Comments on: SPOILERS!!!! SPOILERS WE SAID!!!! DC edition

by: Welcome Back, Barry Allen! « Speed Force

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 20:27:51 +0000

[…] With Barry’s return confirmed in subsequent interviews, it was only a matter of figuring out when he would appear on-panel. When the “next issue” blurb for Final Crisis #2 showed that Flash painting and mentioned “the return of a long lost hero,” the answer was clear. […]

by: SESE

Fri, 02 May 2008 20:44:54 +0000

Shouldn’t Gail Simone be credited for the WW segment?

by: Did the Flash Save Comics? | K-Squared Ramblings

Fri, 02 May 2008 06:52:42 +0000

[…] Edit: The comment thread at The Beat also has some interesting speculation on comics without the Silver Age Flash. […]

by: Steve Taylor

Fri, 02 May 2008 03:34:04 +0000

I’m with Ken,…I read that comic and it didn’t make no sense. Like Chris,…I thought it was about Captain Marvel too. Possibly.
It seemed like a William Burroughs pastiche. As if pages ripped from previous DC Event comics were pasted randomly together. It’s as if each panel were created by a different awesome comics team.

by: Scott

Thu, 01 May 2008 15:00:10 +0000

The problem with all of this is that Barry Allen doesn’t really appear in DCU #0. There is much to imply his presence but also enough ambiguity to put off the full reveal until presumably some time later in the pages of Final Crisis or mayber Rogues Revenge. But then the news media comes in and pretty much blows all of this build up out of the water.

by: Ken Raining

Thu, 01 May 2008 14:32:57 +0000

I was so busy at work yesterday that I actually managed to avoid all the spoilers before I read this. I did know that Barry was due for a comeback, so it wasn’t a total shock. That said, the comic really doesn’t work until you realize “oh, it’s Barry Allen narrating”, and then it kind of looses steam.

As for the question of what would have happened to comics without superheroes, I’ve always thought that superheroes became the dominant genre because it’s the only one that comics could do better then other mediums. I don’t think it’s the case any more– “the Incredibles” is better then 99% of superhero comics, and comics have proven to have strengths that movies, tv, ect. can’t match. Still, the course has been set.

by: Chris Midweeker

Thu, 01 May 2008 10:52:01 +0000

Like Ivan, I’ve been waiting for the other shoe to drop on Barry for a while. After the returns of Jason Todd and Bucky over at Marvel, it seemed inevitable.
However, as with Ken, I didn’t immediately click it was Barry until I read the article on Newsarama, it really wasn’t as clear as it could have been. Like a doofus, I initially thought it was Shazam related…
I’m interested to see where Final Crisis goes from here though.
Oh, and Jimmy P, you’re doing an awesome job on Jonah Hex, I implore anyone who likes really well done Western comics to check it out.

by: jimmy palmiotti

Thu, 01 May 2008 05:05:13 +0000

“Without Barry Allen, we’d still be reading comic books about cowboys,” Geoff Johns, co-writer of the new Flash comics, told the Daily News.

everyone, please let that comic be JONAH HEX.

Jimmy p

by: Mark Coale

Thu, 01 May 2008 03:01:04 +0000

I guess if Bucky can come back to life, so can Barry Allen.

Uncle Ben, you’re next.

by: Sphinx Magoo

Thu, 01 May 2008 02:16:38 +0000

Is this a paradigm shift we’re witnessing? No longer are these massive announcements displayed only in Wizard Magazine… now they’re getting announced in EW and the Daily News!

As Keanu Reeves would say: “Whoa!”

by: Ken

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 20:44:47 +0000

I read DC #0 because I happened to browse into a comic shop today and it was free so i took one, and I was so confused I didn’t even see Barry Allan in it, or didn’t realize I was seeing him. I also bought a Batman comic because I saw the Ten-Eyed Man was in it.

Anyway #0 was a bit of a mess. I didn’t understand a single thing I was reading, I have no idea who or what The Black Hand is, I happened to have read Crisis 25 years ago so I knew the Spectre flashback imagery, but that’s about all I got. Not clear what was going on with WW, or why the cast of 300 was hanging with her, who the guys talking about the cast of 300 were, why The Legion was with Superman…nothing.

by: Ivan

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 19:24:48 +0000

John you bring up a great point. Many common folk who knew of the Flash still think that Barry is Flash and never died. The 1990 tv show and the excellent reference in “Catch Me If You Can” didn’t help.

I had a feeling that Barry was coming back, after Ollie, Carter, Hal and now Ray. I just wish that J’onn wasn’t expiring (spoiler my ass) and Arthur would come back full circle.

by: thecitydesk

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 19:24:01 +0000

“Now there’s an interesting idea… No Flash, no Justice League, no Fantastic Four, no superhero genre dominating the medium. Without the excitement generated by superhero comics, would fans have entered the profession in the 1960s and 1970s? ”

Sure. It just all would have been pirate comics.

by: John Platt

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 18:32:40 +0000

Barry Allen was dead?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

by: MarcusLusk

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 18:02:05 +0000

“Without Barry Allen, we’d still be reading comic books about cowboys,” said Geoff Johns.

I didn’t realize Flash had come along at such a crucial moment in comics history. That’s interesting.
I couldn’t help but think, though, that if superheroes hadn’t come to dominate the direct market, we might have a lot more people reading comics.

by: gene phillips

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 17:41:09 +0000

Torsten asks: “would comics just continue on as a children’s medium distributed to newsstands and drug stores, with the occasional independent or underground title?”

IMO, had the mainstream medium tried to rely purely on non-fan support in the decade that gave rise to the DM, the price hikes would have killed the medium. It’s true that the hikes for comics aren’t much worse than for paperbacks (some of which were about 25 cents in 1960, and which now go for about $5 usually), but the higher the costs went up, the less would be the tendency to regard comics as quick throwaway reading.

Of course, maybe the medium could have hung on doing ARCHIE-style booklets designed for the supermarket trade. At least SUPERMAN could’ve…

As for the Flash coming back, it’s just the other shoe dropping, after a really long time.

by: Andrew Wickliffe

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 17:03:19 +0000

Didn’t Rich Johnston “spoil” this one months ago?

by: Torsten Adair

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 16:58:49 +0000

“Without Barry Allen, we’d still be reading comic books about cowboys,” Geoff Johns, co-writer of the new Flash comics, told the Daily News.

Now there’s an interesting idea… No Flash, no Justice League, no Fantastic Four, no superhero genre dominating the medium. Without the excitement generated by superhero comics, would fans have entered the profession in the 1960s and 1970s? Or would comics just continue on as a children’s medium distributed to newsstands and drug stores, with the occasional independent or underground title? Without the fan base encouraging the creation of comicbook stores and the Direct Market, there would not be an easy market for creators to distribute their work.

by: Bartholomew Fair

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 16:25:57 +0000

“And that’s why people read comics, to get away from the way life works, which is quite cruel and unheroic and ends in death.”

In my case that’s the exact reason I stopped reading mainstream DC and Marvel years ago. If I want to read about people being raped, maimed and/or killed, I’ll pick up a newspaper.