Arr! Barry Allen may not know how to celebrate Talk Like a Pirate Day, but he do celebrate Jog Like a Pirate Day!

Showcase #13: The Flash runs across the water from a torpedo with a pirate flag on front. 'No matter how fast I go---this pirate torpedo keeps following me!'

From Showcase #13, it’s “Around the World in 80 Minutes,” a tale of the Flash. (Mostly he runs around the world, helps people out, and gets kissed by women. Aye, it be good to be a superhero.)

(Cover via GCD. This story appears in Showcase Presents: The Flash vol.1 and The Flash Archives vol.1.)

OK, DC’s next big event is called Final Crisis. Does anyone believe they’ll simply stop with the events? They might actually stop putting the word “crisis” in the title, I suppose, but what will they call the next event after?

  • Final Crisis II
  • Post-Final Crisis
  • Final Crisis X-2
  • Final Crisis Leopard
  • Final Crisis Vista
  • Son of Final Crisis
  • Finaler Crisis
  • Final Crisis Again
  • Final Crisis: The Final Chapter

(List put together at the Ghirardelli ice cream shop late Saturday evening after three long days of Comic-Con.)

Bart Allen, a.k.a. Impulse.Superman, Batman, and Max Mercury have all been cited as giving comic-book speedster Bart Allen the name Impulse. Batman most famously in Impulse #50, and Superman just recently in the previews for next month’s All-Flash #1. But who named him originally?

Cover: Flash #93
Cover: Zero Hour #3The name first appears on the cover of Flash #93 (August 1994), with an out-of-control Bart Allen fighting the Flash. The cover is captioned, “Brash Impulse!” Over the next few issues, Wally West’s inner monologue refers to Bart as being impulsive, or (at one point) as “Mr. Impulse.”

It first appears on-panel as a name in Zero Hour #3 (September 1994), when Bart meets Superman for the first time, but Bart introduces himself as Impulse. Dan Jurgens writes.
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One of the controversies surrounding this summer’s relaunch of The Flash is the question of how far ahead it was planned. Interviews with Mark Waid and Marc Guggenheim make it clear that it was in the works “nearly a year ago,” and definitely before Guggenheim took over as writer. Dan Didio has suggested it was their plan all along, though many fans find this idea suspect, and find it more likely that it was put in place after the first few issues of Flash: The Fastest Man Alive failed to catch on with readers.

While looking for something in Flash: The Fastest Man Alive #1, I noticed something interesting. Continue reading

So, the real cover for the upcoming Flash: The Fastest Man Alive #13 was revealed at Heroes Con this weekend. Things don’t look promising for Bart, especially since there’s a history of Flashes dying… but let’s remember there’s also a history of Flashes (and supporting cast) appearing dead on the cover, but still making it through the issue. The full cover—and more than 20 examples of dead Flash covers—appear below. Continue reading