Tag: Flash

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While looking at website referrer logs, I came across an article at Radio Heroes detailing Gorilla City (Or, What if Grodd Was One of Us?)

The site is all about “reviewing—well, okay, making fun of” a series of audio-drama comic books, and this one tells a tale of Batman in Gorilla City, and how he uses trancendental meditation to defeat Grodd, the Super-Gorilla!

No, really!

I haven’t listened to the sound clips yet, but the write-up is great!

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I found this while looking for pictures to scan for some new profiles on my Flash site. It’s very interesting in light of where Hal Jordan has gone since:

[The Flash and Green Lantern argue over trying to reverse death]This is from Flash #276 (1979), right after the Flash’s wife, Iris, has been killed. Barry goes straight to the JLA satellite HQ and asks Superman, Wonder Woman, and Green Lantern to bring her back from the dead. Hal, being sane at the time, refuses. (The others don’t have the ability.)

The thing is, in the past decade or so, Hal Jordan has become DC’s poster boy for the phrase, “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” He’s tried to recreate a major city and its inhabitants, destroyed a planet, destroyed the universe and attempted to build his own universe to replace it — and that’s just before he died. He’s now tied with the Spectre — a powerful supernatural being — and he’s brought at least one person (Green Arrow) back from the dead, and mindwiped the entire human race to forget the identity of the current Flash. He’s probably done even more questionable stuff in his own series or in JSA.

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Cover: Flash #165Over the past few weeks I’ve been going through the Silver Age Flash series, cataloging character appearances. I’m almost done – only 25 issues left – but it reminded me of something:

Why is it that super-hero weddings are almost always interrupted by super-villains – even when the hero’s identity is secret?

Is it just that readers expect a story with some sort of fight in it, and if it’s just a wedding they’ll be disappointed?

Consider these examples:

  • Flash II (Barry Allen) and Iris West: the wedding is interrupted when Professor Zoom disguises himself as the groom, and the Flash has to get rid of him and then make it to the wedding himself.
  • Flash II (Barry Allen) and Fiona Webb (after Iris’ death): Zoom returns, Flash spends the whole day chasing him around the globe, and eventually Fiona gives up and runs out of the chapel, just in time for Zoom to try to kill her. (Flash stops him with a last-second choke-hold which breaks his neck, leading to a manslaughter trial, the disappearance of Barry Allen, and finally the cancellation of the series.)
  • Flash III (Wally West) and Linda Park: at the moment the rings are exchanged, Abra Kadabra kidnaps Linda, sends everyone home, and casts a massive forget spell, erasing all memory and records of her back to the point she met Wally. Eventually she escapes, Kadabra is tricked into reversing the spell, and they hold a new wedding – 18 issues later.

And it’s not just the main characters who get this treatment: Continue reading →