, former Impulse writer, in which he talks about Perhapanauts.

POE Ghostal reviews the new DCU Classics Barry Allen action figure.

Geek Stuff Daily looks at the history of the Flash.

Ethan Van Sciver’s weekly column is up to #11, and at least this week he’s renamed it from “Your Time Is Now Mine” to “Hope, Understanding and Compassion.” He links to a discussion thread his wife Sharis started about her experience with a dog rescue gone wrong earlier this week:

This was the worst day of my life. I don’t blame the dog, and I’m especially grateful for Officer Guardian Angel this morning, and the fact that it was ME that was bitten, not a small child, which is easily could have been. But I dedicate my entire life to rescue, and to see the dog shot, to hear it scream in pain and watch it die…this was entirely too much to cope with today.

Please keep supporting rescue efforts and animal cruelty legislation, folks, not the hysteria that causes people to deem all “vicious” dogs “bad dogs.”

There are no bad dogs, just bad owners.

Sharis also posted a link in the thread to her own blog entry about the incident.

Gaslight Flash

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There’s a whole community of artists who create custom action figures, often by taking a commercially-produced figure and modifying it through sculpture and paint. Sometimes they’ll simply convert it into a character who doesn’t have an official figure yet, but the really interesting ones are those that go off on a tangent and create something new, like this set of Victorian-style Justice Leaguers by Sillof, inspired by the now-classic Gotham by Gaslight.

Setting it in the 1880s puts it a little earlier than JLA: Age of Wonder (which had its own Flash), and while it’s still too early for aviation, the artist “went for the pilot look” with the Flash, as you can see here:

On a not entirely unrelated note, I’ve been re-reading Girl Genius from the beginning. The comic’s authors, Phil and Kaja Foglio, describe it as a “gaslamp fantasy,” or as most people would call it, steampunk.

(This post is brought to you by Google Alerts, bespredell, and the letter G. Image used by permission.)

Speed Force

Tracking the Flash – the Fastest Man Alive