That was fast...
Less than a week after readers learned the fates of various speedsters, Dan DiDio has announced the new Flash creative team, and unless you’re a conspiracy theorist with an eye for corporate synergy, it’s probably not who you think.
First, a bit of explanation. In Sunday’s Flash retrospective, I mentioned a rumor about Darwyn Cooke writing the title. Apparently that memory came from this story, in which Geoff Johns himself stated that Cooke would write what turned out to be the book’s last four issues. Since that’s not what happened, I wonder where that Cooke story (to be illustrated by the book’s last regular artist, Howard Porter) ended up.
So the new Flash won’t be headed by Cooke, or by the return of Mark Waid, but instead by Danny Bilson and Paul De Meo, the producers of the 1990-91 “Flash” TV show that just came out on DVD last week. The two had done a Barry Allen show in the age of Wally West, and as DiDio told Newsarama, “here were two people already working with DC who’d had a chance to really examine the strengths, examine the powers, the depth and interests of the character himself, and also figure out how to make him work.” (Bilson and De Meo also worked on the 1991 Rocketeer movie, and their story editors on "The Flash" were comics writers Howard Chaykin and John Francis Moore.)
As for who would be in the classic Infantinoesque suit, DiDio would only say that the series is built on “legacy,” and not to “get too attached to the first Flash you see.” Putting all those things together, and knowing that Wally West’s newborn twins are also in the Speed Force now, it doesn’t seem like a stretch to suppose that the supernaturally-aged twins will share the spotlight.
This is not a radical concept: Bart “Impulse/Kid Flash” Allen was a supernaturally-aged child come back from the future; and speedster twins are not unfamiliar. Bart’s father Don and aunt Dawn, Barry and Iris Allen’s children, were the “Tornado Twins”; and in the Kingdom Come future, both of Wally’s children had super-speed, although only his daughter pursued a costumed career. (Not to mention Mas y Menos from the “Teen Titans” cartoon.) In fact, the dynamic between Iris “Kid Flash” West and Barry West sounds superficially like that between Starmen David and Jack Knight. One hopes that if DC has such plans for the West twins, Iris won’t suffer David’s fate.
Still, I get the feeling that Bilson and De Meo have the Flash gig now because they had previously worked on a Flash with elements of both Barry Allen and (at the time) Wally West. TV loves accessibility, so aside from the question of originality, I’m not sure how a backstory of “twins from the future” will draw in new readers. “Struck by lightning and doused with chemicals” should still set the level of complexity.
Speaking of which, another possibility may not be palatable to many fans. After his series ended in 1985, Barry Allen spent a month in the 30th Century with his wife Iris before his death in Crisis on Infinite Earths. Since then, Wally and others have visited him in that month. It is possible that this summer’s Flash #1 will feature Barry Allen in the last month of his life, and the first story arc will end with Barry’s date with destiny.
Finally, there is still one Flash left after Infinite Crisis #4: the original, Jay Garrick. While I don’t think it’s likely that he will be “the” Flash again this summer, maybe there are a lot of slow-senior-citizen gags to be mined....
First, a bit of explanation. In Sunday’s Flash retrospective, I mentioned a rumor about Darwyn Cooke writing the title. Apparently that memory came from this story, in which Geoff Johns himself stated that Cooke would write what turned out to be the book’s last four issues. Since that’s not what happened, I wonder where that Cooke story (to be illustrated by the book’s last regular artist, Howard Porter) ended up.
So the new Flash won’t be headed by Cooke, or by the return of Mark Waid, but instead by Danny Bilson and Paul De Meo, the producers of the 1990-91 “Flash” TV show that just came out on DVD last week. The two had done a Barry Allen show in the age of Wally West, and as DiDio told Newsarama, “here were two people already working with DC who’d had a chance to really examine the strengths, examine the powers, the depth and interests of the character himself, and also figure out how to make him work.” (Bilson and De Meo also worked on the 1991 Rocketeer movie, and their story editors on "The Flash" were comics writers Howard Chaykin and John Francis Moore.)
As for who would be in the classic Infantinoesque suit, DiDio would only say that the series is built on “legacy,” and not to “get too attached to the first Flash you see.” Putting all those things together, and knowing that Wally West’s newborn twins are also in the Speed Force now, it doesn’t seem like a stretch to suppose that the supernaturally-aged twins will share the spotlight.
This is not a radical concept: Bart “Impulse/Kid Flash” Allen was a supernaturally-aged child come back from the future; and speedster twins are not unfamiliar. Bart’s father Don and aunt Dawn, Barry and Iris Allen’s children, were the “Tornado Twins”; and in the Kingdom Come future, both of Wally’s children had super-speed, although only his daughter pursued a costumed career. (Not to mention Mas y Menos from the “Teen Titans” cartoon.) In fact, the dynamic between Iris “Kid Flash” West and Barry West sounds superficially like that between Starmen David and Jack Knight. One hopes that if DC has such plans for the West twins, Iris won’t suffer David’s fate.
Still, I get the feeling that Bilson and De Meo have the Flash gig now because they had previously worked on a Flash with elements of both Barry Allen and (at the time) Wally West. TV loves accessibility, so aside from the question of originality, I’m not sure how a backstory of “twins from the future” will draw in new readers. “Struck by lightning and doused with chemicals” should still set the level of complexity.
Speaking of which, another possibility may not be palatable to many fans. After his series ended in 1985, Barry Allen spent a month in the 30th Century with his wife Iris before his death in Crisis on Infinite Earths. Since then, Wally and others have visited him in that month. It is possible that this summer’s Flash #1 will feature Barry Allen in the last month of his life, and the first story arc will end with Barry’s date with destiny.
Finally, there is still one Flash left after Infinite Crisis #4: the original, Jay Garrick. While I don’t think it’s likely that he will be “the” Flash again this summer, maybe there are a lot of slow-senior-citizen gags to be mined....
posted by Tom Bondurant @ 10:40 AM
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