The Crooked Treehouse
  • Tips From The Bar
  • Honest Conversation Is Overrated
  • Popcorn Culture
  • Comically Obsessed
  • Justify Your Bookshelves

The Flash In Five Seasons, Season 4: Flashpoint

2/2/2017

0 Comments

 
Carlos Williams requested a Flash comics chronology. Personally, I'm not a big fan of reading a comic about someone who runs fast. The character is much better suited for TV, and the CW is doing an incredible job with the current Flash TV show, and its spin-off,   "Legends Of Tomorrow". "Arrow" sucks, though.

We made it nearly four entire seasons without Barry Allen! But now, here he is all dressed in red and yellow and running quickly towards and away from things. Season four is named for a major event in the DC Universe. An event that made for a really interesting season of the actual Flash TV show on the CW, but made for a lackluster comic event. Not unreadable but certainly more eyerolly than your average Geoff Johns book.

I spend most of this entry yelling at Barry Allen (because he fucken deserves it), do not mistake this as me criticizing Francis Manapaul's run on The Flash. I think he did an admirable job, given what he had to work with.
Picture
Idiot.


Season Four: Flashpoint
​(showrunner: Francis Manapaul)
Serial 1: Flash The Dastardly Death Of The Rogues
written by Geoff Johns, art by Francis Manapaul and Scott Kolins

Welcome back to continuity Barry Allen. Isn't it nice and calm he---Barry, Did You Murder Someone In The Future? Did you? Did you? Did you murder a rogue? Are you a rogue murderer, Barry? I know you're all like post-iceberg Steve Rogers right now, but Jesus, man, you can't just kill a rogue in the future! I'm going to have to ask you to step outside the timeline.

Rogue Future. 2 episodes


Serial 2: The Flash Road To Flashpoint
written by Geoff Johns, art by Francis Manapaul

Y'all need to stop messing with the timeline, right now, ok? Just because a girl doesn't like you, doesn't mean you go back in time and try and make a better first impression. If your mom's death was an important factor in you becoming the person you are, you can't go back and save your mom. It's real simple, assholes. Time moves forward.  If you don't stop messing with timelines, they're going to break, and we're going to end up in a complicated, overwritten crossover, and nobody wants that.

Don't Cross The Timestreams! 2 episodes



Serial 3: Flashpoint, Flashpoint The Flash
written by Geoff Johns, art by Andy Kubert and others

Are you happy now, Barry? You broke the universe. Now Bruce Wayne is dead, his dad is Batman, his mom is The Joker. You Really Fucked Up.  And you don't have powers now. Wait. What are you doing? You're trying to recreate the accident that gave you your powers? Barry, that's a terrible idea. Barry, watch out for the lightning. Barry! Ugh. Idiot.

Flashpoint. 4 episodes


Serial 4: The Flash Move Forward
written by Francis Manapaul and Brian Buccellatto, art by Francis Manapaul

Good going, Barry. Now we're in a Different Wrong Universe. We undid all that Flashpoint stuff, but what is this New 52 crap? I miss Wally West. You really suck at this Barry.  I get that it's difficult when you're fighting an opponent who can be everyone all at once, but you deserve this. This is all the fans of comics, trying to punch you in the head for being a jackass and ruining continuity twice in a span of three years. You're lucky you've had an amazing artist drawing your adventures because you suck.

Mob Rule. 2 episodes

​

Episode 11: The Flash Rogues Revolution

written by Francis Manapaul and Brian Buccellatto, art by Francis Manapaul

Of course the rogues are mad at you, Barry, you've ruined Everyone's lives. Especially DC comic readers. You couldn't be more of a disappointment if you ripped off your mask and revealed you were Dan Didio all along. Now Captain Cold is being targeted by the rogues? What have you done, Barry, you sonofabitch?

Cold War. 1 episode



Serial 5: The Flash Gorilla Warfare
written by Francis Manapaul and Brian Buccellato, art by Francis Manapaul

Apes, Barry. Damn, dirty apes. And all because you dicked around with the timeline. Now the same rogues that were just trying to kill you are going to have to help you, or the whole city will be killed by non-human primates. Good, going, jackass. Charlton Heston would have kicked you in the teeth.

Kneel Before Grodd. 2 episodes



Serial 6: The Flash Reverse Flash
written by Francis Manapaul and Brian Buccelato, art by Francis Manapaul

Oh, look, another fast running dick in a brightly colored suit. I hate you Barry Allen. You and the rest of your treadmill destroying speedwalkers. Why don't you just go to Gotham and fuck up their city for a while, too. Prick.

The End Of An Error. 2 episodes

Season four is fifteen episode of Barry Allen being a complete and utter toolbag.

0 Comments

The Flash In Five Seasons, Season 3: Gone Rogue

2/1/2017

0 Comments

 
Carlos Williams requested a Flash comics chronology. Personally, I'm not a big fan of reading a comic about someone who runs fast. The character is much better suited for TV, and the CW is doing an incredible job with the current Flash TV show, and it's spin-off, "Legends Of Tomorrow". "Arrow" sucks, though.

During the final episode of last season, the whole speed force thing disappeared, and it seemed like the superheroes whose only powers were running fast were bound to live a boring life. How am I supposed to make a season of episodes out of this? I can't imagine they would Immediately Undo the disappearance of the speed force. Would they?
Picture
Captain Cold does his best Ray Charles impression. It's not very good.
​art by Scott Kolins


Season Three: Gone Rogue
(Showrunner: Geoff Johns)

Serial 1: The Flash Fastest Man Alive Lightning In A Bottle
written by Tony Bilson and Paul DeMeo, art by Ken Lashley

With Wally West and the speed force having having disappeared during Infinite Crisis, Bart Allen, formerly Impulse, formerly Kid Flash, is just trying to live a normal life working in a factory. But when another freak accident returns his powers, Bart becomes the fastest man alive and reluctantly picks up the mantle of The Flash.

Do The Bartman. 2 episodes


Serial 2: The Flash Fastest Man Alive Full Throttle
written by Danny Bilson, Paul DeMeo, Mark Waid, Marc Guggenheim, art by many

The Flash's former nemesis, Inertia, hears that Bart has his powers back and teams up with the rogues to try and take his speed away. Luckily, the bad guys never win in a situation like this.

Inertia. 2 episodes


Serial 3: The Flash The Wild Wests

written by Mark Waid, John Rogers and Keith Champagne, art by Daniel Acuna, Freddie Williams II and Doug Braithwaite

Oh, hey, look, Wally is back. And he and his family have some adventuring to do both in the DC Universe proper and on another planet. Welcome back Wally, you wacky Flash, you.

Where's Wally. 2 episodes


Serial 4: Final Crisis Salvation Run
written by Bill Willingham and Matthew Sturges, art by Sean Chen and Walden Wong

Final Crisis is an unreadable, continuity intensive mess that no decent editor would have allowed to be published. But there were some fun spin-off series, including this one. THe President has decided that the supervillain population is way out of hand, and so Amanda Waller and The Suicide Squad round up the worst villains, including the rogues who overstepped their bounds in Full Throttle, and ship them to their own planet, which is supposed to be peaceful buttttttt, as it turns out, it's designed to kill intruders. Whoops.

Salvation Run. 3 episodes


Serial 5: Final Crisis Rogues Revenge

written by Geoff Johns, art by Scott Kolins

Having survived their time on Salvation Run, the remaining rogues return to Keystone City and try to decide whether to disband and live peacefully or take their revenge on Inertia.  This is one of the most fun villain-centric comics of all-time.

Rogue's Revenge. 3 episodes


Serial 6: Flash Rebirth

written by Geoff Johns, art by Ethan Van Sciver

Reading the aforementioned clusterflush, Final Crisis, did not adequately explain why Barry Allen is suddenly back in the DC Universe. Luckily, Geoff Johns wrote this whole miniseries explaining how all the flashes will fit into the world.

Please Barry Me With It. 2 episodes



Episode 15: Blackest Night Black Lantern Corps Vol 02 
written by many, art by many


Blackest Night is mainly a Green Lantern event, but as part of the storyline, all the dead heroes and villians are revived. To celebrate it, they released some "resurrected" issues, where a creative team of a canceled book reunited to tell a story about how their book was effected by Blackest Night. This volume contains a bunch of stories from the DC Universe, including Geoff Johns and Scott Kolins telling a Barry Allen/Wally West story. Hmmm...Barry Allen, you say?


Season 3 is 15 episodes with no real protagonist.
0 Comments

The Flash In Five Seasons, Season 2: Keystone Cop

1/31/2017

0 Comments

 
Carlos Williams requested a Flash comics chronology. Personally, I'm not a big fan of reading a comic about someone who runs fast. The character is much better suited for TV, and the CW is doing an incredible job with the current Flash TV show, and it's spin-off, "Legends Of Tomorrow". "Arrow" sucks, though.

The first season was all speedsters all the time. We hardly got any time with any villains who moved at normal speed. Well, Geoff Johns (who wrote every episode of this season) fixes that by bringing back the classic Flash rogues and having their interactions with Wally West and the universe be gloriously complicated and fun. Yes, there are dire consequences from time to time, but this season is bright, weird, and moves really quickly toward the season's bizarre conclusion.

Picture
Come on, rogue, let your morals go with the flow, you know you can do it
art by Brian Bolland


Season 2: Keystone Cop
(showrunner: Geoff Johns)

Serial 1: The Flash By Geoff Johns Book One
written by Geoff Johns, art by Scott Kolins, Ethan Van Sciver, and Angel Unzueta

Season two finds Wally in media res, traveling through various alternate Earths. He loses touch with the speed force and ends up teaming up, against his will, with several classic Rogues such as Captain Cold and Mirror Master. It's a weird but fun romp that changes when he meets an alternate version of his dead ex, and decides to hang out there for a while.  It's fairly silly at times but seeing non-running villains is a nice change of, sorry, pace.

Wonderland. 2 episodes
Blood Will Run. 1 episode
Iron Heights. 1 episode


Serial 2: The Flash By Geoff Johns Book Two

written by Geoff Johns, art by Angel Unzueta and Doug Hazlewood

Wally West, protector of Keystone City and Central City has a vast amount of villains, and many of them are working in concert to keep The Flash occupied. The costumes on both the villains and the helpful heroes (Superman and Cyborg each show up to help Wally out) are pretty post-90s extreme and very brightly colored, which is fitting with the over-the top madcapness of this particular chapter in Wally's tenure as The Flash.

New Rogues. 3 episodes


Serial 3: The Flash By Geoff Johns Book Three
written by Geoff Johns, art by Scott Kolins and Doug Hazlewood

Rogues antagonizing rogues helping rogues antagonizing Flash. The relationships between the characters from this season of Flash get really fascinating as more and more characters get folded into the end of Johns's run on The Flash. In the end, we do end up with an evil speedster takes on Flash and other speedster heroes, but it's not as relentless as the first season.

The Brave & The Beaten. 1 episode
Run Riot. 1 episode
Gorilla Warfare. 1 episode
Zoom. 2 episodes


Serial 4: Infinite Crisis
written by Geoff Johns, art by Phil Jimenez, George Pérez, Ivan Reis, and Jerry Ordway

I don't enjoy DC's Crisis books, and this is no exception. There are too many characters, too many plot points, too man mcguffins, and too many far reaching consequences. But this is Geoff Johns's reset of the DC universe, so, of course all of the Flash characters are involved. And, amongst the carnage something pretty severe happens to Wally West.

Infinite Crisis. 3 episodes


Season 2 is fifteen episodes in Wally World where no one punches out a moose.

0 Comments

The Flash In Five Seasons, Season 1: Terminal Velocity

1/30/2017

0 Comments

 
Carlos Williams requested a Flash comics chronology. Personally, I'm not a big fan of reading a comic about someone who runs fast. The character is much better suited for TV, and the CW is doing an incredible job with the current Flash TV show, and it's spin-off, "Legends Of Tomorrow". "Arrow" sucks, though.

If I were to make a five season chronology for The Flash, I would skip out on all the silver-age Barry Allen stories. So, unlike some of the previous chronologies, you're not going to get a ton of origin stories and first appearances of villains. The Flash will follow Wally West (who is not like the Wally West in the TV show...instead of being Iris's brother, he is her nephew) and the villains he inherited from the previous Flash. 
Picture
Fuck you uncle Barry!
art by Greg Larocque


Season 1: Terminal Velocity
(Showrunner: Mark Waid)

Serial 1: The Flash By Mark Waid Book One
written by Mark Waid, art by Greg Larocque, Jim Aparo, and Pop Mhan

Wally West is Barry Allen's favorite nephew. But Barry has always been careless with chemicals and lightning, so he accidentally, and against astronomical odds,  recreates the situation that turned him into The Flash, thus turning Wally into Kid Flash. Idiot. But it's not too long before Wally has to go from Kid Flash to regular old Flash when Uncle Barry disappears saving the universe.

Kid Crisis. 2 episodes.


Serial 2: The Flash By Mark Waid Book Two

written by Mark Waid, art by Greg Larocque and Sal Velluto

It seems like just one serial ago when Wally West was Kid Flash and Barry Allen rescued the universe, meaning he was gone forever. Oh, wait. It was. Then how is Barry back already? And why is he such a dick? Original Recipe Flash, Jay Garrick, and some Green Lanterns step in to try and solve the mystery.

The Premature Return Of Barry Allen . 2 episodes



Serial 3: Impulse Reckless Youth, The Flash Terminal Velocity
written by Mark Waid, art by many

One of the things that drives me crazy about Flash books is that there are So Many Characters whose power is that they can run fast. And this series adds even more! Bart Allen, Barry's grandson from the future (comics, sigh), finds himself in the present, and it's up to Wally West, Jay Garrick , Johnny and Jesse Quick, and Max Mercury (alliteration, ugh) to train him, lest he become any more of a bratty nuisance.

Impulse Control. 3 episodes


Episode 8: The Flash Dead Heat
(written by Mark Waid, art by Oscar Jiminez, and Humberto Ramos)

The lamest part of the Flash tv series is how terribly CGI the villain Savitar looks. It's so substandard to the other effects on the show that I have a hard time taking him seriously. Well, in this book we meet Oh So 90s Savitar, who looks like Rob Liefeld designed him but someone with talent and opposable thumbs got to draw him. Once again, all the speedsters are in this book.  And Savitar, also a speedster, has brought a new army of speedsters. So much running. So much hair.

Faster Than The Fastest Man Alive. 1 episode


Episode 9: The Flash Race Against Time
written by Mark Waid and Brian Augustyn, art by Oscar Jiminez, Anthony Castrillo, Jim Cheung, and Sergio Cariello

Another another goddamned Flash??? This one wears a blue suit and, like very other new Flash before him, his arrival changes everytthzzzzzzZZZZzzzzzzzZZZZxxxxXXZXZxzzxzx, huh? Oh, changes everything.  While this Flash is in the present, Wally West is doing some serious Ghost Of Christmas Future adventuring around the timeline on his way home from defeating Savitar.

Blue Steal. 1 episode



Serial 4: The Flash Emergency Stop
written by Grant Morrison and Mark Millar, art by Paul Ryan...not the spineless Speaker Of The House

Wally West is dead. And it's up to the eight billion speedster characters, including Wally West, himself (totally not dead) to solve his murder. In addition to yet another speedster villain, we get some time to visit with classic villains like Mirror Master and Captain Boomerang.

The Suit. 2 episodes


Serial 5: The Flash The Human Race
written by Grant Morrison and Mark Millar, art by Paul Ryan and Pop Mhan

Alien gamblers arrive on Earth and demand a champion speedster human race an alien speedster. Sure. Featuring all the speedsters, and even new speedsters! Alien speedsters! Speedsters that Wally might have encountered when he was a child! And then, The Black Flash. No, it's not a cool new character of color, it's a...speed force demon doppelganger maybe? It runs! Fast! And Wally must conquer it to avenge yet another death that may or not be permanent!

The Human Race. 3 episodes



Season 1 of The Flash is 15 episodes that don't go as fast as you might imagine a book about speed would.
0 Comments


    May 2020
    April 2019
    December 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    May 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    September 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    November 2015
    October 2015
    October 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014

    Subjects

    All
    Alan Davis
    Alan Grant
    Alfred
    Andy Diggle
    Aquaman
    Avengers
    Barbara Gordon
    Barry Windsor Smith
    Barry Windsor-Smith
    Batman
    Batmite
    Bizarro
    Black Panther
    Blockbuster
    Books Of Magic
    Boone
    Brian K Vaughan
    Brian Michael Bendis
    Brother Blood
    Brotherhood Of Evil
    Bryan Talbot
    Calendar Man
    Carmen Infantino
    Catwoman
    Chris Bachalo
    Chris Claremont
    Chuck Dixon
    Dan Didio
    Daniel Way
    Dan Slott
    Daredevil
    Darwyn Cooke
    Dave Gibbons
    David Mazzucchelli
    Deadman
    Deathstroke
    Dennis O'Neil
    Dick Grayson Robin
    Doug Mahnke
    Ed Brubaker
    Excalibur
    Fabien Nicieza
    Falcones
    Fantastic Four
    Francis Manapaul
    Frank Miller
    Frank Quitely
    Geoff Johns
    George Perez
    Grant Morrison
    Green Lantern
    Gregory Wright
    Greg Pak
    G Willow Wilson
    Harley Quinn
    Harvey Dent
    Hellblazer
    Hellboy
    Holiday
    Hugo Strange
    Jack Kirby
    James Robinson
    Jason Aaron
    Jason Todd Robin
    Jenny Noblesse
    Jeph Loeb
    Jh Williams Iii
    Jim Gordon
    Jj Birch
    J Michael Straczynski
    Joe Chill
    Joe Quesada
    John Byrne
    John Romita JR
    Jonathan Hickman
    Joss Whedon
    Judd Winnick
    Julie Madison
    Keith Giffen
    Kelly Sue Deconnick
    Kieron Gillen
    Klaus Janson
    Kurt Busiek
    Leslie Thompkins
    Lex Luthor
    Louise Simonson
    Lucius Fox
    Man-bat
    Mark Millar
    Mark Waid
    Marv Wolfman
    Matt Fraction
    Matt Wagner
    Mike Allred
    Mike Barr
    Mike Carey
    Mike Mignola
    Mindy Newell
    Mr. Freeze
    Mr. Whisper
    Neal Adams
    New Mutants
    Norman Madison
    Paul J Tomasi
    P Craig Russell
    Peter David
    Peter J Tomasi
    Poison Ivy
    Ras Al Ghul
    Rick Remender
    Robert Kirkman
    Ron Marz
    Roy Thomas
    Sal Maroni
    Sandman
    Shrike
    Solomon Grundy
    Stan Lee
    Superman
    Teen Titans
    The Flash
    The Joker
    The Killer Moth
    The Mad Hatter
    The Monk
    The Penguin
    The Reaper
    The Riddler
    The Scarecrow
    The Vigilante
    Tim Sale
    Todd Macfarlane
    Two Face
    Ultimate Universe
    Valiant Comics
    Venom
    Vertigo
    Warren Ellis
    Whilce Portacio
    Wonder Woman
    X-Factor
    X-Force
    X-Men
    Young Justice Cartoon

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • Tips From The Bar
  • Honest Conversation Is Overrated
  • Popcorn Culture
  • Comically Obsessed
  • Justify Your Bookshelves