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Tell me about the Flash

rising and revolving

20:45 / 16.02.05

I never really followed the Flash, much. I poked in occasionally, mainly through the JLA - but never into any detail, and not much in the last few years.

In any case, I now have a pressing need to know more about Mr Flash. Mostly, I'm interested in knowing of any villians who are cool, Flash-centric, and still around.

I'm not writing fan-fic, but I may as well be. And where better to turn for a quick knowledge boost than Barb?

So, where are Flash-y things at the moment? Anything especially cool going on in the contemporary Flash-iverse? Moments I cannot live without? And villians, villians, nasty men.

22:32 / 16.02.05

http://www.hyperborea.org/flash/ This site is pretty comprehensive, and has pretty much anything you could want to know about anything about the Flash.

For the new reader, I'd say get the "Born to Run", "Return of Barry Allen" and "Terminal Velocity" trades. They give you a pretty good idea of the character's history, and are all written by Mark Waid, who did a lot of great things with Wally's character.

The best thing about the Flash, though, is that when Barry Allen was the Flash, most of his villains (the Rogues Gallery, they're called) were science-based (well, pseudo-science from the Silver Age, anyway), which was fun because he was a police scientist. I feel Geoff Johns is sort of missing the point in his run, because he's creating a lot of new Rogues that are all sort of Batman villian-y and dark, whereas the original Rogues were a bunch of fun Silver Age villains who robbed banks with crazy super-mirrors and rainbow-projecting goggles.

But everybody else seems to be enjoying Geoff Johns's run, so you may want to pick up a trade of that, I suppose.

04:35 / 17.02.05

I'm not particularly enjoying Johns' run either; I look each issue over as it comes out but don't bother picking it up.

And it's pretty much for the reason you give. I liked the Flash when it depicted a world where pretty much everybody had fun--heroes, villains, everybody. (Although the Rogues had a fairly weird idea of fun.) Darkening it kinda misses the point, and damages suspension of disbelief...which is real important when you have a main character who could Fix The World in a millisecond if he thought he really needed to.

But yeah, Hyperborea's a great resource. Aside from darkening the old Rogues, probably the most important thing Johns has done is bring in a Professor Zoom II--who isn't Speed Force-powered, but rather lives in an accelerated timeframe from everybody else. This makes him much faster than the Flash. And his job is to make the Flash become a serious, dedicated superhero. Therefore he, er, kills Wally's unborn kids.

Oh, and the Flash's secret identity is no longer known--Spectre wiped it from everyone's memory at his request--which is a major change from the last couple of decades where Wally West was probably the highest-profile known-to-be-superguy.

07:13 / 17.02.05

I second those TPB recommendations. Of course you could go the whole hog and go through waid's entire run. Its just that good, IMHO. Also be sure to check out Grant Morrison's stellar 12 fill-in run on the Flash, starting somewhere after #133. Speed force powered hi-jinks that's almost as good as waid's, with the best Jay Garrick Flash story EVER! Geoff John's books entertain me, especially his JSA, but Waid will always be the best Flash writer ever, to my eyes.

14:38 / 17.02.05

I take your point about the new villains being a bunch Arkham Asylum Seekers but I think that's at least part of the point, with the upcomng story about the (SPOILER) reformed Rogues fighting the Old Rogues and the New Generation of Rogues in a kind of three sided war. The old school heroes think the same thing about the new heroes.

Of course comment could be made on the fact that the classic Rogues being given motives beyond just robbery in fancy costumes just for the sake of it kind of missed the point.

Me, I like the current run a lot, but then with the Rogues at the core of the stories it's always going to be light fun, and that's all I want from a comic like this.

14:49 / 17.02.05

I really like Johns' run...I like seeing Porter back on a comic, too. I was one of the few who liked his JLA art, though I know he's not a perfect artist.

And when Johns goes into the Rogue profiles he does some very nice, surprisingly dark work...