Tag Archives: Wally West

Speed Reading: Flash in the 1990s

Strangely enough, a lot of the sites I’ve linked to on Twitter or Facebook over the last few weeks were looking back at the 1990s and Mark Waid’s run on The Flash

High Five! Comics profiles Max Mercury: The Speedster Time Forgot (for a while). Of course, Max goes back farther than — he started as Quality Comics’ Golden Age hero, Quicksilver — but the version of the character known today was established in “The Return of Barry Allen,” “Terminal Velocity,” “Dead Heat” and Impulse.

For Valentine’s Day, Comics Should be Good’s Year of Cool Comics spotlights Flash: Terminal Velocity and a key event in the relationship between Wally West and Linda Park.

Westfield Comics’ Josh Crawley looks back at Mark Waid’s first run on The Flash, picking up with Flash #0 and running through “Terminal Velocity,” “Dead Heat” and “Race Against Time.”

Mania spotlights the 1990s Flash TV series in 15 more shows that were canceled before their time over the last 25 years. It’s an interesting mix of shows I remember fondly (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles), shows I remember hearing about but never watched (Murder One), and shows I’ve completely forgotten (Street Hawk?). It also reminds me that I never got around to watching the last few episodes of Journeyman.

More Flash-Related News from Toy Fair 2010!

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Courtesy of Toynewsi.com (my favorite source for Action Figure news for the last few years) we have some more Flash news from Toy Fair 2010. New additions to the DC Infinite Superheroes 3.75 inch line include Rogue mainstays, Heatwave and The Trickster. The Flash in the middle looks to be Wally West upgraded with the new increased articulation. It definitely looks like the same head sculpt from the first Wally they released a few years back. Not to mention the belt converges in the middle.

And in case you missed them, Mattel also conveniently showcased previously released Brave and the Bold Action Figures, The Top and Gorilla Grodd. Both of which were included in two packs released with a different Batman figure.

Can’t wait until Heatwave, Trickster and the new Wally hit the shelves but I still need to try and track down The Top and Gorilla Grodd somehow. I just wish every version of Grodd wasn’t so darn expensive and “hard to find”. Just a little annoying.

—–UPDATE—–

Matty Collector posted a checklist for all the upcoming Justice League Unlimited action figures being released this year. I scrolled through it quickly and noticed a name that I hadn’t noticed in any of the pics from Toy Fair 2010 posted on the net so far: Weather Wizard! The figure is based on his appearance from the classic Superman: The Animated Series episode “Speed Demons”, which also featured the first appearance of The Flash in a race around the world with Superman.

Since I hadn’t noticed any pics I did a little searching online and came across an Ebay Auction that ended a month ago with a picture of him.

JLU Weather Wizard

I was never too pleased with the design they used for my favorite Rogue on the show but putting that aside it looks pretty solid. I will definitely be picking it up very soon. I just hope that they get cracking on making some more Flash Rogues for DC Universe Classics.

-Devin “The Flash” Johnson

EVS Talks Flash: Rebirth at Word Balloon

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I finally finished listening to last week’s Word Balloon Podcast with Ethan Van Sciver this morning. During the 90-minute interview, he talks about Flash: Rebirth, the personal issues that caused the delays, redesigning Wally West’s costume, bringing back Impulse, the balance of power between writers and artists, and Cyberfrog.

Some points that Flash readers will find interesting:

Last spring, Ethan Van Sciver started experiencing chest pains and was told that if he didn’t do something about his health, he was going to have a heart attack. So he embarked on a complete lifestyle change, which threw off his work schedule, slowing down Flash: Rebirth. The final issue, originally scheduled for September 30 of last year, will be out in two weeks on February 24.

It was his idea to make Iris “Irey” West II the new Impulse. He wanted the character back, and deliberately made Iris and Jai younger than they had been previously because of that (and because he didn’t like them as tweens). He also made an effort to draw Bart Allen as Kid Flash looking a bit more like he appeared as Impulse: round face, big feet, slightly exaggerated features. On a related note: Geoff Johns has plans for Jai.

He had a really hard time redesigning Wally West’s costume. The way he put it was that it’s easy to design a speedster costume, but it’s hard to design a Flash costume. Whereas with Sinestro Corps War and Blackest Night he basically had free reign with new designs, this time he kept getting notes and had several designs rejected. The final version was quite literally a composite of other Flash costumes: EVS wanted the straight cowl from the TV series & Dark Flash, to make it look like a knight’s helmet (in line with his Barry = King Arthur and Wally = Lancelot metaphor), Geoff Johns came up with using the animated-style emblem, etc. To this day, Van Sciver isn’t happy with the way it turned out.

There’s a lot more in there — it is an hour and a half long — and it’s worth listening to if you have the time. There’s also a discussion at Comic Bloc that’s gotten into the writer/artist balance.

Related note: Daniel Way interviews EVS in connection with Cherry Capital Con.

Site Updates: Wally West, Captain Boomerang, New Contributor

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Some updates to Speed Force and Flash: Those Who Ride the Lightning:

Profiles

Wally West‘s entry now features his new costume. I’d been hoping to find a more complete image, but the debut splash page remains the most detailed view of the costume I’ve seen, even if he is missing an arm and a foot.

I’ve also updated the images of Barry Allen and Wally West on the main page and indexes. Next up: finding an appropriate image of Barry to update his profile.

Captain Boomerang, Sr. gets an update on his Bronze Age family status as I try to work my way through old emails (in this case from Omar Karindu, reminding me of a story in which we meet “Digger” Harkness’ father). I took the opportunity to do some minor rewrites as well.

The Rag Doll is mostly focused on the original Golden Age villain, but I’ve updated the profile with some new information on the next generation of Merkels from Secret Six (again, catching up on old email).

Growing Team

Finally, I’d like to welcome another new contributor to Speed Force: Devin “The Flash” Johnson, who will fill the gap in the site’s collectibles coverage!

Speed Reading: Fan Art, Blackest Night & More

Some linkblogging highlights from Twitter over the last few weeks:

Fan Art

Blue Lantern Flash Custom Figure at The Green Lantern Corps Forum.

Death Race on Reality Prime by Dave Myers and Kurt Christenson.

Blackest Night: The Rogues by xanychaos at Comic Bloc.

Commentary

Uncanny Comic Book Scans just finished a week of Flash posts featuring single pages from throughout Wally West’s run on the book.

Broken Frontier unearths the dead Rogues.

Bleeding Cool spots an error in Blackest Night: The Flash #2 – Barry Allen’s narration boxes feature the wrong Lantern Corps symbol!

Beyond the Flash

LiveScience: Humans Could Run 40 mph, in Theory (via Devin “The Flash” Johnson).

Perspective: schmevil reminds us all that Your fandom is not Fandom. (Via Comics Worth Reading).

Sidekick Corner: Ignition

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So as I am the new kid around here I wanted to name my posts something that can identify them different to our glorious leader and I feel that right now being the new kid on the block sidekick is a good way to identify myself. Kelson is the guy that channels the speed force. I am impulse to his wally at the moment. I might change the name later but for now I think it is a nice way to let you know when I am speaking.

So this is the place that I will be looking at The Flash and his universe at the characters and events that have shaped each person that has worn the lightning.

Ignition: the end of one age, the birth of a new one.

So today I wanted to look at the Ignition storyline that begins with Issue 201 and what the story meant to the character of the Flash and the Flash universe in general.

Ignition is an interesting issue from the perspective of serialised super hero story telling. It is a great example of how you can make large scale changes to the status quo and still maintain the integrity of the character and honour the audiences expectations.

This is the reboot that I feel the people involved with “One More Day,” the Spider-Man story that was intended to create a new paradigm for the character. But where they failed with “One More Day,” Geoff Johns succeeded: execution. Geoff Johns took the subplot that ran through the Flash starting in the last half of Mark Waid’s run (the fear of loss) and used that theme as the reason for the changes made in this story.

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